New garden additions

Well, today, I added in seed:

• sweet basil (I like pesto)
• cilantro
• chives
• oregano
• dill weed (swallowtail butterflies lay their eggs on dill weed. I hope I get a bunch of butterflies!!!!)

I transplanted a trumpet vine since I found one growing randomly in the middle of the yard. Not the best place to get a good start. These don't like being transplanted, but they tolerate it. My daughter, Rei, helped me dig one up earlier this year and we planted it. The leaves promptly wilted and died. I assumed the whole experiment had been a bust, but a few days ago, I noticed it was growing new leaves, so maybe this one will succeed, too.

Gardening in my Backyard

I live in the desert, but that doesn't stop me from trying to garden! I "terraformed" a portion of our backyard (the area that gets shade at the hottest times of day) and planted:

• tomatoes
• basil
• Spanish Lavender
• dark green zucchini squash
• peppers
• 4 different kinds of mint (I like the square stems)
• a really small thyme plant
• mammoth sunflowers
• nasturtium
• moonflowers
• milkweed seeds (collected from a wild plant)
• a mix of butterfly flowers
• cilantro
• sweet broom
• a lantana
• a bottlebrush (it looks sad)
• Some trumpet vines
• a carrot
• Some random annuals that were on sale (they look happy now)
• A pine tree the garden center guy said would do really well in the climate (so we can have more shade in the backyard)

I have a cool arbor built by my sweetie and I strung up fairy lights and other solar lights around the garden. I even have a mini fountain feature powered by a solar pump. I even have a cool birdbath that the birds are really using.

One of my co-workers gave me a whole bunch of rain lilies  I planted them everywhere. They are really neat looking. I'm happy that I have something to work on. My next project: building a sun dial. For reals.