The largest and best tomato plants in the entire neighborhood!

Sara has been diligently nurturing our vegetables (tomatoes, zucchini, cucumbers, snap peas, lettuce--of five different kinds, dill, oregano, red bell peppers, yellow Hungarian banana peppers, beans, pumpkins,  and the best damn home-grown carrots you can imagine.) They are growing in a flower bed circumscribed by a wooden enclosure in the front, or in another bed made of composted kitchen scraps and shredded fallen leaves, in the back of our house.

Our summer weather is nothing to write home about, but we managed to get enough sunny days, between rainy and overcast ones, to enable the Advanced Nutrients organic Iguana Juice to work its magic. The lady from the local garden club came by and told Sara that she has the biggest and most fertile tomato plants in the entire neighborhood!

As usual, Sara's flowers are twice the size of what they should be (a three-foot Phlox is now a six-foot super Phlox!). Sara does take good care of her soil, to be sure, but I suspect it's the regular application of the Iguana formulation that causes the growth spurt. As well as the prolific number of Roses on one of her prize bushes.

She started growing Dahlias in semi-hydroponic plastic containers. You have to fill up the reservoir at the bottom of the container and the soil and the roots get moisture through capillary action from below. Sara also has a network of soaker-hoses intertwined with her plants, and buried near their root systems to keep them well watered during the hot, summer days.

It's a lot of work, Sara's style of gardening. She is redesigning the main flower bed and has bought some very nice rocks to build a rock wall around it. Prior to this, the soil in this particular bed was contained by select pieces of driftwood, which are slowly rotting away and are even growing mushrooms!

The huge Lilies dominate one portion of her garden, not just by their sheer size and beauty, but also by the wonderful fragrance they emit, causing each passer-by to comment very favorably!

I wish I had more time to document Sara's garden, but this will give you a taste of what it's like living near this small Paradise surrounding our home--and created by my wife.

BTW, that muddy gardener is our new puppy, Cooper!