It is harvest season out there. While my own balcony still needs a few weeks (assuming any of them survive all the rain of the last weeks), much of nature is ready to harvest, the farmer’s in the area are overflowing with tomatoes, and my garden neighbor’s garden is so bountiful, I always go home with baskets or arms filled with fresh produce.

The previous owner left a lot of trash in the garden hut that needed to be dealt with. Eager to work outside but with rain always on the horizon, I spent an afternoon cleaning it all out. Progress!

It has been at least eight years since anyone cared for the piece of land that I am turning into a garden to grow food and spend afternoons with a good book in the hammock. Parts of the land are so overgrown that I couldn’t access them. Time for some clean-up.

Preserving food is hard. Or rather, learning how to preserve food is hard. The last week’s were a fun trip through my early adventures in canning while the weather was too moody to work on the garden.

There are two huts in my new allotment garden, both with leaking roofs. I’ve decided that the A-frame is salvageable. Somehow.

There is a small piece of neglected, overgrown land that I now call my own. The allotment garden we now rent is in pretty bad shape for growing food. Though most of the cherries are eaten, the trees and bushes are exciting.

When working from home, weekends and weekdays can become blurred. But even in hectic times, I try to take two days a week off. It’s not always the actual weekend. Most weeks, thanks to the structure my husband’s office job provides, Saturday and Sunday tend to be the slow days of the week.

I am rarely home alone. My husband and I both work from our shared apartment. Last week, he was traveling for work, so I spent three days on my own schedule: cleaning the balcony garden, cooking, and visiting the chicken our eggs come from.

After a winter of purchasing to overcome depression, I feel stuffed. There are too many things in my life: too many objects, too many responsibilities, too much of a lot. A few weeks ago, I decided that enough is enough, and started taking out everything we own to see what still adds value, what we need, and what gets in the way.

This time, I show you what my balcony garden looks like now in June, share my first harvest, and cook with foraged, home-made, and home-grown foods.