Our Garden...well, what's left of it

This last spring, my kids and I planted a cute little garden.  K and E loved helping with the watering and planting, and especially the harvesting.  My husband built us a box that I absolutely love, and we planted some lettuces, tomatoes, carrots, pumpkins, peppers, and strawberries.  I found out quickly that pumpkins need a lot of space, so they will be planted somewhere else in the yard next year.  Everything else seemed to grow really well, especially the tomatoes and the lettuce.  To me it always feels like there is a dramatic temperature change when summer begins.  One day it is spring, and the next it is the triple digit summer.  Well, my cute little garden did not respond very well to this sudden heat.  We were out of town when the temperature change occurred, and by the time we returned home most of our garden was wilted and dying.  Sad!  The tomato plant hung on for a few more weeks, and so did the pepper plant.  The pepper plant had never produced anything, so I figured it would eventually die as well.  I was very wrong, since that little pepper plant has continued to grow and has lasted through the whole summer.  A few weeks ago it started flowering and now we have eight little peppers growing.  Next spring maybe I will just plant a pepper garden.

 

I also have an herb garden that always does fine in the summer, because it is under our fountain which provides shade and water.  I have basil, peppermint, and chives growing right now, and I will add oregano, cilantro, and thyme next year.  I want to start drying them myself eventually.

We also have a little lemon tree that we planted this year.  It is still so small so I wasn't expecting it to produce fruit already, but it has 5 or 6 lemons that are just about ready.   On the other side of our yard we have grapevines that always produce grapes in the spring, but it just gets too hot for them.  I love seeing them through my dining room window though!

So that is a summary of my attempt at gardening.  Hopefully I will figure out this gardening in the desert thing next year!

Before 

After