Veggies slowly getting planted

It has been raining most of the week here, putting a damper (da da da dum!) on much garden work.

I did manage to get most of my vegetables in - we had a dry hour or two here and there.  This year I planted (or have ready to plant once the rain breaks): 

• 6 Super Fantastic tomato plants (love these!)
• 1 Celebrity tomato plant (a gift; the first time I've tried this variety)
• 2 Lemon boy tomato plants (these will go into barrels - still not planted)
• 2 Sweet Millions tomato plants (the best cherry tomatoes I've ever grown, which also still need to be planted into barrels)
• Kentucky Wonder pole beans (they did so well last year!)
• Royal Burgandy beans
• Dark Green zucchini (a staple in my garden)
• Gold Rush zucchini (first time I'm trying this one)
• Butternut squash (first time I'm trying these)
• Yellow scallop squash (first time I'm trying these too)
• National Pickling cucumbers (I've never even tried any other varieties)
• Sugar Snap peas
• Detroit Dark Red beet seeds that I had left over plus Formanova beets (first time I'm trying the Formanovas, which are cylindrical)
• white and yellow onion sets, which a neighbour passed over because she had too many
• 6 Jalepeno plants (still need to be planted in barrels)

I also put some herbs in my herb bed, but I'm too lazy to go out in the rain to double check the tags.  I think I put in:  peppermint, Greek oregano, parsley, and ... some kind of sage??

Last year, I put epsom salts into each hole I dug for a tomato plant.  This year, of course I forgot to buy epsom salts.  Hoping to get the tomatoes in before the rain hit, I decided to try out one of my mom's tricks:

A banana peel in the bottom of each hole (it releases potassium).

So, I got the tomatoes in and caged, and the bed "fenced" with plastic chicken wire.

The "chicken wire" is not to deter chickens, but rather monkeys.  Otherwise, my veggie beds are deemed a comfortable place to suntan.

I read an idea in Gardens West magazine last year, and decided to give it a try this year.  They suggested saving your sunflower stalks to make teepee trellises with.  I "built" two very simple ones for my cucumber bed.

I debated stringing twine at intervals to make a nice sort of ladder for the vines to crawl up, but between being short of twine, watching the rain clouds gather, and deciding that it might be easier to harvest cukes on the inside of the trellis without a bunch of twine impeding things, I decided to just leave them as is.  If the cukes don't like climbing the bare sunflower stalks, its no big loss - they'll still grow.  And then, I'll know better for next year.

This is the School of Yard Knocks after all.