Lately, I’ve converted my Tuesday morning into a harvest morning. I don’t know why but Tuesday is a day when I usually harvest my veggies. Mondays are just too busy, I usually dig both the main and side garden, clean thoroughly the house, cook, and do a couple of loads of washing, and harvest is just something I don’t have time for. Tuesday is a slower day, and I get the chance to walk around the garden and harvest. This Tuesday wasn’t an exception.

Standard harvests

The berries have now become a regular Tuesday harvest. Red currants are almost done, raspberries are just starting, and strawberries are mid-season. Blackberries should soon start, and fill the place of red currants, so the berry harvest will be constant in the next weeks too. I harvest all of the ripe raspberries, since they are easily spoiled, and just the red currants that I can store. Red currants can stay longer on the bush, so there’s no hurry to harvest them.

Another thing that’s becoming a part of the standard harvest is lettuce. This has been a good lettuce year. The extremely warm April and May made the lettuce grow quicker, and now I have regular harvests of both cutting lettuce and the rest of the varieties. What was supposed to be summer lettuce is already big enough for thinning, and now I have plenty of lettuce for us to share.

Cucumbers and Zucchinis

Today I also had my first cucumber harvest. This is the first time I grew my cucumbers this early in the season. I had some early cucumbers when I bought the seedlings, but never when I grew my plants or seedlings. I know now that spring is just too cold for the cucumber sowing, and that if I want early cucumbers I need to start the seedlings indoors.

Another thing that is doing great when started indoors is zucchinis. I never had so many big plants that are producing zucchinis in June. I managed to harvest enough for drying and storing for winter. Next year I will plant all of the zucchinis alongside the outer edge of the garden. It seems the plants prefer the sunny side over the cooler part. I was certain that zucchinis would prefer moisture over the sun, but it seems I was wrong. They are thriving in the sun.

Surprising growers

When it comes to chard it seems to prefer my side garden. The side garden is now home to test chard, carrots, tomatoes, cucumbers, beans, peppers, and a few cabbages. Out of all these plants chard is doing the best. The plants are huge and most of them are already ready for harvest. Chard in the side garden was sown after the one in the main garden, and it’s twice the size as the one in the side garden. So I guess next year chard in the side garden is a must-have.

Another surprising harvest was broad beans. I didn’t get much, just a couple of beans, but even that is a big success. The broad beans are badly affected by aphids. I was trying to remove them manually and with organic products, but nothing seemed to work. This is why I decided to leave them to the aphids to have a party on the broad beans, and protect the rest of the garden plants. The aphids savaged the broad beans but stayed concentrated only on the broad bean bed. I thought they were lost and that I’d have no beans at all, but here they are. Pods are growing on most of the plants, and some are even flowering again. I will leave them to grow as they please, and harvest what they manage to give me. As long as they keep aphids away I’m more than happy.

I am seeing some signs of heat stress. It’s now the 11th day without the rain and with over 30°C/86°F every day. The watering is keeping plants alive, but I can’t give them enough water to ensure perfect growth. I carry dozens of cans and buckets a day, and it’s still not enough. The peppers are struggling the most with this heat and there’s not much I can do about it. They will recuperate quickly once the August rain starts if they survive until then.

This week’s plans

This week I don’t have a lot of work in the main and the side garden. I’ve dug both gardens yesterday, and I’m watering every day and that’s pretty much it. I will focus my weekly tasks on the seedlings. They need to be transplanted into the bottle pots and separated into individual seedling trays. I should also do some sowing of the late summer veggies, but I’ll do that if I have some time left.

Summer has started well, hopefully, the whole season will be as nice as the beginning of June and we’ll have plenty of veggies in our basement for winter.