my garden is confused

As I write this post, I am contemplating turning on my heat.  

My house is freezing and the weather outside is rather chilly.

Fall has set in and now we are feeling some wintery temperatures for the first time.  

Up until this week, our weather here in the south has remained quite warm.

My garden is so confused.  It is still producing lots of good stuff.

All through October, I noticed lots of new veggies appearing.
I love walking out there and seeing the plants remaining VERY green and full of life.

Red and green chilis

Crazy hot habenero peppers.
{I have a funny story about these little guys in an upcoming post.}

And this plant has been my favorite ALL summer.  

It's full of tiny chili peppers.

Full of color.

And hundreds of peppers.

Still producing...

We even have tons of these little pumpkins.

I was so excited to pick them and decorate the house with our very own PUMPKINS

for Halloween!

Yep...even a few gourds.

But this is my most prized veggie for the fall.

Finally, after months and months of caring for this plant,

I got me a sweet yellow bell pepper.

First one from the garden...in October.

The bugs kept eating them {no matter what I tried}.

But, when fall set in and the temperatures cooled off just a bit...no more bugs.

I finally got to pick and EAT one BEFORE the bugs.

And now, my pepper plant is full of them!  YAY!!

I told you our garden was confused.

Our zinnias died, fried from the extreme heat during the summer.

Look what's blooming again...

All of our plants seem confused and still blooming.

With the first signs of winter approaching {today, in fact...brrrrrr!}

and freezing temperatures forecasted for tonight,

mother nature is about to show my garden who is in charge!

It was good while it lasted...all through the fall.

Quite YUMMY in fact!

simple gardening

Since the beginning of spring, we have worked VERY hard in the yard
and I am so ♥in-love♥ with the beauty that continues to bloom
as a result of our hard work.

From beautiful and colorful flowers {I am a color junky}
to a garden full of veggies {soon to be}.

At the very beginning of spring,
Sam & I spent a lot of time {and energy} planting lots and lots of seeds.

zinnias
marigolds
sunflowers
cantaloupe
watermelon
squash
tomatoes
eggplant
beans
peas
bell peppers
jalapenos
cucumbers
habenero peppers

We watched the seeds grow into tiny little plants.

We actually planted so many seeds,
that we had enough little seedlings to give away to Granny & Aunt Tammy, too!
This was a good lesson for Sam on so many levels.

Soon, the little seedlings were big enough to put in the ground.

And now, the garden is big & green
and absolutely on the verge of a vegetable explosion.
Many of the plants have tiny blooms on them that will soon be food.
Some even have little baby veggies growing already.

We have some surprises growing.

These pumpkin plants have sprouted up everywhere in the garden.

EXPLANATION:

Last November, we buried our rotten Halloween pumpkins in one of our garden beds.

Now, we have at least 10 pumpkin plants growing from the recycled Halloween favor.

We will have our very own "home-grown" pumpkins for fall 2010.

Most of the boys enjoy the garden.

Sam likes checking up on all of the plants and progress of our growing veggies.

Tyler is old enough to actually work in the garden.

He actually helped put many of the seedlings in the ground.

One of Tyler's chores is to water and weed the garden every other day.

Max just enjoys being outside for any reason.

Then, there is James...he cares nothing about the garden at all.

Honestly, he doesn't like getting hot or sweating, much less "working" in the yard.