This year we are again experimenting with a couple of new garden spaces and how we do our gardens. We’ve added spinach, turnips and green beans to this year’s crops. And we are planting a few crops in two or three different locations to see how that goes.
The area our renter’s dog’s cage was located is now the “dog cage garden.” I am hopeful we’ll find a better name for that garden but for now, it’s the dog cage garden!
The first pictures are Roy and I tilling the soil which should be good quality with all the dog poop mixed in. 
I only did one row but I found out how difficult it is to keep that thing going straight!
Planted in this garden are potatoes, yellow meat watermelons, red meat watermelons, carrots, and militons, and green beans. There is a fence at the rear so the green beans and militon vines will have a place to grow up and around. This garden does not get full sun like the main garden does but it does get a lot of sun throughout the day. 
Sunday afternoon I distributed a bunch of hay around this garden to help it stay moist when the heat of the summer hits. Bending over to do these things hurts my back so I only got the hay placed there. It needs a bit of work so the popsicle sticks and rock markers show up and that will come next!
The main garden closest to our house is slowly getting planted. Roy is in charge of the regular size tomatoes which we call “Big Toms.” Here he is soaking the ground where they will be planted after putting the stakes in the ground.
My sweet frog metal art recently restored is watching over the garden!
Here Roy was staking up his growing tomato plants a few weeks ago. The second picture is a “contraption” he created to put these same plants in while they go through their hardening phase. Hardening is a way of getting the plants that were grown indoors to get used to the elements outside like wind, sun, rain. When he started their hardening the wind blew over the plants so the need for his “contraption” became apparent. It is made of two round crawfish trays connected on top of each other with holes the size of his seed pots drilled out of the pans and the pots inserted. It worked really well so he’ll have these to use for future years of tomato growing during the hardening phase.
This is his new contraption to help his hardening tomato plants stay standing up. He made two of these for his 18 plants.
Here’s Roy all happy while planting in the ground the tomatoes he’s been growing from seed for two months!
Look how nice they are! There is about a foot of stalk down in the ground so they are a really good size all put together!
Those tiny little plants next to popsicle plants are small cucumber plants. I planted half already growing small plants and half seeds planted directly in the ground to grow. 
I made an attempt to form rows and walkways in the dirt myself but that turned out pitiful. My he man hubby saw my pitiful attempt and took over! We’ve reduced the number of rows and widened the walkways this year. We learned last year the walkways needed to be easier to navigate. My balance isn’t too great so this should help make it easier for me to work in the garden.
All the little popsicle sticks in the garden mark where the okra, bell peppers, eggplants, spinach, turnips, cucumbers, and green beans are planted. In a couple of months, the garden will be filled with taller plants bearing vegetables above and below the ground!
Here’s the hay all over everything in the main garden. 
Monday morning my month old cherry tomato plants that were grown from seeds are now planted in the garden.
The area where Bo and Peep are living now was where we had our “garden down by the pond” last year so that garden has gone away. Near it, along the fence line are planted several plants. Green beans growing up the fence, cantaloupe, and okra. Two broccoli plants that randomly grew in the main garden over the winter were moved to this area and are now producing broccoli. There is one plant we don’t know what it is yet but it’s getting bigger! 
Then along that same fence line Roy planted the rest of his BIG Toms between the azalea bushes. That is an experimental alternative spot to see how the tomatoes will do there.
Here are two of the 12 tomato plants along the fence line. They are doing really well! 
The artichoke plant that we planted from seed this time last year survived the winter, was transplanted to a pot when the garden was tilled and is still there. Quite a puzzling plant to me but as long as it keeps living we’ll keep it and hope it grows sometime this year!!
Our blueberry bushes are doing PHENOMENALLY well! This is the fourth year since we purchased the eight bushes. The first two years they lived near the fence under a tree where they mostly got shade. Three berries were the total crop each of those two years. We dug them up and planted them next to our house last year where they grew well but again only produced three berries. Well, this year they figured out how to produce berries and I believe we will have hundreds of berries FINALLY!
I can’t stop taking pictures of the berries and had to narrow them down to these two! 
I’m already planning blueberry pies, blueberry cakes, blueberries on my waffles, pancakes, ice cream and on and on!!!
The fig trees are full of leaves and will hopefully be full of figs this year!!
Our grape vines have never produced. Roy did not cut them back this year so we’re hopeful that will do the trick. Their leaves are coming out really well now!
Our satsuma trees froze a couple of years ago and this one has grown back a bit. We figured it would never grow satsumas but it looked nice so we left it there! It now has several buds on it which we were surprised to see. We’ll have to see as time goes on if this actually turns into a fruit! 
Our new plum tree purchased last year is full of leaves and blooms!!
The pecan tree was purchased and planted the same time last year and is growing nice green new leaves right now!
I think that’s all the updates on the fruits and vegetables we have at our little slice of Heaven here in Amite. I plan to write an end of the month update each month on our garden adventures!
Ya’ll have a Blessed Week!
BECAUSE HE LIVES 
What type of hay do you use to cover your plants. Do you have any problems with weeds sprouting that were in the hay?
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We bought bermuda hay at Tractor Supply in Amite. This is our first time using it. We usually use pine needles but we didn’t have enough of those this year. And buying hay was easier than raking up all those pine needles. Don’t know yet how the weed prevention will work since this is the first year. I’m hopeful it works because pulling weeds is a real pain!!
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