How does your garden grow?

I haven't waited for this evening ever since we looked at our house before purchasing in December--time to plant the garden!  Rory and I have been talking about it so I knew he was excited too!  

Josh and Rory worked in the garden before I got home to get the ground ready.  I see my men have a thing for wearing shorts and boots!  Ha!

Today was an extra special treat because not only was there dirt to dig and seeds to plant but huge machinery at the pond behind our house.  You can kind of see an orange truck just above Josh's left shoulder.  A new bike path is going in so tractors and dump trucks of all sorts were just a short distance away.  To say Rory loved it would be an understatement.

The boys are perfecting their skills at mound building.  I didn't know this but some plants have to be planted in a mound.  Not sure why--I'll do some research.

Rory was such a good helper at counting out the seeds, digging the holes and patting the dirt back over the seeds.  It was much harder keeping him from plodding through all the mounds we had just built!  He kept calling them "mountains."

We did not have any plants around our deck and if I planted something tall it would block our view of the water so for now, I have strawberry starts, green peppers and tomatoes here.  I have 7 different kinds of tomato plants.  I didn't mean to do that but I bought 2 packs from a garden center after my order from a catalog didn't show up and then, literally today, 6 different types show up from the catalog company.  I need to review tomato and spaghetti canning recipes, stat!  I find it a bit ironic because none of us like eating just a tomato--we do however love spaghetti sauce and tomato sauce.

Here is the finished product of the "big" garden.  I'm hoping to reap a harvest of dry soup beans, zucchini, carrots, cantaloupe, watermelon and green beans.  I have two packets of green beans left to plant but will space those out over the next 4 weeks so they mature at different times.  I'm so excited for Rory to see this process from start to finish but also provide food for our family.  It's been a rough economy for everyone and once we buy some wire and tomato stakes we will still have less than $50 total in the entire project.  I spent at least that produce every 4 weeks...if not more.  Some things I will freeze but the rest I will can.  The jars can be a bit pricey but also last forever so it's a one time investment.  I'm looking forward to harvest time--the kid in me wants to go out tomorrow morning and see a beautiful crop but it will be at least 5 weeks before anything gets here!