I'm going to take a guess and say that seeing other people's gardens is almost as interesting as cat photos, as in, not at all. But please indulge me. This is my first home garden in years and it was from a home garden and being a frustrated home cook that Rancho Gordo was born. We were lucky enough to find a spring on our property and were able to send the water, by gravity, down to these raised beds. We added a battery-powered timer and now without using any household electricity or water, we have vegetables. So far we've enjoyed lots of radishes but that gets old fast. We loved the Japanese turnips and especially the turnip greens, with Fatted Calf guanciale. The cucumbers are great and I see zucchini in our future very soon. The tomatoes and peppers will have to wait for later in the summer. I'm very excited to see little visitors that aren't squirrels, field mice or rats, so this chipmunk made me very happy. I hear they can be just as irritating as the others but when you're so cute, you can get away with a lot of mischief. If there is one secret to home gardening, especially in a place like Northern California where there are literally are no summer rains, it's to add a drip line. I loved coming home from work and hand watering as a stress reliever but nothing compares to a drip for happy plants. In the photo below, you can see some black trees in the background. These are dead from The Fire. Notice how close to the propane tank they got and you can understand how appreciative I am that we only lost a barn, garbage and some forest. I think the next question you might ask is, "What! No beans?" They're in a different part of the property and yes, I am very likely to bore you with those shots soon!