the real deal

I finally got a chance to work on my real garden, you know, the regular sized one in my back yard. My sweet husband tilled up all of the soil for me, then I pulled up the remaining grass and weeds and raked it out nice and smooth, well kinda smooth. It is surrounded by four giant rail road ties that were already in our yard when we moved in. The previous owner apparently had a beautiful garden, as I was told by our neighbor earlier this year when our yard was looking more like a jungle and less like a residential back yard. I already knew about this dream garden. Sadly, my husband and I pulled up most of the remaining veggies that were hanging around and downsized the garden to a more manageable size when we first moved in last May, about 1/4 what it was prior. No one had lived in the house for several months so much of the yard and garden was taken over by weeds or just dying from the heat.
After it was tilled and raked I left it alone for a week or so until I had time to finish and plant. At this point some of my little seedlings weren't looking so good. In fact a few that were going strong had shriveled up like the wicked witch of the west! Did I water them too much? Not enough? I personally blame it on the sun, which hadn't shown it's shining face in days. And everyone knows that plants need the sun to survive.
To protect my garden from intruders, aka my dog the feral cats in the neighborhood, I dug tall stakes into the ground in each corner. Lucky for me the stakes were already behind the shed at our house, along with several tomato cages. Then I bought a roll of chicken wire and wrapped it around the edge and tied it with zip ties to the metal garden stakes. The chicken wire is about three feet high and very flimsy. I ran string through the top row of holes on the long sides of the garden to give it extra support and stability. I would have done it on all sides but I ran out of string. I also left the top corner of the end of the chicken wire open so I could go in and out of the garden more easily. I tied the bottom of the wire to the metal stake but left the top open and tied it with a twist tie for easy access.
And then I was good to go ahead and start planting....or so I thought.