Tyler has a little more time to devote to gardening pursuits this year than he did last year when he was hammering and assembling and sawing and sweeping like it was his job to turn the old church into a home.

He’s the one with the green thumb in our relationship. I don’t like the feel of dirt on my hands, what can I say. But he dives right into a pile of compost like it was bread dough.

We preserved the front garden of the church, a flower plot I showed off here earlier this week, but we destroyed four raised gardens in back last year when we poured concrete for the garage. I understand those gardens were used to grow vegetables for the food pantry that operated out of the basement before we acquired the property.

Tyler moved the vegetable garden to the far corner of the property under the flag pole. He planted a few tomatoes and peppers there last year, but he’s expanded it this summer. Earlier this week, he hauled in some fresh yummy compost (well, it’s yummy to the plants!) which St. Johnny was designated to spread around; Tyler acquired the compost from the mushroom farm not too far away and, if you’re a fan of dirt, it looks “rich and thick and chocolit” (thank you, Nestle Quik, for that jingle that rattles around the brain for decades).

A number of benefactors have contributed flowers and plants and decorative grasses to the landscaping at Church Sweet Home (thank you, benefactors!), and a few of the gifts have found a home on the street side of the vegetable garden. Behind them, Tyler has begun planting a few vegetables, and he made room for a few more being percolated in a friend’s green house.

He also found some colorful tomato cages at our favorite home improvement palace, Home Depot. I find it amusing that an entrepreneur would paint tomato cages; they’re nice now, but before long, they will be so obscured by the plants that it won’t matter what color they are. To each his own.

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Today’s headline is the beginning of a Mother Goose nursery rhyme that is nonsensical, even to the nongardeners among us: Mary, Mary, quite contrary/How does your garden grow?/With silver bells and cockleshells/And pretty maids all in a row.