The Suburban Garden, 2013 version

There are very few years in my life when I haven't had a garden of some type--the years I was in college, a few years when my husband was an undergrad.  Our first apartment in Denver was wonderful for a container garden--we had two patios, one facing South and one facing west.  We grew tomatoes and peppers in pots, sometimes lettuce, and lots of pretty green flowers.  We even had a palm tree until Tigger, um, used it as a porta potty too often.

The front patio opened right onto the lawn and our kitty, MJ, and her cousin/our foster kitty, Cass, like to graze on their extra long leashes.  The neighborhood kids called them "Los Gatitos!" even though neither was anywhere near kitten age even that long ago.  One afternoon, while grazing, MJ jumped on the back of a duck....I can't tell you who was more surprised, the mighty hunter cat or the poor duck.  You can see a tomato plant on the left and the ill-fated palm on the right--this was taken from the deck, looking out to the lake...I loved that apartment.
In our townhouse, we had a deck on the back where we could again plant in containers.  Some years it looked like a jungle and some years it was pretty sparse.  Below is a picture of a sparse year and a very tiny Girl.

Once we moved into the current house, I was determined to have A GARDEN (note the caps).  We discovered quickly though that the clay-like soil is not very conducive to gardening.  Mr. Ranch figures we've hauled in or created (using a composter) about 8 bags of soil per year.

In 2008 I moved some rocks and planted just a few things...not a notable harvest year, but fun.

 Flowers and pretty things, lettuce, tomatoes, carrots, and sunflowers.

 A slightly older Girl shows off her salad harvest...
If there are any pictures of 2009, they show a slightly larger garden and the same produce.
2010 again brought a slightly bigger garden and more produce...it appears that peppers were added.

We like to call 2011 "The year of the big vegetables"...or "the year we tried to grow pumpkins".

 Well, they were mostly big...the carrots were short and stubby because as soon as they hit the clay soil (remember the dirt we have to haul in to cover the clay?) they stopped growing deep and started to grow round.

The pumpkin looks, um interesting...but unfortunately our friends the field mice (or maybe voles?) had nibbled the bottom...so after a few photos, Mr. Pumpkin became compost.
2012 will always  be remembered as the year that the hail killed everything and when I tried to replace them all that was left were zucchini and tomatoes.  I did learn to make a rocking cream of zucchini soup that earned rave reviews from even the children.
Which brings us to this year...

 The jungle...full of tiny tomatoes

 and tiny ears of corn.