This is my garden on July 3rd...in Maine.

Long view of my garden beds. The arrow is pointing to the DVD disks that are hung on poles to deter deer. I have 5 poles along that side toward the woods and also some hung between beds. That's my regular strawberry bed in the front behind the short white fencing.

My herb bed has as assortment: sage, marjoram, oregano, rosemary, two kinds of parsley, with the tall ones being dill and basil right in front of it. In the back along the trellis I have a couple of tomato plants.

I keep my iceberg-type lettuce under shade netting. I removed a bit so you could see. The rains are bringing me some brown lettuce leaves. I'm hoping for more sunshine soon. The plant to the right is a Brussel sprout, again with the marigolds.

In this bed there's marigold and nasturtiums on the ends with white onions in the center front. In the next rows I have several green peppers and the back row along the trellis has 4 cucumber plants.

My peas, sugar and snap varieties, have grown so much in the rain that I'm going to have to train them back over the top. That top twine is nearly 7 feet above ground. In front are 6 broccoli plants that are just now showing some broccoli heads.

My garden today, July 3rd....

Lettuce under netting with yellow and green bell peppers to its right. Behind along the twine trellis is pole beans on the left with lighter leaves, and snow peas on the right with lots of blossoms.

My Potato patch is lots of green but no blossoms yet.

In my annual flower bed I also have Alpine Strawberries that are covered with several blossoms.

Swiss chard in front with 4 eggplants behind. I have nasturtiums in the right front square of every bed to repel bugs.

This is one of my two zucchini, Black Beauty, with marigolds in the left front square. I have marigolds in all the front left sqs, again, to repel bugs. Under the plastic are my cantaloupe plants. We're still having cool nites besides rain day after day after day.

I'm getting blossoms....

This is the view of my 9 raised beds yesterday with the strawberry row, Quinault and Sequoias, in front. The white circles in front of the fence are a string of solar-powered lights that change colors in the evenings. I'm hoping they might keep some of the critters at bay. My wooden sides are 12" spruce boards cut in 4-foot lengths. My trellises are 7-ft fence posts bought at Home Depot for $5.90 each and pushed a foot into the ground inside 6 of my raised beds. I used sisal twine for the vines and the tomatoes.

My White Cloud Cauliflower is heading up. I only have 2 left. One already came to the table a couple weeks ago. Why it was so early, I'll never know, but it surprised us....and tasted great.

My Boston Pickling Cucumbers had lots of blossoms yesterday. That's a still very young Lemon Cucumber just to its right.

Yesterday I had myself a great big salad. The radishes are White-Tipped, Cherry Belles and the whites are Ping Pongs. The greens are Red Sails and Simpson lettuce leaves. I had to add a store-bought tomato since my toms are just yellow blossoms now.

My Ichiban Eggplant has a nice purple blossom. I guess I'll have at least one of them in the near future.

This first effort into square foot gardening has been a pleasure. No heavy duty weeding. I just pull the newest weeds poking up their heads a little each day. I use mown grass for my mulch. After every mowing I'm out there with a child's the rake getting the swaths that kick out of my son's riding mower.

A nice day to take pictures, overcast....

In front of the sugar and snap peas are 5 Packman Broccoli plants. I have marigolds in the left frt sqs and nasturtiums in the rt frt sqs to repel some bugs. I hope it works. So far so good.

Some of my corn, Sugar Buns, sprouting.

Left is Boston Pickling Cucumber and to its right is a Lemon Cucumber. I also have another pickling and a burpless in this row to the right but not in the picture.

Left is White onions with nasturtiums in frt on the rt, then carrots both Mokum and Napoli, and behind the carrots and onions are sweet peppers. I keep water in the white buckets spaced around my garden so I can water the plants easily and with sun-warmed water (when the sun shines, that is).

With all our rain lately, I don't expect to have to water them for over a week since we're going to have rain showers each and every day to some extent.

Clouds and rain expected for a whole week.....

Orange Bell sweet pepper showing teensy peppers.

Potato patch with all of them hilled now. The Kennebecs are taller in the rear and the Golden Russets are in the front.

This is my potted plant trio near my doorway. Two tomato plants, Yellow Cherry on left and Bonnie Grape on right with a mint plant in the center. I potted the mint plants since they are invasive and the pots will keep them in check.

Tomato plant, German Queen, showing its yellow blossoms.

On left is Zucchini, Black Beauty then radishes down the center and on the rt, front to back: Nasturtiums to repel bugs and in rear to square of Yellow onions.

My raised bed garden today.....

This is my Alpine strawberry patch today. The 3 on the left have red berries, the 3 on the right yellow ones that supposedly taste like pineapple. I'll let you know when all those little white blossoms turn into lovely, tasty berries. I can hardly wait. Alpines are a perennial and will come back in the same form year after year, tho I'm told that its best to reseed after 3 years for the yield will then drop considerably.

Here's a Peony...

This is a red Peony bush, Karl Rosenfeld, coming into full bloom now.

A closeup of two of the blossoms....

A close view of a group of them.

I love Peonies, and their only problem is they don't last too long in the season. I have to enjoy every moment while they are here. I have another one that blooms a little later, a pink one, and one peony tree I transplanted from a too shady spot last fall which won't show blooms this year.