Rain, Rain...Woohoo!

It's been raining all day long...a nice, gentle, soaking rain. It looks like everything has cleared out now, and I'm looking forward to seeing what a little bit of sunshine will do to the garden. How about some gardening news?

Bed One: The peas are stretching up to the twine beautifully--a few are curling their tendrils around the strands and climbing toward the trellis. I feel so tender about my peas. I've planted them before from seed and from seedling, but never with any success. I am really hoping to get some good stuff out of this year. The melons are doing fine. They're growing very slowly, but I'm not too worried about them. The carrots are also good. I still haven't planted more, nor have I replaced the Swiss chard that didn't grow. Maybe this week, now that Earth Day and Jeffrey's birthday party are out of the way.

Bed Two (henceforth known as the herb bed): All is well here. I have a feeling that my red leaf lettuce is about played out. It came up as a volunteer and the two plants have contributed mightily to several salads, but they seem to have stalled as far as new growth is concerned. I'm oddly saddened by this, but am trying to console myself with the mesclun patch, which is a thing of beauty and light:
Bed Three: Trucking along. The strawberries are tee-ninecy, which stinks a bit, but the birds are getting the bulk of them, anyway. Bastard birds. I'm considering sticking some cheap little windcatchers in there in hopes of keeping them out. Onions are doing fine, although I worry that they don't seem to be bulbing very well and a few of them look like they have given up the ghost. (I'm a nervous gardener.) Below is one of the bulbing onions. Keep your fingers crossed.

Bed Four: The pink-eyed peas are up! They sprouted beautifully, with almost all of them coming up in the circles in which I planted them. I like to imagine little overall-clad fairies having a hoedown in them while I'm sleeping. (Do you like the sparkly circle? I'm learning to use Gimp.)

In the upper righthand corner, you can see one of the basils also in this bed. I've got four Roma tomatoes in here, too, which are doing quite well.

Bed Five: The Boston Pickling cucumbers have been up for a week in a tidy, orderly line, but I was worried about the Blue Lake bush beans. Imagine my utter delight when I came out to the garden on Saturday and found this:
Today's rain brought out a straggling line of these babies. Can't wait for some fresh green beans this summer!

Bed Six: The eldest of the Three Sisters is up! I have four little corn plants in this bed, two in Bed Seven, and four in Bed Eight. I'm still hoping to get a few more sprouts, but I'm pleased with what I have so far.
Isn't she lovely? Someday, I'll figure out how to focus on the flowers and plants I want to focus on instead of the individual grains of sand behind them. Sigh.

Also in Bed Six are some eggplants and peppers. I was worried about all of them, as they seemed to be going through quite a bit of transplant shock. But the rain seems to have rejuvenated them and I was happy to see a little cluster of blooms on the eggplant tomorrow. Tell me these gorgeous things wouldn't look beautiful in any flower garden. (Also allow me to be a huge photo nerd and tell you that this shot is actually upside down and that I contorted myself into an alarming shape to get it.)

Bed Seven is notable only in that it is the bed in which I have the least corn and in which the Lemon cucumber seeds have yet to sprout. I delicately scraped off a bit of soil from the row and discovered two that had yet to germinate in any way at all. Hmmm. Will give them a few more days. Odd.

Bed Eight is home to three Better Boys who are awesomely beautiful. Check it out:

I know. I'm blown away by how hard my garden is working for me right now. I hope that it will come to a glorious, steamy, juice-drenched conclusion in the fall!