Backyard and New Pet(S)

We have been spending a ton of time in the backyard lately with the heat and all the fun stuff there is to do out there now. My new hobby is poking at our new pets--all 600 of 'em!
We are growing worms! By "we" I mean ME because Cam thinks this is gross.

This is my new worm bin and it will give me nutrient rich compost and a little something to drink with breakfast called Worm Tea. Just kidding. Worm tea is to pour into the soil--it's the condensation that comes out the bottom there-see the spigot. Eventually, this worm bin will become 5 drawers tall--right now it's only two drawers tall because my worms are new and just getting to know their way around the place. Every few days I bring them newspaper and food scraps and then they eat it up. I really love staring at my worms and seeing how much progress they have made. On a slow day I only go check on them 5-7 times.
Here they are--all 600 worms (I don't think there are really 600 worms in there--probably more like 300-400)

This is the first shelf. See how it's mostly composed? Now the worms are ready to crawl up to the second shelf. Some of them already have but you don't want to see that--it's mostly fuzzy apple cores and coffee grounds...

The worm bin has to sit on the table on the deck because this fuzzy butt likes to sit on top of them. I don't want squished worms! Penny has become quite the outdoor cat these days! Look at her on the prowl:

Onto the veggies: this is what the veggie garden looks like from the deck. I love how full it's gotten!

Pumpkins:

Here's Jack and Penny sleeping in the shade today:

Here are our Sweet 100s tomatoes. There are over 200 on the vine right now--a few have already ripened; Clem ate some right from the vine and was so excited.

Here are our Big Boy tomatoes. We haven't had any ripen yet but they are some serious BIG BOYS! This plant took over it's cage and you can't even seen it through the growth!

We've also eaten some of our zucchini already and have a few more almost ready to go! Our brocolli produced 6 enormous heads already and has been pruned back--our brocolli is SO good! Now we're just waiting for more to spring up!

Here are the sunflowers that are taller than I am. They don't have their faces yet but I am thinking in the next few days they will.

This is our newest flower bed I wrangled up. This is right outside our bedroom window. Cam's work had a huge truck load of roses to get rid of. We took 5 plants. Here are three that we are bringing back to life--they were mostly dead and root bound when we got them. The one in the middle is already bringing up buds!

The rocks lining this rose bed were all ones I dug up when planting here!

This lilac wasn't doing so well a few weeks ago. Turned out I was over watering! I've learned my lesson and she's doing better! I can't wait till we can open our bedroom window and smell the roses and lilacs!

I was sure this hydrangea wasn't going to make it. I bought it when we first got the house in April and moved it three times since then. It took forever but she's sprouting some pink buds finally!

And this hydrangea has always done well but started with blue flowers--the flowers have been fading lighter and lighter--now I have a ton of white/light pink flowers on there! Must have something to do with the acidity in the soil or something...

So, this is an update on the backyard, veggies and worms. The front yard needs some TLC but I'll post pictures of the growth up front pretty soon!