The weeks in June are all the same. Extreme warmth followed by a couple of storms and then more extreme heat. After a very rainy past week, this week we didn’t get any rain at all. The storms have passed close to us, but all we got was a lot of wind. Honestly, I don’t know which is worse, a rainstorm or raging wind. The storms at least drop the temperature, and the wind just forces us to shut all the windows and doors and slowly boil in the house.

The garden still doesn’t mind the heat. The plants are all pretty happy with the amount of rain we had so far. The last week’s rain soaked the deeper layers of soil, and the roots of the plants have plenty of water. Only seedlings need watering, but they can be watered easily.

To my surprise, I’m starting to have regular weekly harvests. Every 4-5 days I have plenty of veggies ready for harvest. I can’t remember when I had such a big harvest this early in the year, but looking at the garden and the vegetables I am not surprised.

Everything is much bigger than in normal, not summer heated years. I already have mature zucchini plants, tomatoes are flowering and forming fruits, peppers are growing little peppers, and lettuce is thriving right now. Things are just looking really good.

This weeks harvest

This week I’ve harvested most of the available vegetables and berries. I’m still harvesting just the amounts that I will be able to store or eat in a couple of days. I could bring much more veggies home, but we can’t consume so much lettuce and I can’t dry all the vegetables at once. It’s better to bring home smaller amounts.

Still, this week’s harvest is amazing. I’ve harvested a bunch of lettuce, both cutting and baby lettuce, last year’s carrots for drying, radishes, chard, red currants, and raspberries. I’ve also harvested the first zucchinis. They are still quite small, but both plants are growing new zucchinis, so I’ve removed the bigger ones to give the plant the energy to grow baby ones.

Also, I’ve harvested my first chili peppers this year, and I’ve had my second garden brassica leaves harvested in just two weeks. These brassicas are now bringing me to a total of 5 brassica harvests since the beginning of April. I’ve dehydrated most of the leaves to store them for winter.

I will be dehydrating every single vegetable that I can. The way my garden is growing this year I won’t have enough room or enough jars and bottles if I store fresh or pickled vegetables. That’s why I’ll try to downsize them by dehydrating. We prefer to eat stews anyway so the dehydrated veggies will work just fine for us.

Next week there aren’t any big jobs planned for the main garden, other than weeding and harvesting. I will concentrate more on the side garden, where I need to do lots of planting, sowing, and transplanting. The main garden is now in the wait and harvest phase, and this year it will be a joyful one.