I Must Be Turning Into an Old Softie

This is the 45 foot bed that I call the 'garden in the side yard.'  The grass is growing up around it because the last time I tried to mow, our honeybees tore me up!  Next time, I'll be mowing in my bee suit, trust me.  This is where we recently harvested our Irish potatoes.  We've been eating those delicious potatoes.  Here is a baking tray of some split, buttered potatoes, seasoned with sea salt, pepper and fresh cut rosemary.  Oh my!

So now that the potatoes are harvested, what to do with that soil?  Well at this point, there are a few ideas.  More corn?  I don't think so.  Here's what I decided.  Several years ago, I was hardcore about one thing.  No flowers.  We're only planting things in the garden that we can eat.  Tricia can plant flowers in pots on the patio.  The garden?  It's for growing things for eating.  Besides, sugar snap peas and other vegetables have flowers...

And then, something happened.  I began to soften up to the idea of making the garden a thing of beauty.  Why is could nourish your eyes and soul as well as providing sustenance for your taste buds and belly, right?  That heart of stone was transformed into a heart of flesh.  The Bible verse speaks of that below, but it's not talking about flowers in the garden.

A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh.  And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them.  Ezekiel 36:26-27

That Scripture is talking about a spiritual change.  I have had a spiritual change, but I just had a change of heart about flowers in the garden.  So in the 'garden in the side yard,' I'm planting 3 rows.  You can see them roughly laid out below:

On the first row on the right, I'm planting some zinnias.  They are multicolored and beautiful and I saved them from dried flowers we grew back in 2018.  It's time to do something with them.  I planted them close together in the event that the seeds are old and germination percent a little low.  We'll see...

The second row.  The second row will be occupied by some Lemon Queen Sunflower Seeds.  I saved these from some flowers we grew as well.  The seeds themselves are sort of small, not like the sunflower seeds you eat.  These were scattered across the row in the middle.

To show you what Lemon Queen Sunflowers look like, here you go.  This one is coming up volunteer in the garden right now.  It makes a big head on top and then a bunch of others on the side.  It brightens up the place, for sure.  How can you be sad looking at a flower like this?

Now don't go thinking I've lost it and have become an old softie and I'll replace cucumbers with daisies or other such foolishness.  The third row will be something we can EAT.  Purple Hull Peas!  I saved a bunch of seeds last year and it's time to get these in the ground.

Purple hulls thrive in the heat.  They scoff at the summer.  They'll produce plenty for us.  While the zinnias pop with color and the sunflowers tower over the garden in the side yard with happiness, the purple hull peas, in utilitarian purpose, will bloom and produce peas that we can shell and cook with some tasso and serve over white rice.  We'll enjoy every bite.  We may enjoy eating them while looking at a vase containing cut zinnias and sunflowers.