I planted corn this spring in my little greenhouse to get the earliest start I could in hopes of beating the expected mid July stinkbug invasion of my garden. I left some in the greenhouse, hoping that if all else failed, I could close it up and foil the bugs that way. The corn transplanted quite well into the garden rows, without any setback at all, and grew better out there than what I left under plastic. We have had so much rain this season that it could not help but grow well. We put cardboard down between the rows to keep the weeds down and covered it with the chicken yard and horse barn cleanings for mulch and fertilizer. We ate our first corn June 28th and it got better and

better. It was a little on the young side the first night. We had to leave for the family vacation on July 4th and I spent the evening of July 3rd, steaming, cutting and freezing all that was ready, which amounted to only 5 quart size freezer bags. Lots of ears were still coming on out in the garden though and I really hated to leave it. Who plans vacations in the middle of summer harvest? Luckily, after 6 days away, the corn was still good. It had been cool the whole time and slowed it down some. So we got to eat corn every night for dinner from the 11th through the 18th and I gave a few dozen ears to friends too.

Our tomatoes are still not ready since I did not push them, but I got some tasty homegrown ones from a stand on the way home from work. You have to have fresh tomatoes with fresh sweet corn. There is nothing better. Our yellow squash is ready now too , along with peppers and green beans. The last two years I have not been able to get enough green beans to can because the stinkbugs got to them first. Yesterday, I put up 14 quarts and there is a big bag in the fridge to eat fresh. Perfect, unmarred, long straight green beans. Yum.
The potatoes I planted in the pallet bins grew way too fast for me to keep up with burying them every time they poked through the soil and I was worried it might not work at all, considering how close I planted them, so I also planted some rows in the garden. I used the left over Yukon Golds from last year that had sprouts about a foot long and planted them whole. They were mostly small ones. I always use the biggest prettiest first. They are so much easier to make a meal with. I am going to step out there right now and see if we have any taters yet. Even though I am clean and cool and it is really hot and humid out there. Just a quick check. Be right back…
OK, so the taters in the garden rows seemed to have done really well. I just pulled up the remains of one plant and brought in 2 good sized ones and left the other 3 that I could see poking up down in there. The bins aren’t looking too good. I found some small red ones in bin number 3, but when I poked into bins 1 and 2 where the Yukon Golds were, I came up empty. I will check back later since I was not wanting to mess with the wet soil much and it is miserable out there right now. They may have rotted with all this rain.
The blueberries have been producing pretty well but are about done

now. We froze 8 gallon bags and have been eating a lot of fresh ones for breakfast. I lost a couple of plants, maybe to the rough winter we had, maybe to the Ph getting too high. I need to check it again and will probably need to add some sulphur to bring it back down. They are under planted with strawberries and we were able to freeze a lot of them. I have not counted the bags but the freezer down in the basement is very full. I freeze them on cookie trays and then bag them into gallon bags so they don’t stick together and you can pour out what you need each time. We use them for breakfast smoothies every morning. I also made a batch of low sugar jam.

The blueberries mostly get dropped in hotcakes and local Maple syrup for French toast.
Our sugar snaps did well this year too and are also all gone. I don’t like them frozen or canned so we eat them all fresh and gave away the extras. I dip them in Humus for lunch and that along with a hardboiled homegrown egg makes a pretty good meal. Sometimes I add some cheese and crackers or some nuts.
The chickens are laying about a dozen eggs a day (that I find, anyway). They should be laying more but it does not bother me. We have plenty and I sell the extras to folks nearby. It looks like there may be a few hens missing and some of them are getting a few years on them. I only count them when they are roosting and there are at least a few that roost up on the wire under the main roof. It is possible that a fox has picked off a few (without my wonderful, useful dogs noticing) but as long as we have enough I will not worry too much. We have chicken fed fox around here sometimes. Just doing my part for the wildlife. Usually, when I clean out the freezer at the end of each winter (which I have neglected to do so far this year) I will throw any freezer burned old venison out by the fox holes in the fence line. They have plenty of dens nearby and usually need extra food for the kits in early spring. I know one woman who used to put wormer in her fox feedings to help them that way. One of my dogs got in a tussle with a fox a few years ago and caught sarcophagal mange from it. The poor dog had to be dipped in a smelly lime sulphur mixture weekly for 6 weeks. No one would go near him, he smelled so bad, and he got depressed. Eventually it wore off and it did cure the mange. Maybe that is why he doesn’t do all that great of a job keeping the foxes away these days.

July always makes me remember how impossible it is for me to keep up with the rampant growth of my gardens and pastures. In the spring it seems like it might be possible to keep it all weed free and under control, but by mid July, I can no longer pretend. The good thing is that no matter how weedy it gets, I always seem to get what I need out of it. And then there is next year, when I will undoubtedly try again.

-Wendy lee

Writing at https://www.edgewisewoods.com