Our House, In the Middle of the Street: Backyard

David and I love being in our new house! It feels really big and spacious, and there are many features that we didn't have before. I want to share some pictures of our new house so that friends who aren't able to come visit can see where we're living.

So, I'm going to start with the backyard, and some pictures of my garden. Just know that my doctor told me I'm not supposed to be weeding any more, so if the garden looks overgrown, it is! It's still growing veggies really well though, especially when I remember to give it extra water. It's been so hot here that just using the underground sprinklers isn't enough.

Here is a picture of the back patio, with the patio furniture we bought this weekend at a garage sale.

The sycamore tree is one of my favorite parts! It provides a lot of shade, and keeps the back yard cool. It does drop a ton of junk all over our yard, though, but thanks to our recent purchases of a lawn mower and a blower, we're able to take care of the mess pretty easily. This area is perfect for relaxing outside in the evenings.

Our backyard from the same place, I just turned a little to the side. You can see my garden down there beyond the fence. Our neighbor's garage had the sun shining right on it, so it's glowing - sorry about that.

I took these at 6:00 pm and it was still over 90 degrees in the shade! Yuck! This is the time of year that I miss NW Washington, although they've had high heat this weekend too.

Though it also grows a bunch of weeds, my garden in producing food too! Here is some corn, a tomato, and a pumpkin. I have over a dozen tomato plants (only 3 of which I planted myself), so I'm going to have lots of tomatoes this summer. I wasn't really thinking about how big the pumpkin vines would be, so my entire garden seems to have pumpkins growing through it. Thankfully I only have three pumpkins so far (that I can see), so I shouldn't have too many.

It's been a new experience for me to be able to grow melons! I have about a dozen cantaloupes growing on my vines (I didn't think the seeds would grow, so I planted a lot and had about 10 plants pop up). I also have some butternut squash, which will all be given away, and my corn has tassels on it.  The thing I'm really excited about is this little jalapeno pepper, because I thought the plants were dying. Then I checked it yesterday, and I found a little pepper!

Thanks for taking a look at our yard, more pictures of the house to come soon!