Garden, Shmarden

This past Sunday, we went to visit some friends who recently built a house in Bullard. It was a really great house, out in the country. I got some good ideas. The kids had fun because Mike has this "golf cart on steroids" and a HUGE 4 wheeler. The kids rode on the Polaris w/Chris and Mike, and Susie and I rode the 4 wheeler around the property... it was a lot of fun. Where can we get some cool toys like that???

They also have this really cool dog named Scout. The kids loved him! He did all kinds of fun tricks. They played with him almost the entire time we were there and couldn't understand why Tobey can't do all those neat tricks!

Here's Bella Boo and her untalented dog, Tobey!

Now.... I'm pretty bummed about my garden. I had such high hopes for it. I planted everything you can think of. My gardens in the past have always done well, but we have the worst soil here.... hard clay. And I didn't mix any good stuff in with it, but thought as long as I babied it and fertilized that it would be ok. I thought wrong. This is how it started out:

And this is my garden today:

Yes, I'm embarrassed to say, I've let it go. I've let the grass get out of control, because I just gave up. Those big yellow flowers on my cucs and zucchini would bloom out, fall off, and.... nothing. Rabbits (or some other critter) ate some plants... I even sprayed w/a cayenne pepper mixture.... The only things producing are my tomatoes and peppers... and not very well. But, hey, we've actually gotten 3 or 4 cherry tomatoes.... woo-hoo!!!

What really sent me over the edge was when my neighbors met me at the fence one day and handed me more veggies (from their thriving garden) than I knew what to do with! I took one look at their garden and threw up my hands! There was just no comparison.

Blackberries. We pick them every 3 or 4 days. We don't get a lot at one time, because ever since the unpleasant chigger incident, I don't go wandering off into the dense bushes. Yesterday evening, we picked a few, but it was still so hot outside, we didn't last long! We're trying to get enough to bring to Moma (Chris's mom), so she can make something yummy with them!

Bella added the pretty flower she picked for me!!