sprouts!

I'm pleasantly surprised to see some sprouts in the garden today! We planted the garden eight days ago and since then it has rained quite a bit.  The rain was good because we didn't have to use our own water (thank you mother nature), and it was potentially bad because it rained pretty heavily at times. It rained so hard we were worried our lettuce seed was washed away but it didn't! Our lettuce is coming up and it looks great!  Our squash, zucchini and beans are coming up too!  However, after all the rain, our soil is looking pretty packed down.  Tonight, S-man and Boy1 are planning on hoeing and planting the marigolds.

Marigolds are great for repelling certain kinds of insects and garden pests. They can even attract good insects to a garden. There are some other great bug repelling plants out there and after this spring's heavy rains, I'm thinking about investing in a few planters for our deck and some mosquito repelling plants. Even if the plants don't successfully repel mosquitoes, at least our deck will look pretty, right?

Back to gardening....After I discovered our garden is sprouting, I discovered I also have a bit of a sunflower problem. Our uneaten birdseed is growing. I really enjoy watching the birds at the feeders, but they have really bad table manners! I also really love sunflowers so I think I'll transplant a few of our volunteer flowers to our east flower bed and see what happens. After that, I suppose I'll be spending some time out front under the bird feeder plucking sunflower seedlings.

little beans!

squash...or zucchini...i'm not sure

romaine lettuce

too many sunflowers!