Hiding from the rain outside, I turned our first berry harvest, mint and lavender we grew, and edible flower blossoms from the garden into syrups (or non-alcoholic cordial if you prefer). I don’t want to buy juice anymore and needed an alternative to elderflower syrup, as those are out of season.
Two days after I’d abandoned the mushroom beds in a bad mood, my husband joined me in the garden to help. He flew the drone while I did some weeding, and then we got to work. Three mushroom beds, more ripe white currants, and a potato harvest were waiting.
Mulch is a lazy gardeners best friend. I might not be lazy, but I sure like efficiency. Now that my friend and I had weeded the tomatoes, it was time to mulch them. I am a huge proponent of heavy mulching, so today we’ll talk about mulch. A lot.
A scorching hot break between heavy rain storms gave me a chance to finish the carrot bed. A friend came to visit for a few day. Her visit was jinxed with bad weather and my period being particularly painful. Nonetheless, we harvested and processed cherries, dug for potatoes, and weeded the tomato bed.
I’d promised my dog some carrots. It was time to finally follow through. I could have planted these a lot earlier. But they are even now going into an unfinished bed.
Despite rain and mosquitoes, Pepper and I get a lot done in the garden. After checking on what my husband did the day before, we harvest some currants, string-trellis some tomatoes, cook a delicious dinner from volunteer potatoes, and return the next day to continue a new bed.
During pockets of sunshine between endless rain, I weeded the beds, added edges along some of my beds using materials from the plots, and planted some more seeds.
Almost every day brings fresh rain around here at the moment. Many days, we are forced to work around the weather–and take breaks when it rains. Or we ignore the weather and go to the garden anyway. On a rainy day, we made strawberry jam, then rescued the garlic from the non-stop rain by harvesting it and sorting it in my living room.
The garden was weeks behind, so I spent every free minute catching up. Every gap in the weather was spent in and around my beds. Everything was a rescue mission against clocks set by weather and wind. When it rained, I turned the tops of the onion I’d harvested into green onion pesto and planted the greenhouse.
These gardens are a trial run. Learning is the priority here. Every day in the garden teaches me new things about regenerative gardening. This time, I plant a lot more sunflowers, harvest onions in the rain, move a lot of water into storage, and start a new bed for the corn–oh, yes, and I planted some beans.