July felt like a weird month for growing this year. Everything feels behind, which some things definitely are, but just in general. There isn’t really a reason for it as far as we can tell. Plants are just slower to get going and producing this year.

Talking with other gardeners it seems to be a bit of a common trend here in town. It is interesting though some of the common problems that others are having that we don’t seem to be having, yet having issues with other plants that seem to be thriving for most others. Gardening is an odd thing.

Weather-wise July 2024 was comparable to July 2023 with almost the same number of sunny and cloudy days. The highs and lows were very close, and we had just about the same amount of days with precipitation.

Our beet greens are a much higher harvest number because I am really using them a lot more than I have in past years. With lettuce being so expensive, and the benefits of so many plant greens being so positive, I am trying to make more salads with other greens.

Beet greens have become one of my favourite lettuce substitutes or fillers. Especially when I am throwing the beets into my salads as well. They obviously pair well. I imagine this trend will continue on in future years, so it will be interesting to see how it is used.

I also recently learned about beet rolls, which are like cabbage rolls but are done with wilted beet leaves and don’t include ground meat but rather a bit of bacon. I plan on trying this soon to see how I like it. I am actually not a fan of cabbage rolls, but hopefully these will be enjoyable.

We have a lot of beets, I just haven’t been eating as many throughout the summer as I have in the past. The bed is actually overflowing with the big, tall greens, because I haven’t harvested enough.

That being said, the beets are looking great. Lots of large size red and yellow beets for the picking. I imagine we will start using them more as the days cool. A nice grilled foil packet packed with garden veggies are a perfect side for any BBQ dish.

The other nice thing is that they last a long time once picked if stored properly, so I am will be enjoying the beets further into the fall and winter this year.

Broccoli is one of my problem plants this year. As you can see from the numbers above, it has been a horrible harvest year for broccoli.

Half my plants didn’t even form heads. The other half, have had tiny heads that almost immediately go to flower. It has been hard trying to even catch a few pieces to harvest. I am hoping that maybe as the weather cools a bit that I will be able to at least harvest enough for a batch of broccoli cheddar soup.

Talking to my co-worker, her broccoli did excellent this year. I have also seen lots of posts of beautiful heads from other gardeners in our local garden group.

I did battle the cabbage moth again this year, so next year I will be building a frame for over all broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage and kale to keep the little trouble makers off my plants. I could barely keep up with the worms this year.

The cabbage did way better than last year considering the ants took out my cabbage plants last year shortly after I planted them. In their new bed, the ants didn’t seem to bother them at all.

As mentioned above, the only issue was the cabbage worms, which I will have a solution for next year.

Fun thing I learned this year, is that if you harvest the main head and leave the plant in, it will continue growing smaller heads in little bundles! I knew broccoli would grow side heads, but didn’t realize cabbage also does. So I have left my plants in and sure enough, lots of little heads are forming, which will make for a nice second harvest.

I’ve mostly been eating it in salads, but I may see about making some sauerkraut if I get enough for a small batch.

The red cabbage was ok, but not great. Better than last year, but definitely not a banner year for growing them. The heads were fairly small and not tightly packed. I think it was from the cabbage moth and worm battles. Next year will be better.

I did try making some rotkohl, but it smelled really off. I was worried that there was worms or worm poop (which I did find in the plant throughout the summer) in the cabbage heads. I just couldn’t bring myself to eat it, so unfortunately it was composted.

I am hoping that I get enough secondary heads that I can make another small batch to get me somewhat through the winter. I love rotkohl with a winter dinner, so it is nice to have some ready in the freezer.

The carrots are very happy where they are. I have been harvesting them and it has been quite the sight pulling them up from the garden.

I planted neptune carrots, which are supposed to be long, 8-10″ carrots that straight with a minor taper at the end. A “normal” girth if you will. Like what Bugs Bunny eats. Half the carrots I have pulled look like D’Eysines carrots, which are a big, very fat, heirloom variety that originates in the region around Bordeaux.

When I took some in to share with my co-workers, they inquired what I had in my soil to grow such ridiculously large carrots. I’m not sure if there was a mix-up with the seeds in the package, but I guess time will tell.

I do get some uniform, long straight carrots, but the lunkers are there. They are delicious, so it is worth it.

The cucumbers are once again a mix bag of numbers. It looks like we aren’t having a great year based on the numbers above, but we actually are. Especially compared to a lot of other gardeners in town.

My cucumber plants got snipped twice by the pesky magpies, so these plants are definitely a few weeks behind. But, now that they are going, I anticipate the numbers to grow.

That being said, last year we had lemon cucumbers, which are very seedy and are round like a baseball. They grow like crazy, but weren’t actually really very good. So, the numbers from last year are likely to stay higher, but the yields this year are being gobbled up by us and not the compost.

We also finally found some proper long-english seeds. We also planted some spring burpless which are also long, skinny and minimal seeds. They just have a bit of a curl to them, which is fun. Both have great flavour and we are definitely enjoying our cucumber patch this year.

The garlic did great this year, but I need to change the watering system a bit. One end was a little smaller, and slightly delayed because it wasn’t getting quite enough water. But, that meant that we had some extra scapes come out in early July.

I made jelly with all my June scapes, so it was nice to have a few more to use in early July.

So this is a proper comparison between years…and some learning about growing garlic! We planted 137 cloves in fall 2022 for a harvest of 4.1 lbs of very small bulbs in July 2023.

We planted 135 cloves in fall 2023 and harvested 10.2 lbs of large bulbs in July 2024.

So what made the difference? Straw. We left our garlic covered this year, which allowed for more water retention, but also eliminated the weeds. We were worried at first that the garlic wouldn’t be able to push through the layers of straw, but when we brushed a bit aside, we quickly saw that it was making its way through the straw just fine.

We will be leaving the straw on the bed from now on to ensure that the weeds don’t bother the bulbs as they grow.

For a plant that is apparently as pesky as a weed, they aren’t doing that great this year. Both plants are still very small and only putting off a few fruits. We did however have a volunteer plant from a berry that obviously fell into some of the soil last year. It is standing tall and looking great. It is just starting to send off ground cherries, so we will see how the harvest goes this year.

Looking at 2023 numbers, it does look like late August and early September was when most of the berries were ready. Based on everything being behind, maybe my harvests will be more early to late September. I’m not hopeful.

That being said, I just need enough to do a batch of jam. Turns out it is now one of my dads favourites so I would like to have enough to at least keep him stocked for a few months.

The herbs are another subjective harvest comparison since it really depends on what we are cooking for the harvest numbers. The real comparison will be at the end of the year, when I tend to harvest whatever I can to dehydrate for the winter months.

Our Oregano is by far the most productive for July. I had to do a larger harvest to dehydrate because it was trying to take over the path and the neighbouring areas of the herb planter. I managed to give the basil and thyme a little more breathing room by trimming back the oregano.

That being said, it quickly grew back the little bugger. Then it flowered, and brought all the adorable fuzzy bum bees to the yard. We watch them happily buzz around collecting all the pollen. At any given time there is about 8-10 of them on the oregano, so I am not trimming it back again. Instead I am letting it flower and will see where else the bees travel to in the yard.

The more bees the merrier!

Kale was new this year, and it was great! I really enjoyed having it in the planter that I made in the spring, right out the back door. I definitely enjoyed it almost daily in July in my salad lunches.

August will be a little different. I went out the other morning to harvest some and found it absolutely infested with aphids! Ick. So I pulled it out. There was no getting rid of them in the numbers that were overtaking the plants. It had only been a few days since I harvested but those aphids found a home and colonized the plant quickly.

I will have to be more mindful of that next year so that I can keep on top of it.

The romaine was a hopeful experiment with poor results. It was a very promising start, then it got rough with bugs, then it got really good with great little heads forming, then most of them bolted.

Apparently I wasn’t meant to have romaine all summer from the garden. I did get to enjoy a little taste of what could have been.

If I decide to grow romaine again next year…which I likely will…I will have to figure out a better approach for them. I would really love to grow them in the lettuce planter, along with the kale, but perhaps it needs more space for the roots. Though when I pulled them, the roots weren’t that crazy.

I will try one more year in the planter, and if it isn’t working out, then I will have to try them out in the actual garden beds.

Green onion is again a selective gardening number. We ate some asian dishes with green onion on top, some egg salad sandwiches and I dehydrated a bit, but not nearly as much as we did last year.

I guess we will see how August stacks up in comparison. We are getting to the point though that the greens are dying off, almost time for harvesting the onions. About half of the onions still have some nice, crisp greens, but I imagine only for a few more weeks.

More onions were ready earlier this year thanks to planting in the fall. We will most definitely be doing that again this year. It was so nice to have decent size onions ready in July.

Our yellow onions are a good size, but the red onions seem to be struggling to get past the smaller size.

Don’t let the numbers fool you, our rhubarb is out of control! The difference is, that I am not giving nearly as much of it away. Not from lack of trying. A lot of people seem to have rhubarb still in their freezer, or have been gifted some from another gardener.

Rhubarb is the new zucchini this year!

That being said, I do plan on doing another big harvest and juicing a bunch more for use in the winter. I doubt I will freeze chunks of it because I never seem to use it. I did it for a few years, and always ended up throwing it out the following spring when I was getting fresh rhubarb again.

The Zucchini is going well. The plant itself looks anemic and not great, but it is producing well.

I probably won’t get as much as last year because I only have one plant this year, but that is ok. I have a good amount that I have been able to use. I shredded some the other day and froze in 2 cup packets. Those, I know I will use throughout the winter.

I also did a few batches of the zucchini and herb scones for the freezer for when we have soup or chilli.

I also plan on shredding the next batch that comes off and making a bunch of loaves for the freezer. I like having some ready to pull out for when company is here.

I also plan on doing some garden chowder with it, and will likely make some fritters again.

The strawberries are on par with last year. They are happily growing in their bed, trying really hard to spread everywhere else.

We have had to do a few trimmings of runners this summer to keep the plants focussed on growing berries. The plants are looking great, nice and tall and full. As usual, the berries are red all the way through, full of flavour and oh-so-juicy. MMMM!

Tomatoes are one of the trouble plants in town. Everyone seems to be having issues, with a lot of people not even getting flowers. Our plants were full of flowers in July, with lots of tomatoes just patiently waiting for some good heat to ripen.

A little delayed, but August is going to be a good month for tomatoes. Some people we knew are sure that they will have minimal, if any, tomatoes this year. We will get lots, just a little behind schedule.

Our sweetie pie tomatoes are also on something this year. Like our carrots, they are much larger than they are supposed to be….which isn’t a bad problem to have.

Some of our “cherry” tomatoes are the size of our romas. They look like miniature big beefs, but not tiny like miniatures usually are.

Anyways, they are growing like crazy, so we know that they will be high in harvest numbers for August. Plus the size of them really brings the weight up.

The big beefs are not doing overly well. They are behind, and are definitely the lowest of the producers from all our tomato plants. We will get some, but definitely not as many as we had last year.

I actually think that I will skip big beef tomatoes next year. I prefer the sweetie pies and the romas as they are much more useful for what we use our tomatoes for. The big beefs are just so juicy that we don’t really use them other than on salad or on a sandwich.