Michigan has been a wet, sloppy mess for the past month! We've had so.much.rain. It has been both good and bad for our garden.
First, the bad.
Between the bugs getting to them first and them rotting from being so wet, we lost out on the last two weeks or so of harvesting strawberries. We had an excellent season though - better than we ever had thought. We harvested about 25 pounds this year - 25 pounds from our small little patch! Even though the rain kept us from quite a few, I'd say that was a huge success!
Speaking of bugs, the mosquitos are horrible now. We literally can't walk outside or in our garage without being swarmed and bitten. It's awful. The kids can't even play outside in our yard without jeans, long sleeves, shoes and socks on. Obviously, this is not ideal considering it's in the70's and 80's every day so, we just don't play outside at our house. Happy Summer!!!
One positive is that we've only had to water our garden once in the past three weeks. The garden is looking good.....as long as you can distinguish what's a crop and what's a weed....
The weeds are out of control! I vaguely remember having this idea of putting straw down around our plants to help control the weeds and being immediately shot down by a certain someone.....wonder if that certain someone is thinking that maybe that wasn't a bad idea afterall....
Because of how awful the mosquitos are, this is Jason's weeding gear. He already had the hat on hand from when he's gone on fishing trips in Canada to keep the black flies away from his face. Wearing that very head net, he broke a record by catching 122 fish in one day with his great uncle. (he wanted me to add that in ;) Bet he wishes he was fishing instead of weeding.....or that we had put straw down....
Now, onto the good - our crops!
I was so excited to see so many veggies beginning to grow. Our beans, corn, carrots and pumpkins are all doing great. These were what we started from seed. I'm just amazed at how you can plant a tiny seed in the ground and then it grows into something so big! It's so awesome!!
We have baby broccoli, tomatoes, cucumber and zucchini growing too.
Our cabbage, onions, watermelon, Brussels sprouts and lettuce all seem to be chugging right along as well.
Our peppers, eggplant and spaghetti squash are struggling a little bit. Some type of bug loves our eggplant leaves - hoping they don't totally destroy them. I need eggplant Parmesan!!!
We also planted two year asparagus roots - they've sprouted right up and are beginning to flower! It will still be another two years before we can harvest them, but still exciting to see.
We're looking forward to our first veggie harvest very soon!
~ Sara :)