Here’s the backyard, shot from the garage door, which is currently the only access to it. So far, I have two beds full of veggies, and a third ready to be filled with good dirt and herbs.

Beyond the veggies, you can see one of the few good landscaping features I inherited from the previous owners: a full fenceline of honeysuckle. It stays this lush and green all year, making a lovely divider between me and my good neighbor.

In contrast, this is what’s on the fenceline I share with my bad neighbor: nothing but scrub and weeds. I hack this back twice a year, and occasionally pour a bottle of brush killer over it. It’s a shame, because underneath the nasty, thorny vine is another honeysuckle, just waiting for us to get our acts together. If we worked together, we could beat back the bad stuff and let the honeysuckle take over, but I’ve lived in this house for almost ten years, and only spoken to these neighbors once—and to do that, I had to go bang on their door. They don’t garden. They have a lawn service that hacks their grass down and leaf blowers everything else into my yard every two weeks. *sigh*

Anyway, here’s the smaller of the veggie beds, with cukes on the right and zucchini on the left. There were three cukes, but I broke one when I was stringing the bamboo, and it looks like it’s officially dead. I’m worried about the zucchini—they’re turning yellow, even though I’m not watering them much.

The larger of the veggie beds, with tomatoes, plus two brussels sprouts that probably won’t produce, because I planted them at the wrong time of the year. The tomatoes are also turning a little yellow here and there, but are looking pretty healthy otherwise. The romas seem to be doing best, but they were larger when they were planted, and honestly, I’ve had good luck with romas before.

See that little yellow spot in the center of this roma plant? It’s a flower. A tomato in waiting…