Welcome to the Jungle

I'm a little late getting the garden going this year....too much craziness combined with my tiller hook up being in Haiti. All that to say, I finally got the garden tilled today and will plant seeds in the coming days. It was really remarkable how much of a garden was already there. There was a squash plant, pumpkin plant, many onions that had gone to seed and an incredibly large carrot that had actually grown a bush on top of it (the purple flower pictured below was a bloom on the carrot bush). Did a more traditional row layout this year, but still went with the raised bed approach to provide more soil and irrigation for the plants. And speaking of the plants, we'll be doing a three sisters scheme this year...corn (actually, its popcorn), sunflowers, pumpkins and gourds (gremlin mix and wooly bears), and pole beans (rattlesnake and purple speckled lima beans - otherwise known as Duke Dog beans!!!) The one plant that survived below was a rosemary plant that was doing really well, so I just tilled around it. In the short stretch of bed in front of it I have already laid seed for a "beneficial insect attractant mix" - a mix of seeds designed to attract bugs to the garden that eat the pesky bugs.