when trying to be a good gardener, do what helen does

We cut our old basement carpet into strips and put it in the garden between rows. That's always how Helen did it. She is the world's best gardener that it know of, so there you have it. I mean, Helen did grow the zennias for our wedding so I trust her opinion about gardening big time.

This was honestly not even the before-before shot of the garden. This is an after-before shot. The before-before garden was a weed filled mess that I dug up one by one until the garden looked like this. There were eight huge piles of compost weeds when I was finished. It took me three days of digging out one weed, sod or old plant at a time to get it to this point where Josh was able to roto till it.

I made Urban some makeshift boots seeing as he loved being in the garden with me. Using his shovel while lying flat on his stomach was his favorite part.

I hope to get a large yield this summer so we doubled the size of the garden. One of Josh's coworkers gave us 18 tomatoe plants she grew from seeds. We also planted green beans, cucumbers, dill, green onion, carrots, corn, basil, green peppers, and a sunflower. I would love to can some pickles and tomatoes this year. I will freeze the beans.

To my absolute unliking, we found the same blue racer(?) snake in the garden twice. It freaked me out of my boots the first time we saw it as I almost picked it up unknowingly because it was hiding in a huge weed I was pulling out. Then a painted turtle friend we named Fiona has been in the garden nearly every day. Emerson is beyond obsessed with her, who could easily be a him.

I am hoping it will be a great gardening year, and I make an oath that next year I WILL find Brandywine tomatoes to plant. They are my favorites.