Happy Solstice

Summer came in with a bang. We awoke to severe thunderstorms this morning that included a 1/2 hour power outage and 2" of rain in under 45 minutes.

When the rain left the heat and humidity set in. It is definitely summer.

I was out picking strawberries, zucchini and cucumbers and after 15 minutes I was drenched with sweat. Not fun. A lot of the garden went under water during the torrential downpour but by noon most of that water had drained out of the garden (this place has excellent drainage, not like the other farm, which would have had standing water for several days after such a storm). This left a lot of the veggies in a muddy state but happy enough.

Summer means that the onions are growing fast, they love the long days and short nights. The garlic has had its' scapes cut (and to the person who got here searching for scape prices, we sell them for $2.50 for a 1/2 pound bag) and now is growing big bulbs. I dug one up this afternoon that had its' greens knocked off (either by Eugene and the weed whacker or a deer) and it was a good size already even though it won't be ready to harvest for another 2 to 4 weeks. The first potato planting is in full flower and that means we will be harvesting them in a few weeks (we have not gotten all our potatoes planted yet, we do our last planting around July 4th) and can start stealing the new potatoes now if we want, though that cuts back on the final harvest since the potatoes taken early do not grow back.

The peas are going nuts. We did 3 plantings and the first two snow peas beds are in full roar with the third flowering heavily but not yet producing peas. The sugar snap peas are bit slower. The first planting is going great guns and the second has skinny peas but the third planting has not yet begun to flower. Picking peas is back bending work and can get old after a few weeks of daily harvesting.

It's summer and the garden is bountiful.