More progress!

Hey there all!
Hope you all are well and it is sunny wherever you are.  We have had almost non-stop rain, but the sun is shining today and I'm loving it.  My parents kept the girls last night and The Mister worked a midnight shift, so not only did I have the entiiiiiiire bed to myself (oh, sweet bliss), I got to get up and run this morning, then play in the garden for a bit before getting ready for work.  I am so excited about how everything is growing - this is my "experimental garden" year, where I get to figure out what works and what doesn't, and as long as the stink bugs stay away I think we are going to be able to produce a lot of food.  
The whole plot has had a thorough soaking the last few weeks, so now we just need some sun.

 My Moonflower planter is starting to look really good.  I put this trellis in the day before last and it's already started to climb.

 A bean plant my sweet friend Mary gave to me, and our planter of mustard greens.  For some reason there's a bald spot in the middle of this planter - I'm thinking of adding some seeds in so we will have an ongoing harvest.

Strawberry planter, with PVC pipe insert.  I saw this idea online a decided to try it, since our planter last year died off so quickly.  You take a piece of PVC piping cut to the height of your planter, drill holes along the length of it, and fit it into the planter before you add soil and plants.  This way the strawberries throughout get an adequate supply of water.  So far, so good!

 A newly transplanted heirloom tomato, sprouted from seed.  This is a Black Tula, a beautiful slicing tomato.

 We have established that I am a cheapskate of epic proportions.  I needed to add trellising to my peas, and of course I was not going to spend a dime on it.  We have a birch tree in our neighbor's yard that hangs over our yard and sheds branches pretty regularly - to the point that at least once a month anything that we can't use gets bundled up and taken to the city compost pile.  We had a big bunch gathered, and I decided to make some of the smaller branches do some work as pea brush.  Not only does this not cost squat, it looks sooooo pretty.  3 big sections of branch were put to use with some garden twine as trellising along the back wall.

 

*Happy Dance*

 My "nursery" of baby heirlooms.  C'mon, lil guys.

 Oooh, radishes.  I have so many plans for you.

 This iris came from my Mom's house a few years ago.  This is the first time it bloomed and boy, was it worth the wait.  This is on the shady North side of the house, and apparently it's quite happy!  Mooch loves this, purple is her favorite color.

 Sigh.  Can anyone use about a ton of lemon balm?  You thought I was joking when I said one little sprout turned into Herbzilla, didn't you?

 And something NOT from my yard, but oh-so-beautiful I wanted to share.  My parent's house is surrounded by mountain laurel, and it is in full bloom right now.  It is so pretty and smells wonderful!