The past few days, I took a small rest from the everyday garden madness. I still harvested my veggies and watered the garden, but that’s pretty much everything I did. I needed a little break to recuperate my shoulder.

Ever since I had covid, I have struggled with left shoulder pain, which intensifies when the watering season starts. This year the lack of rain and high temperatures have been present from the beginning of May, so I’ve been watering every day. Dozens of liters of water passed through my hands every single day, and once we finally got some rain during the past week, I realized that I needed a break and had to rest for a while. Now that the shoulder pain is back to normal and the shoulder hurts only during the night, I can continue working in the garden.

Diseases in the garden

The garden has been doing well, despite the heat we have had for two months now. The one colder week did more damage than good, so now I’m fighting mildew on the zucchinis and Mozaic virus on cucumbers. It’s incredible how just 4 days of 25°C/77°F temperatures and two morning fogs activated all the problems.

I’ve managed to stop the mildew by spraying the plants with homeopathic spray, and the Mozaic virus stopped on its own for now. Since the cucumbers are in full production, there’s no way to stop the virus without pulling out the whole plants, so I’m hoping the hot weather will hang on for a while, and my cucumbers will hang on for a while. Luckily I have four more beds with cucumbers that are far enough not to be infected.

New and old plants

The rest of the garden is going well. Tomatoes are starting to ripe slowly. The blossom end rot stopped appearing after the cold week, and now all newly formed fruits are perfectly healthy. Peppers also enjoyed the cool weather and are now decent size, unlike the past couple of weeks when they were just surviving the heat.

There are also some new plants in the garden. Last week I sown some more bush beans and broad beans, and they are now coming out. Broad beans are all over the garden. I’m testing which position they will like the most. I will just place some poles for them to hang on since these will be taller. Top crop bush beans have been sown twice. The ones that were sown two weeks ago already have beans on them, and the ones that I’ve sown last week are growing like mad. It seems they enjoy the warmth we’re having, especially since I’m watering them every evening.

The garden is full right now and giving a lot of fruits. I’m harvesting twice a week, and usually, I bring around 10kilos(22lbs) of vegetables home. The increased heat is well visible in the garden, and most vegetables are acting like it is in middle of the August instead of July.

Side garden and new plans

The situation in the side garden is also good, except the side garden is processing much slower than the main garden. The side garden gets much less sun, so vegetables here grow slowly. Peppers and tomatoes are just starting to form fruits here, beans are giving me first pods, and carrots are just starting to grow roots. The biggest winner here is the chard, which is growing like mad in this garden. I will sow more chard here next year.

I’m planning a new sowing spree in the next couple of weeks if I manage to get more seeds. The season has been speedy this year, and soon I will have more room in the garden for more plants. Since it’s still fairly early in the season, I can sow almost everything again. I’m also planning a new garden in the orchard, but I’ll see how much I’ll manage to do. The first thing I need to do is get some seeds, and then I’ll start thinking about where I’ll plant them.

The season is in the middle, and after this short break, I have more strength for the second half.