Monday recap + rearranging the balcony

Here's a pretty for your Monday.

 

And another (the nasturtiums I grew from seed are blooming!)

I've been up to a lot lately. I was out-of-town Thursday and Friday; when I got back I spent a couple hours cleaning up (i.e. deadheading (will somebody slap me if I buy this many petunias and violas next year?) )

I also picked a bowl full of strawberries...and ate them. Piggles got the green tops.

 

Tantalizing, aren't they?

  

And had enough peas to qualify as a side dish with dinner. Hubby got the shelled peas.  

Mmmmm. Steamed peas.....

The orange mint mentha was getting a bit out of hand, so I hacked off a couple stems and made tea.

 

 I poured hot water over 2 tea bags and the crushed mentha leaves, let it sit for 5 minutes, drained, sweetened with 1/4 cup of sugar, and iced. It made a whole pitcher! Very delicious.

Later I decided the pineapple sage was similarly overrunning the pot and took out a couple stems of it. Made tea the same way (but with 1 tea bag instead of 2 – 2 bags was getting kind of strong) and added 1/2 a can of concentrated lemonade to the pitcher. It was so yummy! Even my husband liked it. I'll definitely have to do it again, I have half a can of lemonade left anyway.


The basil tried to flower – again. So I made pasta sauce :) It turned out very yummy. Used a ton of basil, and did the first harvest of oregano.


And then, since I didn't have enough going on, I rearranged the deck.

I couldn't do anything drastic since pots are heavy and things are growing onto each other and the railing, but I moved the chairs so they weren't facing the grill (not the best view) and scooted the pots around so the peppers in the big planter box could get better light. I scrapped what was left of the lettuce (Piggles got it) and stowed those dishpans-turned-planters in the garage (along with the bottoms off the hanging boxes – they kept dropping off onto the lawn.) I pulled up a bunch (most) of the pansies and violas from the hanging boxes. It all looked good when it was first planted, but then stuff – of course – grew. So I plopped them in a few new terracotta pots and stuck them under the chairs. They fill that visual void nicely.

 

Before
click for larger image
(I used Photoshop to merge individual shots into this image - it's not perfect – take a close look at the chair on the right. lol)

After
click for larger image
(Again, photomerged. This one is better - I used about 20 individual photos, and it took about 15 minutes to do the action, but I think it was worth the wait to be able to get the whole thing in one image. It's still not perfect – the chairs and the grill have funny-looking bits.)

 

Before (from inside)





After (from inside)

The peppers haven't been doing well – I think it's the wet and cloudy weather. It's supposed to be sunny and 95º today. That'll help them, but I don't think I'll be going out there until late. It's HOT!