oh my gosh! Lughnasadh is just a few weeks away. Soon it will be time to begin the first big harvest of the season.

I feel as though I spend ALL year waiting for this very moment where all of the seeds we have planted begin to bear fruit and we finally get to start harvesting our bounty and filling our pantry for winter.

I hold so much gratitude in my heart for what we have but I must confess that I hold a touch of envy gazing at all the gardens out there that have been bountiful for weeks (or months) longer that ours

Last night we had a heavy storm for two hours which cleared away the heavy heat and humidity that had been weighing us down. We woke to an awesome fog that slowly lifted and revealed beautiful blue skies. A perfect day really. The air is cooler and a much welcomed relief. Today it is raining again and I feel blessed.

Lughnasadh marks the beginning of the harvest. It is a time to celebrate the bounty from the seeds that we have sown in spring.

The essence of Lughnasadh is the joy of life under the knowledge that darker times are moving in. We take in the warming rays of the Sun and store their power for the times coming.source

Welcome to our July garden. This place that also serves as our office, apothecary, grocery store and sanctuary.

The New Garden

We broke ground to build this garden three summers ago. This is the first time that it has been productive.

The soil here is heavy clay and amending it naturally using mostly what we make ourselves has been a test of patience. We use only a broadfork on these beds and mound up the soil in a raised bed style.

The garden is surrounded with wild flowers, young fruit trees and shrubs. We would eventually like to have a lot more shade producing trees and shrubs around the garden. I would like to have a garden that is hidden in a forest, I don not like having a wide open field.

Let's zoom in a bit on that foggy morning photo

Along the perimeter of the beds are wild flowers such as black eyed Susan, oxeye daisy, thistle, rough fleabane & wild caraway that just grow wild and free.

Pole beans - hopefully they'll be climbing the poles soon. I need to add string to this structure today. The open bottom buckets are holding squash. The buckets will soon need to be removed.

This is a long row of buckwheat. We are using it to help build up the soil with organic material and also to attract pollinators. I have noticed that we have fewer bees in this garden that the more established and diverse raised bed garden.

Three small rows of potatoes, thistles filling an empty patch (along with some rogue garlic), bush beans, assorted herbs that are not doing great but surviving (lavender, thyme, dill, sage and some others ... hopefully this bed will look better in a few weeks) and buckwheat.

Mammoth beets, herbs and assorted weeds. The thistles are everywhere this year.

A bed of creeping thistles. I figure they will help break up the soil.

The L shaped bed

Garlic, onions and squash. The squash are doing very poorly in this bed. It is all about getting the soil right and this corner of the bed has been giving us trouble. Nothing likes growing here.

This bed contains: garlic, onions, squash, sunflowers, corn and Ethiopian lentils. There is also an herb spiral and small frog/bird/dog/critter pond in the corner of the 'L'. This bed is also packed with weeds! I just haven't had the time to work on it. I'll try to walk you around the bed because I can't get it all in one frame.

The corn is not as tall as it should be but if Autumn is reasonable we should get a small crop this year.

These are the Ethiopian lentils (not a true lentil). These draught tolerant plants are thriving. I am really eager to see how this small crop produces. They seem to be thriving in the heavy clay soil and drought so this crop shows a lot of promise.

The sunflowers are not as tall as they should be but I am quite hopeful that we'll have a field filled with those cheerfully sunny heads before winter comes. These are all from saved seeds.

The herb spiral is starting to fill out. This is packed with: dill, sage, tarragon, chives, savory, golden oregano and a few others that I can't recall right now.

Fruit Tree Sadness

Drought has been a big challenge for us and unfortunately the cherry trees that were planted last year appear to be dying.

The three cherry trees were looking amazing until about three weeks ago. We've pruned, fed and nurtured them and they have been hand watered but still they are not happy.

The Raised Bed Garden

The raised bed garden is all fenced in and is attached to the greenhouse. It is quite a wild garden for being in a raised bed format. I pack as much into this space as I can and I don't really plan it out anymore. Its my creative space. Each bed is packed with an assortment of plants.

This year we are growing: raspberries, blackberries, grapes, strawberries, tomatoes, cucumbers, squash, beans, peas, kale, cabbage, beets, carrots, nasturtium, borage, garlic, onions, green onions, celery, horseradish, mint, tarragon, oregano, parsnips, chicory, purslane, sunflowers, buckwheat, feverfew, sneezewort, assorted flowers and I'm sure I am forgetting things!

The front gate to the garden is a bit wild. The grapevine is huge this year and you need to duck and push your way under the arbour to get into the garden. Along the patch to the garden it is a mess of roses and wild stuff!

A view from the greenhouse door.

Parsnip seed ready for collecting. Parsnip is biennual so you need to allow it to overwinter and grow again in order to save seeds.

Wild rough fleabane

Heirloom beets. We have 3-4 varieties planted including bulls blood and chioggia. For the first time nothing has been chewing on the leaves! I've been munching on beet leaves all week in my salads.

The tomatoes are finally growing fruit and we have enjoyed one ripe tomato so far this season!

The raspberries are starting to ripen. As soon as this storm is finished I'll be picking berries and eating as many as I can. The downside to having raspberries in your vegetable garden is that they are quite aggressive. I have suckers popping up with the beets and in a few other nearby beds. I don't mind this but it's a good thing to be mindful of.

We always let some of the garlic flower and the seeds will fall in random places and grow wherever it wants. This is growing beside one of the raised beds.

Finally some flowers on the beans! The raised bed garden is about two weeks ahead of the new in ground garden as far as production. We planted it first because the soil warms much more quickly in these raised beds than the ground. We grow a LOT of beans. I am vegetarian so this is an important protein for me.

The carrots are doing great. We have been succession planting them so every week I sow new carrot seed. I have finished planting all the seed for this year and with luck and good weather we will have plenty of carrots for winter this year.

We also have carrot in flower so we can save seeds. Carrots are also biennual.

Oregano in flower - there are about 50 baby bumble bees buzzing around this patch. I wish you could hear it. Bees love oregano! This patch is close to the house, but there is also one like it in the raised beds (forgot to snap a photo).

We have a handful of squash and pumpkin planted and a melon as well but they are not doing great. The cucumber beetles have been a nightmare this year. We've tried netting, the sticky cups and of course diligent hand picking but these little bugs are winning. Hopefully something else will come along and help me out. I've notice ants chasing them and we've seem some toads.

Slugs & Mulch

All the beds are mulched with a thick straw to help retain the moisture in the ground. This is quite essential around here with the heavy drought.

I also have beer traps down for the slugs. We have a big problem with slugs. I do go hunting for them in the dusk and dawn as well but the traps work well and seem to only attract/kill slugs and no beneficial bugs. One of the issue with having mulch is you provide slugs with a hiding place.

More Food ...

Outside of the main gardens there is also the greenhouse and we also have a young apple orchard that I will hopefully remember to photograph some day. It is nestled between many coniferous trees and seems to be doing really well. The leaves are shiny and healthy and I'll just remain optimistic about this.

In the far back of the property there is a large blackberry/raspberry field that was planted this year. It's struggling a bit to get established in the hard packed clay and drought but if anything can make it back there, those raspberries will.

Perennial Edibles

We also have a large patch of lavender along with oregano, rhubarb, Jerusalem artichoke, horseradish, chives and rugosa rose scattered around the property. Edible perennials are a big priority for us and we plant as much perennial food as we can every year.

Lastly, there is the forest that also provides us with nourishment. I'll leave all of that for another post though because I think I might have gotten a little bit carried away with this one! If you made it this far, thanks for sticking around!

Join the fun and share your garden with the tag #gardenjournal2018. Learn more about the SteemIt Community Garden Journal Challenge from @simplymike

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