Sweet potatoes, runner beans, tomatoes...

The layout of my cold-season strawberry bed: A rough circle that gets about 8 hours a day of hot sun. I dug the strawberries into the bed, and laid down another thick layer of oak leaves and grass clippings.

My son & I started the rattlesnake beans a couple of weeks ago : I'm running wire from stakes along the perimeter to a 10' high conduit pole in the center of the bed. In theory, they'll scramble up the wires, but not shade out the white sweet potatoes (planted on Sunday) that are planted in the center of the bed or the Sungold tomato that's training up the pole. The way the sun tracks, the left (north) side of the bed should still get tons of sun, even with the beans growing up the right (south) side. The bed's very heavily mulched with hay, leaves and pinestraw. I have some pentas and milkweed mixed in there, too, since this used to be my butterfly bed.

Intensive gardening!