Very First Flower Bed

When we bought our home we had grass (ahem, weeds) going from the sidewalk to the house. It did not appear that there had ever been a flowerbed & I was OK with that because we are not what you would call outdoorsy :)

However, in April, with the encouragement of some green thumbed friends, I decided to dig up the yard & make myself a flower bed! Mistake #1 was thinking I could do this with a hand trowel. This is all I accomplished day 1...

I then borrowed a shovel from Hubby's mom & productivity picked up!

Everything planted!

There are some gaps I have since filled, which you will see in pictures to come, but here are my first plants! Lambs Ear, Mexican Bird of Paradise, Kaleidoscope, Black & Blue Salvia, Purple Sage, Day Lily, & on the very end Prostrate Rosemary

2 bags of woodchips was not enough, but it is a start :) & I added a tiny Lantana behind the Mexican Bird of Paradise.

I was saving the very center of my flower bed for a White Rose of Sharon. Hubby's mom has one & it is beautiful! They were very popular this year, everyone was out of them! Finally, a friend called to tell me she found them over the Memorial Day holiday!  I couldn't wait until I had beautiful white blooms!

Also, newly planted front & center is Moss Rose donated to our church's Women's Retreat from The Greenery! All my original Plants also came from The Greenery, for this newbie they were a blessing! They showed me what plants would work for my yard (full sun) & how to care for them!

Beautiful blooms!

Beautiful flowers on the Mexican Bird of Paradise!

The Rose of Sharon bloomed!!! I was told not to expect blooms because it was planted so late in the year, so this was a wonderful surprise!

And here are pictures from this morning. It is fun to see how everything is filling in & full of color! I don't think the Kaleidoscopes are doing well, but other than those I was blessed with a ton of growth!

The Mexican Bird of Paradise has gotten so tall!!

The Black & Blue Salvia have really filled in & I've seen several blooms from the Rose of Sharon! The Moss Roses have gotten much bigger & have had lots of blooms, but this morning they were being shy ;)

This Prostrate Rosemary is actually 2 plants, but they are creeping together & growing nicely. I need to start cooking with it! Let me tell you, rosemary smells amazing when you water in the morning!

I have been very fortunate that this has been our wettest summer ever! This process has been hot & tiring, but I absolutely love going out & seeing new growth, new buds, & new blooms!

The Market

This weekend is the grand opening of The Market at the Dallas Farmer's Market. They completely renovated the indoor space formally known as Shed 2 & it now houses multiple restaurants & shopping spaces.

It's a really cool little spot & I'm always up for new places to eat!

Today I tried Cajun Tailgators.

Their Boudin Balls were full of flavor and a little spicy, very tasty!

I had to get ice cream at Cool Haus! This is one of our favorite food trucks & I was very excited to see them in a permanent location! They make ice cream sandwiches from their house made ice cream & cookies! Today I opted for my ice cream in a bowl because I wanted 2 scoops & adding cookies to that seemed ill advised ;) But don't let my restraint hold you back, they will totally make you a 2 scoop ice cream sandwich!

I got their Balsamic Fig Marscapone and their Dirty Mint. I love all things fig & this ice cream did not disappoint! And Dirty Mint is my new favorite ice cream! It is not a super sweet candied mint that you normally get from ice cream, instead you can see the tiny chopped up pieces of mint mixed in with the chocolate chips! It's like eating ice cream out in the garden, which is fitting at the Farmer's Market :)

I ate my ice cream outside and enjoyed the music :)

Then I wandered over to The Shed. In theory this is where the local farmer's would be selling their fruits & veggies for Dallas to enjoy. The new owners have new rules that only local farmers can sell at the Farmer's Market, which is great in theory. What it means in practice is there were 6 farmers with a table each of produce & the rest of The Shed was the baked goods/canned goods who used to have tables in Shed 2 & several people selling live plants. The days of walking through the Farmer's Market trying the fresh new produce, deciding what to bring home for dinner are gone. I truly hope these are just the pains of change & they can build it back up to what we grew up with. But for now, the Farmer's Market is a great place to go have lunch (truly, I love what they have done with The Market), but I need a new place to try unique produce.

However, I did meet the most informative Plumeria Farmer! We talked for probably 20 minutes about how to grow plumeria. I will be going back to see him!

As I was leaving I saw Vertical Life Farms posing their Tower Garden & thought it was a cute idea!

So my new Plumeria needed to pose as well :)

Let's keep visiting the Farmer's Market, and maybe more farmer's will see it as the place to be! And if you find yourself in need of a Plumeria, I've got a guy!

Spring Has Sprung

Saturday I went to the Farmer's Market with my mom, Hubby's mom, my sister, & my Niecephew in her tummy :) I LOVE our Farmer's Market! There is so much to taste & buy! We always eat healthy the week after I make a trip out there. I buy more than I should which means I find new & yummy ways to fit fresh produce into every meal. So maybe I am buying exactly how much I should!

Sister & Niecephew, Me (I've lost 5 lbs so far!), & my mom, Hubby's mom had to leave before we remembered to take the pic.

After looking at all the wonderful produce we went to the garden section. I have been wanting to grow some herbs & veggies in our back yard, but have been afraid to start the process. I'm not what you would call good at growing things. I have killed a tomato plant in a Topsy Turvy, which are supposed to be easy to use! I have also killed an aloe vera plant : / But I braved it & decided to grow my own cilantro. The super informative woman, who I wanted to bring home with me to keep my plants alive, told me that regular cilantro dies out, seeds, & regrows every year. This was sad news, I use cilantro ALL the time! So she told me I should get Asian Cilantro which grows year round & has a spicy kick. I was all over that! Anything that adds more spice is what I want!

Hubby's mom has a green thumb, so we went shopping for soil & compost to plant our beauties from the Farmer's Market & she helped me plant my cilantro in a container. I think I'll have more of chance keeping it alive in a container :)

See all the beauties she has growing in her back yard! With her help, I may have a fighting chance ;)

I found this sign while out shopping for soil & instantly knew it had to be the subject of photo challenge this week. The theme is Spring has Sprung.
So what springy things are you doing this year? Maybe next year I'll get the courage & will have a nice garden to show off to you!