Gardening, and How "Not Dead" It Is

The way I rate my gardening projects is by how "not dead" they are.  I cannot keep a plant alive if it is in the house, and I've not had a lot of luck with trees, but I can usually do pretty well with a garden.  I think it helps that once the plant or seed is in the ground I pretty much leave it alone. 

Unfortunately, where I put the garden this year is nothing but very poor soil.  I'd planned on adding a truckload of really good soil and compost to it, but didn't seem to get it done this year.  I'm hoping to be able to do it this fall so in the spring it's ready to go with just a little tilling.

I was also rather late getting things planted and the first round of tomatoes I started from seed inside never survived transplanting into bigger containers, so I started more seeds around the time other people were putting the plants into their gardens. 

Here are some pics of a few of the things in my gardens from the last couple of days, almost the end of June.

These are the two types of beans I'm growing.  In the front are bush beans called Greasy Grits and the ones in the back are pole beans called Dragon's Tongue.  Both can be eaten when green and can also be left on the plant to dry.  I plan on trying them both ways.

 This little corner gets little sun and a lot of water runoff from the porch roof when it rains.  I'm actually surprised anything grows  in it.  I have sunflowers along the walls and mixed dwarf cockscomb in the middle.  Oddly I planted the cockscomb all over the whole area but it's only growing in that little section in the middle.

I don't know if you can see, but it's a couple of tiny baby carrots.  I'd planted them in the garden forever ago, it seems, and had given up on them ever coming up, but a couple of them are giving it a go.

The stems on this have a purplish tint to them, that's because they are Purple Peacock Broccoli.  I don't have a lot of them coming up either, but at this point, I'm pretty happy with any that make the attempt.

This is some of my Strawberry Popcorn and it's around knee high and if I remember my little sayings then it's about right on schedule.  "Corn should be knee high by the fourth of July."  Oh, look over the weeds, too, I really need to get them pulled before they get out of hand, it's just been too darn hot!