Barefoot Gardening

I know this is a strange post, but I want to talk about gardening barefooted. I love it. My feet look like trash all spring and summer long, but there's just nothing like feeling the heat of the soil on my feet. I love the way the mud feel squishing between my toes when I water the garden. I have heard and read that walking barefooted is good for your balance physical as well as mental and spiritual. It's a direct connection with the earth that, as farmers, we are working so hard to keep healthy. Living in a semi urban area I can tell you the reactions I get from people about how dirty my feet always look. I love pedicures. They feel great, but they are honestly a waste of money for me because literally hours after getting one I'll be ankle deep in mud or something. Over the last several weeks we have made some great progress in our garden. Here's what's been happening around here...

Here are some of our seedlings ready to go in.....now I just need the beds for them

Starts for herbs. These will mostly go near our clothes line to help keep our clothes smelling wonderful while drying outside

Sunflowers that popped up in the garden from last years flowers. I moved them to the front yard to grow.

I had a bunch of seeds that had spilled out into a bowl. I couldn't tell some of them apart so I threw them into two of these containers and it looks like I've got cucumbers and watermelon so far.

Here is our thornless blackberry bush. It's supposed to yield a good crop the first year. We'll see.

Our clothes line. I haven't used my dryer in over a month.

I made this trellis for squash, but I'm not sure they'll need it. Luckily I can move it to another bed to use for peas if it doesn't prove useful here.
Zucchini flowers. They are so stunning.

CornJust put these strawberries in. I'm hoping it wasn't too late in the season. It gets really warm here.
I made my own upside down tomato. Honestly I'm not sure I like these yet. They haven't proved to be all I had expected. Time will tell
This is the view of our side garden. We started this garden for the first time last spring and this is the garden for this year. We are expanding into the back.
upside down tomato
We released ladybugs into the garden a little over a week ago. It's a fun thing to do with the kids. My best friends kids were there along with our neighbors kids and ours. What a fun night.
There are 1500 of them in these packets