Garden Pseudo-update

This is my garden as of 10 July, 2010.  The last photo was taken in early May, so what you are seeing in this photo is a month of growth.

Things to notice in the picture and understand about the future:

1. The green beans right in the front of the photo are overflowing the bed.  They were oh-so tasty, and I will definitely plant more next year.
2. The weeds on the dirt pile (in front of the shed) are already taller than the shed.  Imagine how tall they are now.
3. There is a beee-utiful patch of dead bermuda around each of the beds.  I hit it hard with roundup, in an attempt to keep it out of the actual beds.  It helped.  For a couple of weeks.  Now the beans are overrun with bermuda.  That brings me to number
4. There will be no further garden updates.  I was absent for a couple of weeks in the dead heat of summer, and when I came back things looked quite disastrous.  The tomato plants were/are still producing, but they have all fallen over and look capitol D for dreadful.  The flowers (marigolds and zinnias) are shells of their former selves.  The plums were all rotting on the ground.  The only plants that didn't deflate (and totally flourished) during my absence were the weeds on the dirt pile and the bermuda.  stupid bermuda.  I will not post pictures of my garden in such a wretched state.

I have only a few tips for future gardeners.

• Don't scatter your tomatoes all over your garden.  Because of fungus and blight and such you don't want to plant tomatoes in the same place each year.  If you put tomatoes in every bed (or area) one year, you find that you have no place to put them the next year and will be forced to build an extra bed just for your tomatoes.  (On a side note, I have canned 23 pints so far.)
• Never let your guard down when it comes to bermuda grass.
• Every garden should have marigolds.  They are natural pest deterrents, bloom all summer, and make this delightful snapping sound/feeling when you break off the dying blooms.  (You should dead-head them to keep them blooming and encourage them to bush out.  I find this to be incredibly therapeutic because of aforementioned snapping sound/feeling.)