July is here in full force: hot, muggy, and rainy.  July is one of the busiest months of the year for gardeners; it’s a time for harvesting beans, corn, tomatoes, and many other good vegetables. These vegetables must be canned or frozen almost immediately after they are harvested, otherwise the heat will cause them to spoil.  This would be devastating to a gardener if it happened, and a big loss of food for winter months.

This season is much like last season — the gardeners are mostly new and need a lot of help. The more experienced gardeners get upset because we haven’t been able to get all the supplies in a timely manner like we used to be able to, but we have worked to resolve all of those issues. We still need tools, but we are trying our best to have a good season, and we will.

Unfortunately, we have had some gardeners or family members of gardeners get sick. Several cases of Covid-19 have been reported. However, we have not had much complaining about deer or rabbits eating everything in the garden. The weather in March and April was rough on gardening, with ice, snow, and more than enough rain. This made planting late for people, and several vegetables are just now growing.

People who got to plant earlier in the year on some of the pretty days are getting cucumbers, squash, and other vegetables. We should have plenty of potatoes this year; in fact, some folks are eating potatoes from their garden already. Some of the other groups are going great, even though they, too, were late planting.  Story Hour at the Library has nice big raised beds growing potatoes, onions, tomatoes and cucumbers. The new Youth Group did not get to start until late, but their raised beds are doing quite well. 

Our gardeners are doing very well, and I believe we will have a really good year. As it is now, our gardeners are already calling in huge harvest report numbers.