How does your garden grow?

Yesterday, I planted our first real garden in nearly ten years. A few weeks ago, our farmer neighbor used his gargantuan plow/disk to turn up a small garden plot (about 12 feet by 30 feet)for us. Then it rained for days on end and we couldn't get back to the garden to till and plant. We bought a new tiller this spring and couldn't wait to fire it up. It worked great!

I was able to till the garden four or five times and then raked the soil smooth. Cassie and I planted 10 sweet potato plants (given to us by a friend who bought too many), zucchini (one plant will provide enough for the neighborhood), yellow squash, sweet red peppers, Anaheim chilies, jalapenos, twenty-four tomato plants including Arkansas Traveler and Rutgers (both heirloom varieties) and Early Girl (tomatoes in 50 days--July 10!). Today, I will plant seeds for the rest of the space: sweet corn and pole beans. I'm going to interplant the beans with giant sunflowers. The twelve foot tall sunflower stalks should act as trellises for the beans. It will be fun to see if it works.

We've planted more flowers and put out more bird feeders this year and the yard is filled with birds: cardinals, morning doves, yellow finches, indigo buntings, orchard orioles, ruby-throated hummingbirds, and red-headed woodpeckers. We've even seen a bluebird a few times. Summer in the country. Ahhhh.