A tour of the garden...

So now that everything is planted I wanted to take you on a brief tour and show you what's in the ground. These are from one week after things went in so not a great deal of progress.

The garden is laid out in 12 rectangular beds with a gravel path up the center (so six on either side). Each bed is bordered by straw pathways to allow me to work the garden without having to step on the beds. I generally work my garden counter-clockwise starting from the lower right corner and that's how I will show you the beds here.

Bed 1 is for lettuce, which I plant from seed in two week intervals so that we get fresh salad all summer. You can see in the bed that there are two bricks that I use to mark off the bed into thirds so I know where to plant the next batch.

Beds 2 and 3 are for herbs, divided very loosely into Italian and non-Italian varieties. Bed 2 is "non-Italians" such as coriander, tarragon, thyme, Thai basil and oregano. Bed 3 is the Italians: flat-leaf parsley, basil, rosemary and sage.

Next comes the first of three tomato beds. In position 4 I have the heirloom varieties and and I think I dropped some yellow cherry tomatoes in there as well. Notice how all are caged and the stakes are in position ready for tying...in 2006 I learned what a fiasco unsupported tomatoes can be.

And bed 5 is our string beans from seed. These will take a while to emerge and the packaging failed to say whether these were pole or bush style beans so I have a trellis at the ready in case these guys need some support.

That concludes part one of our tour...stay tuned for part 2 which will include some drama and a cliffhanger ending!