We spent a good bit of Mother’s Day at Home Depot buying plants and stuff and then in our backyard planting stuff, so I thought now might be as good a time as any to brag about how I haven’t killed everything in our garden yet.

Here’s how it’s looking:

Almost everything in the raised bed was started from seeds. There was a lateish freeze in April when I thought maybe everything was going to die, but mostly it all made it through.

There are many beans and carrots:

Baby corn starting to pop up:

Zucchini poised to take over the whole bed:

A random volunteer tomato plant that popped up. I have no idea what kind it is, but it’s gotten a couple of blossoms since I took these pictures the other night:

Spinach:

These not grown from seed sweet pepper plants were Home Depot purchases:

There are also cucumbers and spaghetti squash that we’re hoping will cooperate in growing up the netting for us.

Potatoes are going strong:

There’s still a whole lot of work to do in here. We’ve been just hacking down the grass with a weed whacker (infrequently, as you can see), but I think I’m going to kill it all off with newspaper, and then we’ll mulch over any areas we’re not using.

But against the fence on the other side, we did dig up the grass and mix a bunch of compost and peat moss and store bought garden soil into the clay so we could plant these tomatoes:

I started a million tomato seedlings inside, but they all died. So those are Home Depot acquisitions, too. We still have room in this area for more, and we may try sweet potatoes there.

We’re also in the middle of the unpleasant task of digging up a big circle to plant a long promised (and once unsuccessfully attempted, a couple of years ago) bean teepee for the kids. This weekend!

This may be my beginning of summer gardening overconfidence talking, but I can definitely see us expanding the square footage of our little fenced in area next year and adding more things. I want a whole bed of strawberries. And Gus expressed interest in trying to grow peanuts the other day. If Jimmy Carter can do it, we can, too! I mean, that makes sense, right? Anything Jimmy Carter can do? Maybe not some things. But growing peanuts, probably.

And I’d like to put berry bushes around the outside perimeter. That’s probably a next year task, too. I’m thinking it’s probably too late in spring to plant much in the way of fruit this year.

We impulse bought two little pomegranate trees at Home Depot, too. They were on sale, and Milo was really excited about them:

I want to do more reading about how to take care of pomegranate trees before we plant them, and I want to be careful to pick a good spot in the yard. Planting trees is such a commitment! And our yard is so big and empty and overwhelming, so I’m trying to keep an idea of a long term plan in mind. Right now I’m thinking of a grouping of fruit trees near the back fence. It’s not the sunniest part of the yard, but there’s really not anywhere that doesn’t get quite a bit of sun. Dave thinks we’re going to kill any fruit trees we try to grow, and I’d really like to prove him wrong.

So far the kids are still pretty into the garden and eager to help, so here’s hoping that lasts!

Especially Abe. He’s great at “helping” with the watering:

We had an super rainy April, and I didn’t have to water at all, but so far May’s been fairly dry. Generally speaking, we get a ton of rain around here and usually don’t have to water much at all once the plants are established.

If things go well, I’ll be back in a day or two with a BATHROOM update! Exciting!