On Veggie Gardens and Irrelevant Quotes

Note: I wrote this post about a week ago and I don't know what happened, but I never posted it.  My apologies!  since the gardens look every bit as awesome now as they did in these photos (probably even better), I'm going to go ahead and post it anyway--a bit late.  Enjoy.

------------------------------------------------------

While trying to come up with a title for this post, a phrase from the musical, "Hello Dolly," came to mind: "Money is like manure.  It's no good to anyone unless it's spread around encouraging young things to grow."

Okay, so maybe it's not relevant to the post, but it's funny and it does have a small gardening reference...  Bear with me here, I'm trying.  :-)

We've had a lot of wet weather in the past few weeks and that had the gardens looking a little limp and soggy.  The nice thing about rain, though, is that some plants perk right up and look 10 times better afterwards--like squash plants, with their big green leaves that are bigger than my hand.

The lettuce is looking so great it's pretty much ready to be picked.  Maybe we'll have a nice salad for lunch today.

One night this week, I finally finished planting the small row garden I set-up to handle the overflow from the picket fence garden.  There was a small rock-lined raised bet there, which I painstakingly removed.  I then cut a new outline, removed and shook all of the sod, and amended the soil as best as I could without power equipment.  Here it is in its final beauty.

The picket fence garden, which you may remember looked like an overgrown jungle, is looking especially snazzy with the remaining flowers in bloom and the veggies tucked-in amongst them.

I absolutely can't wait to have a wonderful supply of cucumbers, canning tomatoes, and winter squash this year.  The pressure canner is going to get a workout this year and our new chest freezer will certainly earn its keep.  That is, if my green thumb doesn't suddenly turn to black.  Wish me luck!