Well, there’s upsides and downsides to being in better shape and having better stamina. I’ve doubled the prepared ground for the garden in the last couple days, and I have planted all of that ground with seedlings I bought from a local nursery. But I now also have a nice set of blisters on my hands as a result of all that furious digging and raking. 
You can see the new area that is closer to the road better in this picture. I have planted two rows of corn there so far and I plan to expand it to put in potatoes this week. The nursery was out of the type of corn that I wanted, but this variety will do fine this year. Next year, whether I am here or somewhere else, I will have to be more on the ball and prepare ground earlier if possible. The rains made that hard this year, but it will be easier next year if I am still here and, if not, maybe I can rent a rototiller next time.
I have also expanded the area to the South of the first garden plot, which you can see here. What you can’t see here is the two rows of tomatoes that I planted today, three feet apart (per directions) and three feet from the peas, which used up all the new space I had prepared. I still have many seedlings started (although still very small) at the cabin and I have a bunch of Sweet and Hot Pepper plants from the nursery to plant, so I expanded the area by another 3-4 feet tonight after planting the tomatoes. I will need to expand it another 6 feet or so to plant all my seedlings and the Pepper plants from the nursery. I dunno, I may just not plant all the tomato seedlings I started, or plant them somewhere else easy, where they may not do so well. I could make a lot of salsa, sauce, and preserves with all those tomatoes later this Summer, but that’s a lot of work too.
Here you can see the first row of peas coming up, with some tiny carrots in the next row, and a few very tiny sprouts of romaine lettuce in the row beyond that. In fact, all the rows that I planted in the last few weeks have started sprouting, although the rest are even smaller yet. But, altogether, I have peas, carrots, lettuce, spinach, beans, beets, onions, and garlic coming up, plus the corn, tomato, cucumber, and squash seedlings I bought. I have a few packets of leaf lettuce and radishes that I will fill in rows with later (wherever something else didn’t sprout) or plant in new ground whenever I get around to it.
The cucumbers will probably go up next to the fence when I get that up (so they can climb on it) and the squash may go next to the corn, before I get around to the potatoes. Pretty soon I am going to have to thin out the existing rows, which is a bit painful, but necessary if I want the plants I leave in to have enough room to grow. On the plus side, I have been able to really get my hands in the dirt the last few days, which feels good. Planting seedlings is different than dropping seed and covering it with a thin layer of dirt. With seedlings, you really have to get your hands in there to dig, mix up the dirt, fill in around the plant, and reshape the mound. I am convinced that a big part of the joy of gardening is the child-like experience of playing in the dirt. 
Then, of course, after much watering and weeding, you actually get to see the plants grow and produce fruit, which you get to eat or freeze or can for later. I am sure I will have a very full freezer at the end of the Summer and lots of “cans” (glass jars) plus lots of roots still in the ground, or perhaps in the “secret passage”, which should make a good root celler. So, what’s shown in this picture? It turns out that this patch of what I thought was “ground cover” of some sort, just below the new area of the garden I dug recently (SE of the peas) is actually a big patch of Oregano! In fact, it has spread all over the place. It is growing all through the area to the South where the Blackberry vines are! So I have the makings of some really good tomato sauce, especially if I plant some Basil later, which I hope to do.
A ton of work! And I am not anywhere near finished. I think I’ll have to expand the original plot another 100% (for a total of 300%) or more to plant everything I have now or want to plant (thinking potatoes here). I may have to sell or give away vegetables later this Summer, if I run out of freezer space and jars. But that’s a problem I’ll be happy to cope with. I may make friends with more of the neighbors if I start advertising free veggies (or even sell/trade them).
Watering is another issue, but I’ll work that out… there’s that seep over near the rock quarry, which is a lot closer to the garden than the ravine below the cabin. I may be able to dam that up a bit to make a pool just large enough to collect water (not for drinking, just for watering) and I could carry it from there if I had to. But I may get the Spring box pump fixed before I have to resort to that. Time will tell! 
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