Thanks a lot for the updates and pictures, everyone!
Over here in Austria it looks like we'll reach our goal of doing better than last year (mostly thanks to my wife who does most of the work in the vegetable garden, while I take care of the mowing on the rest of the plot, watering the shrubs, etc). Everything has grown, plants that struggled are doing better. First hazelnuts are coming (45, I counted them). Despite the frost in May, we have a lot more berries than last year. Every day a full bowl which we juice and mix with water, for the past two weeks, and probably two more weeks to go:
And when these run out, we have aronia, blueberries and goji berries ripening. All in all, very motivating to keep going. I really enjoy getting up in the early, go out with the dog and pick all the berries. That was the plan from the very beginning, so it's great to get a whiff of the end result for the first time.
This year has been extremely dry so far (no snow), and when the temps started hitting above 30 °C, we had some more watering to do than usual. The water level in our poor non-lined pond was at an all-time low, but still enough for the frogs, water snakes and this year, for the first time, salamanders.
So, when a couple of days ago there finally was a summer storm, we received it with open arms, although the wind was extremely freaky (lots of crazy, short-lived gusts this year) and then hail started to fall. We got off lucky, as just 10-20 km from us the hail caused major agricultural damage:
There's been lots of rain yesterday, which was a great relief.
We've been eating salad from the vegetable garden every day for many weeks now, thanks to the cold frames. Other stuff has been coming online as well, like red beets, chard, courgette, cucumbers, and Elisabeth is fighting a battle with various pests to pull the cabbages to the other side (she might win this year). Here she is with today's bounty:
I'll take a couple of pictures of the vegetable garden tomorrow, as it's really starting to look nice now.
I can't remember if I've mentioned it here, but we had to buy another quarter acre next to our plot, or else someone might have built a house on it. We divided it up in three parts, planting crimson clover and
sainfoins in the first part, phacelia in the second, and buckwheat in the third part. Maybe one day we'll try and do something like you do, Bruce, but we first need to revive the soil on this new plot.
Phacelia really is a wonderful plant with beautiful purple flowers, attracting thousand of pollinators. Next year we'll probably sow them again, but then I'll make a two foot wide path to the middle of the field to a grass circle where we can lie down for some sweet aroma and humming therapy. ;-)
Here's how the field looks from the top of our carport:
And here from the other side, with our house in the background:
It looks like the potatoes won't bring us much, mostly thanks to the army of darkness (slugs) and probably not enough mulch. I might post pictures once we harvest in a couple of weeks, but I had a look under the mulch and it didn't look very promising. Another aspect that will hopefully improve next year. And so we learn.
Speaking of learning, I hope to implement some of the soil stuff from that booklet you sent me, Clare, starting this winter. :-)