It looks good, Amy, and so does your garden.

Of course it is. I consider the July bedraggled look to be God's way of telling us to stay indoors, stay cool and start planning for fall. If we don't get good rain in June, I don't know what I'll do. We're already ridiculously dry.

We are too Dawn. I pushed my husband this week to get my tilling between the rows done. I had spent an entire week weeding just 10 rows of beans and I wanted it tilled by Sat night so I could get some water on mine. I've been lucky in that so far, nature has handled my water needs to a point, but I'm watering deep at least once a week now.

And now for why I'm writing, lol. Amy, I'm so amazed at what all you get planted each season. Looking at your pics, you do an amazing job. Your posts from time to time describing things all makes sense in how you get this done. I could not do it myself. I have my garden laid out like I like it, lol. I just don't think I could do it any other way as I've always gardened this way. Plus I'm really short. 8 ft panels would never make in a garden for me and my husband is not home enough to do it for me. Hence everything low on the ground for me, lol. But... another reason I posted this is for the cow panels for my tomatoes. I got tickled at your post particularly when you stated he did this all by himself. I get what that involved, so impressive on his part. This year, my husband made me mad before the panels went up in our garden. The day it was to be done, he walked in the kitchen and asked if I was going to come help him. I said sure, as soon as I'm done ironing your shirts. I walked out there, and promptly bent down to do my weeding. Not one panel did I help him with. He was struggling, lol. But he deserved it. He did every single one with me squatted down and just watching and smiling. He never complained. I suppose that's why I got my garden tilled this weekend too, lol. He's a good man, he just needed to learn his lesson. And he must love me, he did it all by himself with me just a watching. I'll never stop smiling and laughing about that part.

Karen, if I had the room for a garden laid out in rows I might have gone that route, but I don't. And my garden has evolved. More beds each year. Planting intensively shades out a lot of weeds, so it has it's advantages.

I think the tall cattle panels started because the plants were too big for their cages and SOMETHING had to happen. I certainly can't reach the top of the panel. I like to clothes pin some kind of shade cloth to the top. Well, I have DH do that, LOL. Sometimes he has to get tomatoes up high, but there is rarely fruit at the top.

Karen, I am short too so I generally just put up 5' tall trellises and let the plants cascade back down to the ground after they reach the top. Sometimes I plant things on the 8' tall fence, and that requires a ladder for harvesting. Using a ladder in a sloping garden is risky, but sometimes I do it anyway.

Sometimes husbands do need to be reminded how much their wife does, but it goes both ways. I wouldn't want to have to do all the mowing that my DH does, although, I used to do it all back when he was in the detective division and on call a lot. I had to, or it wouldn't get mowed, and we didn't have a riding mower back then either, so I mowed two or three acres weekly with a push mower. When he took over the mowing, suddenly we "needed" a riding mower. One advantage to not getting rain is that nothing is growing much, so we can mow every third week instead of weekly. The disadvantage to that is that we're not getting enough grass clippings to mulch the garden, so I've been buying pine bedding at the farm store instead. I don't really mind it too much, though, as the pine bedding does not bring in weed/wildflower seeds like the grass clippings will.

Amy, Lately I've carried out my little folding stepstool from the kitchen to the garden so I can do things like stand on top of it to hammer in 8' tall T-posts. Tim doesn't like it when he sees it there because, you know, the dirt might ruin it or something. lol. I like it better than dragging a bigger ladder from the garage. I also use it to harvest beans when the vines create a big mass atop the trellis and refuse to cascade back down to the ground. Standing on the stepladder beats stretching and reaching. I'm getting too old to stretch and reach too much.

I have a huge pile of tomatoes and peppers on the breakfast room table and ought to be in the kitchen chopping them up. I'm just not feeling motivated today. It is possible I stayed out in the garden too long. By the time I came indoors, the heat index was 98 and I could tell I was getting too hot, but I was drinking the whole time I was out there so at least I avoided dehydration.

Dawn

4 more cattle panels.

Amy, You've turned into the cattle panel queen! Isn't it amazing how much more you can grow in your garden space when you grow vertically? I love that part of it. I also love that when I'm harvesting from trellised plants, I'm less likely to accidentally find a snake.

Right now, on trellises we have pole snap beans, winter squash, Korean summer squash, pickling cucumbers, muskemelons, icebox melons, southern peas, lima beans, sweet potatoes (their idea to climb the trellis with the Korean summer squash, not mine), lemon cucumbers, moonflower vines and morning glories. If the corn plants in the Three Sisters gardens count as trellises, then we also have half runner beans, more winter squash, Armenian cucumbers and some more cowpeas and other things I've forgotten climbing the corn plants. Maybe some cypress vines in there somewhere and, of course, the coral honeysuckle is trellised. I use cages for tomatoes and some peppers, and while not technically trellises, the cages serve the same purpose to hold the plants upright.

If I ever give up trellises and cages, I'll only be able to grow 20% of what I grow now because of space limitations. So, you know, I'll never stop trellising because I never could cut back that much on how much we grow.

Dawn

Sometimes I think our paths are too wide. DH wants to mow between them. But if they were closer, the arches wouldn't fit as well. These are easy to put up. And yes, I do love cattle panels. I can't wait for things to climb them.

Yes Amy, they do look purdy when the veggies start climbing them and it makes like a gazebo arch. Neighbor down the road does it that way.

Me I just try to figure out the most optimum spacing for the rows for each plant type so it makes a weed smothering canopy as they all reach full size. I got it down pretty fair.

Except all my vining crops. For those I just use 5-6 foot rows and 5 foot plant spacing and even that most times is not enough. Usually by mid July i have a giant bowl of sphagetti going on. Vine wars babe, where only the toughest most obnoxious varieties survive. You got to be a playa to make it in my garden or something else is going to anaconda yur butt eventually. It really helps separate the loser wimp varieties from the go getters.

This year National Pickling Cukes are winning vs Rattlesnake and Charlston Grey watermelons and some type of european cantelope with big leaves is holding its own. The cucumbers have also climbed into the whipporwill peas which are pretty obnoxious themselves most years

I do trellis beans as I always grow at least one type of pole type beans for the continuous harvest.

Yay!