Fresh-from-the-garden salad

There is NOTHING like a salad of fresh greens.  I've been enjoying them for a week now.

So today was a gorgeous day to work and we have a weekend of impending thunderstorms, so I worked outside for more than 5 hours today.  The garden looks great.  I finally decided the mystery plant is a weed -- if one's definition of weed is "anything which is growing in the wrong place." -- so I pulled it.

Pole Beans

The Giant Caesar lettuce I planted didn't sprout -- perhaps old seed -- so I replanted one square and planted an additional square of it -- I love the taste and texture of it.  The pole beans have sprouted, but I lost two of the cherry tomato plants.  I may just plant 2 more beans on that tower instead.

The surviving cherry tomatoes look great!

Speaking of tomatoes, I have my tomato tower and bed set up.  I need to add a layer of composted cow manure on top of the grass clippings, and I make a well of soil for each plant.  Since I took this picture, I have planted 3 "Hungarian Heart" heirloom tomato plants from Cook's Garden.  I will plant three "Pink Brandywine" plants, and I'm not sure what I'll put on the two remaining poles.




I also planted one blackberry and one raspberry plant.  And the strawberries are looking really good:





I planted a watermelon "Sugar Baby" plant.  It's a small, seedless watermelon.  I'm experimenting with something different with it.  I put up a something for the plant to grow on to and to support the melon.  I used the wire grids from an old compost bin, and lashed it onto a bamboo pole support.  In the background are a number of different types of iris, including Louisiana Bog Iris and flags, in my rain detention bed.

I also got the rest of the lawn mowed today, and  used the grass clippings to mulch around a lot of stuff.  I planted an azalea to replace a butterfly bush that didn't survive.  In fact none of my butterfly bushes made it through the winter -- I have two dwarf bushes I need to replace.

And....just because.....more pictures of the garden: