Finally, some Rain: Some long-awaited updates

The weather has finally turned for us. We've had a lot of rain--too late for the crops. Maybe soon enough for one cut of hay. Definitely on time for the gardens and flowers, and for the trees and shrubs.
I didn't finish showing my garden all planted (almost a month ago). This picture shows the lettuce plants neatly tucked in between the tomatoes. The tomatoes will shade the lettuce, so it holds longer before bolting.
This is the first lovely iris to bloom. Everything is very late this year. I think this iris is called "Rock Star".
The deck about 3 weeks ago. Decorating the deck is always second to the garden being finished. View 1: Before
View 2: After
In my 20+ years of gardening in this spot, I have never watered the garden after the initial planting. This year I tried to put it off, and put it off, but then I saw how the plants had stalled, and were struggling. I couldn't see myself hauling hose to my huge garden and standing there watering forever. DH (aka Kubota Man or KM) suggested using the oscillating sprinkler. That's against my principles, too as I think so much water is lost to evaporation. But I followed his advice, put the sprinkler out in the evening (also technically wrong), 1 1/2 hours on each of 2 areas. The next day it started raining, and has rained on and off, then steadily since. So much for principle. And I should have thought of Murphy's Law earlier and both washed the truck and put the sprinkler out--maybe we wouldn't have had the drought.

I'm a firm believer in using bone meal for transplanting. I've never done a blind study to prove if it makes a difference, and this year I found it does. ( With tongue in cheek) It doesn't work on cucumbers. As a matter of fact, it kills cucumbers. I always plant cucumbers from plants: Orient Express, Sweet Slice and Slicemaster--16-18 plants. We eat our fill and give tons away. This year I had some bonemeal left after planting the tomatoes, and decided to put some in with the cucumbers. With the tomatoes, the bonemeal goes into the deep hole. The cucumbers get a shallower hole, so when I covered the root balls, I left some bonemeal exposed. Dogs and Cats love bonemeal. Half of the cucumbers were dug up by dogs and/or cats ( I saw a cat in the act). That'll teach me. :0)