Garden Glam and lots of weeding

Last year we put in a giant awesome garden and I'm happy to report it is in full swing again. This year, we have 3 different kinds of summer squash, butternut squash, beans, soy beans, kale, spinach, arugula, radishes, carrots, peppers (of all sorts) dill, basil, and 18, that's right, 18 tomato plants (though thankfully we have more than one variety this year). Now it has always been the plan to put a flower garden around the vegetable garden, but last year we kinda ran out of steam. So instead what we had was basically a row of weeds in a two foot strip all the way around the perimeter outside the fence. Since this is the year of the yard, I spent a good 2 weeks out there each night pulling weeds  until I finally made it all the way around.

Add in some mulch, some plants from Roy and Rayanne, some transplants from our front bed, a few splurge purchases from the local nursery, and a couple ornamental squash (that's what you call squash that you didn't have room for in the garden, so decided to plant in the flower bed instead) and we now have an even awesomer garden. The time elapsed between the pictures is a good 4 weeks, so you can see the lovely veggie growth too.

 Now all we need to do is put down the edging stones we bought last year and we'll be gravy.

In addition to that weeding, I've been working my way around the house weeding, reclaiming the edge of the beds from encroaching grass, and putting down mulch. I started with the front bed, here it is back in May:

And here it is now, quite the explosion right?

And then I continued around the house.

I think you can tell where I stopped (hint, it was around the hydrangea). Almost there, just have to get out and do a little more. Oh, and then go back around and pull the weeds sprouting through the mulch. I don't think you ever really get "done weeding" but it does look a lot nicer and the mulch keeps the worst of it down.