Sparse? ... SPARSE?

My husband actually accused my garden of looking "sparse" this year!! I couldn't believe my ears & quickly corrected him saying it wasn't that it was sparse, it's that compared to last year everything is organized and tidy! He did concur but on further reflection, I'm afraid he's a little right.

I had a great plan set out for my succession planting, and then (as I had really planned) I didn't follow it and just went with what the garden told me. I found out I was eating less salad then I did last year, so I planted less, leaving a ton of extra space at the end of the garden bed. Plus with the warmer weather I found the lettuce I had planted was growing quickly enough I could double up on the space as I harvested (sewing new seeds in the sections were the lettuce was just about ready to be eaten).

My beans are more then over-flowing their bed, but I put them against the back fence so they are very easy to contend with. I actually ran out of bean seeds, mostly because they were the most fun for the kids to play with, and partially because I spilled a whole bunch in our driveway. So there is another gap at the end of their bed I attempted to fill in with transplanted carrots with scummed to the heat.

I decided to forgo putting corn in the vegetable garden and sew it in the field beside the house, combined with a heavy pruning hand with the dill, I have almost nothing, except a few beans, growing vertically in my garden this year. Also the squash usually growing in and around everything isn't invading the patch this year, they are also in the side field. The cucumbers are nicely contained in one of the smaller beds, along with an enormous zucchini plant, they are just sort of tucked away in the corner.

These empty spaces between my veggies are annoying me to no end. To a gardener, there is no greater sin then wasted space! But now isn't really the time (with the great amount of heat we've been having) to put in the few things I had reserved for a fall harvest. So for now I'm keeping these spaces covered with newspaper to keep down the weeds and I will have to come up with a better space-use plan for next year. Maybe with a few different kinds of vegetables! Swiss chard? Brussel Sprouts? Broccoli? No, I better find something we'll actually eat.