The herb garden and I had a little chat today....

.... and it decided to see things my way, for a change.  I meant to take before pictures of the weedy herb garden.  In fact, I was going to take a picture last weekend.  But, I didn't get around to it.  I started weeding today, while waiting for a severe thunderstorm to arrive (that never came), and the thought crossed my mind that I should go inside to get the camera and snap a photo.  But, I know me.  I knew that the second that I entered the house, I would completely forget what I was supposed to be doing, and that garden would never get weeded.  So, I stuck with it and got rid of most of the weeds!  The last thing I need to do (until I need to weed again) is apply some fresh mulch.  There is still a patch of garden that I'm not sure about.  I have this mystery plant, and it might be a Zinnia that self-seeded from last year.  Does anyone have knowledge of Zinnia foliage that can help me out?  If it's a weed, I'll pull it.  But, I have a habit of pulling out viable plants, so I might just let it live for now.

This parsley self seeded from last year.  I have some that I started from seed in the dining room still, but this little plant is ready to be used, right now! It looks like it's pretty healthy.  I've decided that I want to make my deck pots a little more functional, so instead of JUST planting flowers in them, I'm going to mix herbs or vegetables in a pot with some flowers to add some color.  So, my pots will be functional and colorful. 

The blueberries are planted!  Four in a row!  Right now, they are just little sticks in the ground.  I still need to shred some newspaper tonight so I can mulch better around them.  I've been reading about shredded newspaper making great mulch, since the water can get through so the roots of the plant that you're mulching, but the weeds can't germinate because there isn't any sunlight that gets through.  So, I plan on mulching the entire garden this way.  Today I also planted some eggplant (THANK YOU Charlotte!) that I'll mulch around, too.  So, since a storm is coming and I'm tired out tonight, I'm going to sit inside shredding newspaper, three sheets at a time.

I got my onions planted today (yellow, white, and red!) and my pole beans in the ground!  Tim set the rest of the poles for the grapevine support.  I'll take a picture after we get the wire installed.  He also stepped on one of the vines.... again... same one... but it appears that it will survive. Hopefully next weekend we will FINISH the great grape project!

So, yesterday I spent TOO much time wandering around, taking pictures.  I won't share all my bird pictures I took yesterday, but I'll post a couple.  Also, we have LILACS on our bush this year.  It's been there for five years, and this is the first year we have some blooms.