My Favorite Flower! How to easily grow beautiful Cosmos.

I am very excited to share my recently blooming cosmos with you all! Never would I really describe myself as a person into "flower gardening" but recently I have had a bigger interest in the beautiful blooms. They make me feel much more cheerful when I go for a walk in the yard and can spot new ones that were not there the day before!
Cosmos have not necessarily been my favorite flower for ages, not at all. They used to appear very plain and I would not have paid them any mind perhaps a year ago. I tend to look to extravagant colors, lush greens, and a fragrant bloom however these simple petals have won me over!

Cosmos are simple yet lovely.

With these particular flowers, I took a very lazy approach. I bought them simply because when planning to grow a vegetable garden there where many sources that told me I should also have a few flowers to attract bees and pollinating insects to the area. I cleared a small strip of dirt in front of my window and barely covered the seeds with the soil there. I don't believe I even used garden soil, but it looks like it once had a flower bed before we lived here. I watered them from time to time though there were times that I knew I was being neglectful. Often times, the thin bouncy leaves were very wilted and laying flat. Shockingly, they have enough strength to hold themselves up! Since noticing my horrible ways, they have received much more love and attention.

This may be the only Cosmo with 2 flowers.

The Cosmo seeds should be planted a bit after the threat of frost has completely passed. These plants are very sensitive to cold weather and are great to grow as an annual. I sowed mine at the start of June and they are now blooming late August/Early September so planting these a bit earlier is recommended. As long as the weather stays at least somewhat mild they should continue to grow and blossom. In my area of Zone 8 they are great to sow in the ground mid-April.
They should be planted in an area with lots of sun meaning at least 6 hours a day. As I said, I did not prepare the bed for them aside from pulling a few weeds. Cosmos grow very well in poor or normal soil conditions.
Flowers can range from red, white, purple and a combination of all! I've also seen orange. The cosmos blooming in my yard are magenta and light pink, as well as a single light lilac colored one that was nibbled on by snugs.

Photo Update: Lemon Flowers, Baby Pumpkins, & Siamese Cucumbers

Improved Meyer's Lemon Flowers

I love this photo! This is the lemon tree I purchased for $10 on sale. Yay! I am really happy to see the flowers, I think they are REALLY pretty.

Jack-O-Lantern Pumpkin

I am so excited to see the first pumpkin finally pollinate! The plant produced a few female flowers however at the time there were no male flowers on it or other plants. Thankfully the pumpkin pot in the front yard flowered profusely with male flowers, and suddenly I had a golfball sized baby pumpkin. It is now the size of a grapefruit!

Siamese Boston Pickling Cucumbers

As you can see in the photo, I have 2 baby cucumbers connected! They both look pollinated, it just looks like they sprouted off the same stem. I have heard of this before on MyFolia!!! I believe it is called a mega-bloom.

A very bottom heavy Boston Pickling Cucumber

This cucumber looks very bottom heavy. I've never seen one like this, and I'm not sure if it is an issue because it wasn't completely pollinated.. But the thing is the bottom looks much larger than those of others.

Orange Habaneros

To add a bit of color to the post, my habaneros are ripening like crazy!! Yum. They are perfect to give away as 1 goes a long way for some people.

The Whole Picture: My yard at a glance, Garden from afar

I'm very unorganized.

This is the scene when you pull up the driveway of my home. My little personal corner of the natural world. The shed is home to my boyfriend's "man cave" in which he has a stereo and a recliner, ha! Next to it we have the can used for misc garden tools and whatnots. There is a small bed along the fence, with peas and popcorn planted but they're either small or covered in the shade in this shot. You can make out the string tied to the cherry tree, all with a viney plant of some kind attached. Boston Pickling cucumbers, Sugar Baby Watermelon (this one will probably do nothing for us..), and Jack-O-Lantern Pumpkins. Barely visible is the trellis i fashioned from string and sticks. The green beans are going to overtake and concur the entire thing. Most of the rest of the garden from here looks like a large singular green bush. That is fine with me, I dont care if people can't make out what I am hiding within. Less issues with unwanted vegetable pickers, in my opinion.

Before it turned into the unrecognizable bush.

Current day bushiness.

 I think the dense planting of my garden has helped a lot with keeping some parts shady, but the soil remains so warm! Everything thrives, and flourishes. I'm really excited! Next year I intend on planning my placement much more carefully to accommodate some plants I discovered are very space demanding.

Tomatillo Monster

Next year I intend to give my tomatillo plants their own space. They want to grow over and on top and into just about every single vegetable plant in the garden. I cannot find my strawberries, and it is giving the chives full shade. As much trellising and tying that I try, nothing prove to solve the issue. They are here, and they are going to take over the garden! At least, that is the message they've given me.

Bush Beans

My bush beans are filling up this home-fashioned trellis very nicely. There are so many tiny, itty bitty baby beans on these plants and it makes me feel just like a kid again. I remember eagerly checking the bean vines often for my mom, seeing if there were any I could steal away without her noticing. Even now, I get equally as giddy seeing a half inch long green slender vegetable starting to grow.

Jack-O-Lanterns in a pot

This is perhaps my favorite planting. These were started from seed and are growing to be huge! There were about 6 seeds planted and 5 sprouted. There is also a mini-sprout from a seed that had split. it is a plant half the size as all the others. Anyway, this is sitting under a willow tree settled by my front door. It was in the sun, but started to wilt too frequently from the August rays. Since being moved to it's shadier, cooler location the plant has thrived and not wilted once. It seems to need much less water.

And my dorky cat.

My cat Cheech is the official mouse, rabbit, and otherwise critter chaser. He does a wonderful job!!

Artichoke.. I really want you to do something!!

My Glorious Artichoke, with a wall of sunflowers for shade.

Ever since I was a little girl, I remember my mom boiling up the most tasty dish ever. Usually when she'd cook it, it would be the "first course" then we would have a main dish a bit after it had settled. I recall forgetting what it was a lot as a little kid, but eventually learned that one of my favorite vegetables is the Artichoke!
When I first saw this plant at the hardware garden center (the locally owned one, at that!) I was sure it was some kind of odd fern. It was sort of brown, wilting, and had one tiny little bitty green leaf inside. 3 leaves total, perhaps no more than a foot high out of the ground. After a closer inspection, I made out the handwritten tag stating the plant was in fact an Artichoke! I eagerly ran over to my boyfriend to present it to him, and ask ever so politely if he would buy it for me. I'm just sweet as pie.. sometimes.
He happily bought it for me, as he is equally excited about the results of my gardening. He does tend to stay away from the actual garden work, but he shows just the right amount of enthusiasm for my hobby to make me feel all warm and fuzzy.

Now that I HAD this poor little, wilting artichoke.. I needed to do something about it!

The young artichoke, perhaps a week old in this photo.

At first, the plant did not seem incredibly thrilled about it's new home. The outter leaves turned completely brown, and I was completely devastated in thinking I had lost my precious new addition. After doing some research, I discovered that the artichokes love lots of water. I wet the soil very well, and continued to do so until it started perking up. On a few very sunny days, the young plant actually wilted to the point where it was laying flat on the ground. I SURELY, most DEFINITELY lost the plant this time.. absolutely, I thought. I covered it with mesh and watered the sucker until I was sure now it would just drown.
Somehow my beautiful plant did not die. I grew some sunflowers in front of the 'choke to give it some permanent shade without really having any negative effects on other plants.. Just have to make sure to water well as they're both very heavy feeders.

I discovered that some people grow these as annuals.. but I have no idea how they would bloom here in time. I didn't realize the amount of time this guy needed when I puchased him, and I worry that I may need to pot it up when it gets cold out. However, I have ready that if mulched well and cared for, someone in my Zone 8 could possibly overwinter (as long as the winter is not too harsh.. uh oh, I heard we're getting a visit from La Nina Again..) to produce for a few years. The artichoke is a perennial, after all.

After establishing a bit. Tiny sunflower sprouts below!

More new leaves! This is about a month after planting.

I am so excited to eat up an artichoke from my own home garden. I really hope that this plant overwinters, and perhaps multiplies. I would love to be able to divide it and share a plant with my mother. If you would enjoy a more detailed post about how to grow Artichokes, please check out this other great blog! I don't run it, or know them, but it is very useful.

Updated Photos of my Personal Garden!

Today was a very very eventful day for me! I finally mustered up the motivation to do most of the things I listed on my Word of the Day Post! Unfortunately I forgot to take my camera to my mother's house and didn't even think to use my camera phone. But I should take some soon, it isn't completely finished but a lot of it has been planted.

Here are photos of my garden at home. The photos farther down are the before photos of this garden.

This photo shows most of the garden

Grape Tomatoes

Early Girl 50 Day tomato.. Not sure I'll grow this again..

Raspberries Ripening

Pumpkins and Cucumbers climb up string to a tree. Awesome, right?!

Baby Pumpkin, about the size of a golf ball now.

Only about as big as a dime, but I have broccoli!!

Me! And.. Cheech's Butt.

He is camera Shy but Comfortable.

This one may be a favorite.. it's a pot, on a 5 gallon bucket, filled with pumpkins.