Garden

Been working in the garden.  Trying to beautify the backyard a little more.  I am a patient gardener, willing to wait on the plants to see if they will like where they are and what I am doing for them.  Not my husband, he is an impatient person who thinks he can get stuff to grow by hitting it with everything he's got in the way of fertilizers.  But he is good at retaining wall and pavers, and this is what he did for me:

Also a couple of these to sit on while we are playing horseshoes:

I planted flower seeds and seedlings on this side and on the other side I have the veggie/herb garden.

I've got everything squished into the area and it still does pretty good.  I would love to have a bigger area, but at least I have what I have.  Some new things I am trying are Dragon's tounge beans:

Aren't they pretty?  You can eat them now like this or you can wait till they are dried up and eat them like lima beans.  Also on the dragon line are Dragon's Egg Cukes.  They will be a yellow color and will look like a dragon's egg would look like!  Cool huh?  I am also growing some kale, collards, green beans(mostly for seed so I don't have to buy next year!), sugar snap peas, brussles sprouts(which are done now), mint, oregano, bee balm, lemon balm, basil, lettuce, spinach, swiss chard, cowpeas, loofa, and melons. Not too much of one thing, I definitely won't be canning anything or having any one thing as a side dish for supper, except for the brussles sprouts, but it is fun to grow stuff and it's a sanity maker for me.  Weeding is a lovely, mindless, unwinding thing for me to so and I can get lost in it! 

Loofa and melons(2 kinds of watermelon and a honeydew type)

These blackberries grow wild in my yard, so I have trained them(somewhat, after all they are wild!) up on the fence line and this year I gathered enough to make two cobblers with them!

Who doesn't like the smell of gardenias?  This bush has been through a lot!  Last year the freeze got it bad and lots of the freeze damage had to be trimmed off, but this year it is coming back good! 

What are you growing? What would you like to grow?

Hamburger Update- final one?

Ok, so I haven't posted in a while- busy- sorry. 

I did have time to take pics of the hamburger though, and without futher a do, here they are:

The first three were taken the week of April 14th.  Notice how much condensation is in the McDonalds burger?  I don't know why, it wasn't hot or even warm when I put it into the container.

McDonalds' close-up 

I am surprised.

Real Hamburger close-up 

It's moldy, but obviously not as bad as the McDonalds.

Now for photos taken the week of May 3rd.

Major difference in the Real Hamburger: 

Now for the McDonalds:

Do you notice the liquid?  And I wish you could smell them.  The McDonalds burger has a sour smell to it.  The Real burger has a moldy smell to it.  The molds look different too.  I am wondering if there are two different molds growing on these burgers?  I contacted the local Extension office to see if they do mold testing or knew anyone that did, and they directed me to the Biology Dept of UF.  I emailed them and they have not responded.  My question now, is how long do I wait for a response?  My family(read: husband) is tired of the experiment.  I have placed the burgers above the garage freezer which will only hasten the decomposition process.  I would really like to find out what types of mold are growing on these burgers!

My findings were not what I expected.  I fully expected the McDonalds burger to stay fresher longer. As you can see that was NOT the case!  I will say that looking at that hamburger has caused The Rocket to think twice before wanting to eat fast food now, however, I still have a long way to go...