Restoration: How does your garden grow? edition

Turns out my mourning for my garden was premature. Okay, so the flowers and hostas out front were in fact shredded and are slow in growing back, but the garden...well, to say I underestimated its resilience would be an understatement. Please come over and help me eat some salad. Lots and lots of salad. Lettuce/spinach anyone?
These pictures were taken almost a week ago, so now everything's even fuller. And I've had to use up my storebought lettuce this week. I've been working this month and we had rain, so I didn't go out to the garden for about a week. Imagine my surprise when I saw how quickly things had turned around! And our broccoli? Well, we did lose one plant, but...

Our prize plant, while the leaves are still somewhat broken and battered, is thriving again. See that head of broccoli in the middle? It's three times as big now. True story.

All in all, I'd say that one casualty from that crazy downpour of hail ain't too shabby! Well, one plant casualty anyway. Turns out the hail did poke several holes through our attic fan, leaving our attic exposed to the elements. And apparently the roof is beat up as well, so the insurance guy who came out to inspect the damage is recommending our roof be replaced. Plants...resilient. Roofs...not so much. But that's what insurance is for.

And now it's time for your quarterly edition of...drumroll please...Lily in the planter. The What Not to Do edition. Justin effectively managed to keep Lily from jumping up on the counter to get to her favorite lounging spot by resting a long tupperware lid over the top of the planter. But when we needed that tupperware lid for, well, tupperware, Justin decided to replace the lid with a kitchen towel. The lid...good idea. The towel...not so much.

Because a towel...only makes for an even more alluring bed."Whatcha gonna do about it?"

Perspective

The heart of the storm system that has been wreaking havoc across the country, taking lives and physical property, came within a few short miles of our home on Saturday. Sixty-two tornadoes touched down in this state, a few of them not too far from here. What we did get was hail. A short (3-minute?) burst that rained down a torrent of hail the likes of which I'm not sure I've ever seen in person. We're all healthy and safe and extremely thankful for a 2-car garage.

However.

I still mourned my own silly little loss.

Our formerly thriving garden.

I've had visions of blogging about our (almost completed) garden for a few weeks now. The last frost came and went a week or two ago, and we just picked up the last few things to plant the morning before the storm. We planted cilantro and parsley last week. Our broccoli had taken off like crazy, and the lettuce was looking fuller and healthy. I thought to myself the day of the storm that we should try to cover the garden. But we didn't. This was our prize broccoli plant.

I don't have much hope for its survival, and it's too late in the year to try to replant our broccoli, lettuce, and onions. Our azaleas, which were pretty close to their peak, took a big hit too. Sorry for the weird glare. Photographer I ain't.

I went to an out-of-town bridal shower today and passed through one of the towns that was hit by a tornado. Total destruction in the neighborhood off the main road. One house had nothing left but the foundation and stairs leading up to where the front door should have been. It seemed like the whole community was out to help clean up the mess.... The mess.... People's homes and lives and memories all reduced to rubbish. I needed a little perspective.

Somehow I think I've started equating our garden with my life. Last year seemed like the year I couldn't keep anything alive...a baby, our cat, and even our garden. We put a lot of work into preparing our garden this year, and it really seemed to be paying off. But I know that in the end, it really is just a garden. It is not a life or even a reflection of my life. I hope it will be a reminder to me to thank God for his blessings in my life and to pray for those who are hurting.

Sorry, BA. I wanted to get you the garden update you kept asking for. I don't even have a recent good picture. Drat my procrastination skills! This is about all I have--taken several weeks ago before everything started filling in and Justin put up a fence to keep Eddie out.

Time to start over with all the summer crops. Yay for tomatoes!

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Resolution #3

Think about gardening before gardeners are already harvesting their tomatoes. Actually, I would like to do some planning--real, authentic might-make-me-break-out-in-hives-because-I-hate-real-planning planning--in the next couple of weeks. But I've been avoiding it because, well, I suspect I might break out in hives. And I haven't quite decided whether I would rather have hives or a lovely, thriving garden.

(Resolution 3.5: Solve the mystery of how to successfully use strikethrough text in this blogger dashboard. Even copying and pasting won't work! If anyone out there can help me out on that point, I would be forever indebted to you. Well, maybe not forever.)

This will be my third year for a vegetable garden, and I can hardly believe it! Well, it might only be my second on the technicality that last year's was almost a total bust. Which is one very valid reason for Resolution #3. It's a good thing our garden turned out pretty well the first year, otherwise I'm not sure we would have planted anything the second year.

Justin and I have also been talking about making a bed in the middle of the front yard and even made an attempt at starting last fall. This is the project that would need the most planning because I simply have no idea where to even begin to choose and map out what to plant. Trees? Bushes? Flowers? Greenery? Stuff that looks pretty in Spring, Summer, and/or Fall? Please send help.

No really. Please send help. I've been trying to track down some good landscaping/gardening blogs, but so far they are proving hard to find. I'm wondering if this is because there are only so many gardening tips a person can post before running out of material. But I would love to see a gardening blog that follows the same pattern as a decorating/design blog...one that is always linking to other bloggers and ideas and always has something seasonal to show. Surely something like this exists? Anyone know of any such blog?

In the meantime, these are a few of the gardening blogs I have found that look like they have some promise in the way of basic information, which I am still hoping to explore further:

http://todaysgardenideas.com
http://inmykitchengarden.blogspot.com
http://gardening.savvy-cafe.com
http://www.cbgarden.org/blog

I would love more ideas, though!