A few more flower pictures

I had to share these because I just love these red lillies!  I don't see many around in this color and I have a ton of them blooming right now.  I honestly don't ever remember planting these although I'm guessing it was a couple of years ago.  Last year not a single one bloomed.

The newest additions...

...to my garden!  Thanks to my free money from Swagbucks, and a major revamping of our budget (thanks to Dave Ramsey, more about that in a later post) I was able to pick up a couple of things that I've been wanting for awhile. First, my new rain barrel, or the fancy name "rain harvesting system"

And then my new compost bin:

I love them both!  The rain barrel fills up with just the slightest of rainfall.  Obviously this year we are getting tons of rain, so I don't need to use it very often.  But I imagine that won't last all summer.  The composter is a three-chamber system so I can have compost brewing at three different stages at the same time.  I considered a tumbling composter, but you can only put your materials in till it fills, then you can't add anything more till the compost finishes.  In some locations that could take all year.  I've only been using it for a month and my compost is ready to be moved to the next chamber so I can start some more.

And here are a few pictures from my "garden"

My hydrangeas in full bloom!  I forgot to add the acid this year so they are pink, but still gorgeous!  The yellow flowers are buttercups, and they have been in bloom for almost 3 weeks now.

Here is a small side garden, we call it Alexandria's garden because of the plaque and bench.  It is completely shaded so it's not all that pretty.

This is my tiny little garden.  The three large plants are raspberries, on the side by the brown fence are three tomato plants.  The other plants are 2 butternut squash plants, a watermelon plant, potted strawberries, and there are two containers of sweet peppers that aren't in the picture.  I also have a new blueberry bush not in the picture.   And here's on last picture, my tomato plants!!

Tomatos, Raspberries, and Squash...oh my!

On our daily trip to the garden today (and I use the word "garden" very loosely) Miriam and I discovered tomatoes!  I only have three plants, it's my first time growing them so I didn't want to get carried away this year.  I started three plants by seed this winter but lost two of them from a late frost.  So one of the plants is the Beefsteak tomato I started from seed and I have two store-bought Early Girl plants.  We also have an abundance of raspberries growing!  They are fall berries, so they aren't edible yet, but they are certainly getting big, we will be swimming in them this summer.  Like I said, it's not really a full out garden, just the plants I mentioned already and a few container-planted sweet peppers, two butternut squashes, and our experiment this year....watermelon. I also have a pot of strawberries but some annoying critter ate all but one of the berries.  I'm very thankful for the gigantic tree in our yard, which shades the entire yard at the warmest part of the day, but it does make it difficult to grow veggies. 
All of the rain has definitely given us some beautiful flowers this year though!  My buttercups are going on their 3rd week of blooming, and they don't typically bloom that long.  My hydrangeas are looking great, my tiger lillies are opening up, and everything else is  looking good too.  I suppose now would be a good place to insert some photos...but I am slacking.  Just imagine them in your head...they are pretty, aren't they?? :)