I love summer.  I look forward all year to my summer garden and I’m one of those people who love the heat

Here is a photo of the harvest I was collecting daily in my garden last July, currently my blog header.  Is that a gorgeous sight or what?  I was so proud of my homegrown food.

This year…. the vegetables are not so great.  My spinach and rhubarb are done for the season after a meager harvest and the rest of the vegetables are doing poorly.  The peppers and zucchini aren’t up yet, still just flowers, which could be a pollinating problem, or too much heat.  I’ve chatted with neighbours with vegetable gardens and they are reporting the same frustrations.

I tried two cauliflower plants this year; both ruined by heat and caterpillars, see photo of all the eggs in the cauliflower.  Gross.

On the positive side, we are reveling in a plethora of raspberries right now.

I’ve been making raspberry smoothies, raspberry jam, raspberry muffins, and of course, just eating them fresh off the canes.

Strawberries are doing well too this year.  I moved them to different location than they were last year, and that has resulted in less ants in the containers.  Growing my own fruit and vegetables makes me deeply appreciate organic farmers; keeping insects away with no pesticides is quite a challenge.

The Saskatoon berries never came up, too much damage from the animals in the spring; hopefully we’ll get a good harvest next summer.  For the first time in a dozen years, our mulberry hasn’t had ripe fruit by June, the berries are still small and white, though they look like they’ll be ready to eat in a week or two.  The herbs are hanging in there with the heat.  We finally had rain this week, which was desperately needed, my rain barrel was just about empty.

Anyone with tips for organic fruit and vegetable gardening?  I’d love to hear your comments.