Ready or not, a lot is happening in the garden. Garlic scapes were ready to harvest, and I planted 78 cages of tomatoes in a separate plot. In addition to there being delays and seedlings growing too tall, not every plant is taking to the hot dry conditions in the soil. Some tomato cages were re-planted three times.

There is one more plot to dig. It will be centered on a row of tomatoes, with hot and sweet peppers on either side, followed by a row of everything else in the greenhouse.

We got rain last weekend and the greens plot shows it. I am waiting until Monday to harvest them as there will be a lot of extras for the food pantries. In my previous conversations with the two pantry managers, I learned there are never enough fresh greens.

The celery and celeriac are disasters. They got root bound and are struggling to take off in the ground. I will harvest some, but nowhere near what I had hoped. A six-foot space was completely gone, so I replanted with eggplant.

I made and canned a first batch of three gallons of vegetable broth. This continues throughout the summer until I fill a shelf on the storage rack in the basement. This year, I gave more thought to how I made it. Basically, five large carrots, a large onion, two bags of frozen “stock celery” from last year, bay leaves and then two gallon bags of frozen collards, and an equal amount of chard. To finish it, I went through one of the rows of leeks and cut off the outer leaves. It was flavorful.

Once the rain abated on Sunday, I planned to harvest and freeze collards for our kitchen. Alas! It rained all afternoon. Rain has been both a friend and an enemy this season. Whenever it rains, the garden is thankful.