Time in the patch

This weekend I slogged in the garden.  Sometimes I wonder if it is all worth it?  The hard work, the time, the water, the manure, the time, time , time .... but then when you get your hands in the soil and see the seeds spring to life and start to yield fruit, the bees buzzing about doing their thing .... at the end of the day your whole body aches... yeah it is worth it.  This is what my patch looks like today:

and the happy hippo sleeps .....

this water bath is for the bugs and hippo of course...

my dh just loves to add these touches to my patch..

and the first sighting of the butternut

...and the squash

and even the front garden could not escape the invasion of veggies........ we trimmed the sides of the lavender but kept the flowers for the bees.  I always keep something flowering for the bees, I just love them buzzing about our garden, pollinating here and there.  And that would be the reason that very often things are way overgrown, flowering and going to seed .....