It's been raining here for weeks. Which is very unusual for July. Usually we will get a stretch of hot mosquito ridden weather, where we turn on all the fans in the house and dream of air conditioning. But July has brought us nothing but overcast skies, a cool fall time feeling days, and heavy rains.

Which has affected my garden immensely if you can imagine.

I was gone for almost a week to attend and sell my wares at WEIO in Fairbanks Alaska and just got home yesterday so the change in the plants was pretty noticeable to me. I had the most amazing time visiting and chatting and general hob-nobbing. I forget how much I like to talk! I also forgot to take photos, I even left my camera behind in the rush to get there. It was awesome to meet some of you all!

I thought I would just do a run down of what all the plants are doing so that those who are curious can enjoy the update and maybe offer some advice!

Plants that are doing extremely well despite the weather are: green peas, oats, cabbage, and potatoes. Though I suspect their growth is slowed down a bit. They are all green and happy and growing, and they almost glow in the gloomy weather.

So-so plants: My tomatoes are probably the best fighters in the arena surprisingly. The early variety and the spoon variety both have grown flower buds and now they are just beginning to open, which has me so excited! They are protected a bit from the rain, as they are under a small amount of leafy willows and are positioned to get all the morning and afternoon light. My echinacea plants are steadily growing, though they do look like their leaves are not as green as they should be. The garlic is doing okay, we actually dug one up because we had a garlic emergency situation and though the bulb was small it was tasty! The pepper plants have probably suffered the most from all the rain, and we have actually taken to covering them up in the heavy downpours. I suspect it has something to do with the box I have them in also, which is small. They have started creating flower buds and some new leaves though which is good and bad. My carrot sprouts are growing slowly, and I wonder if they will actually be able to produce anything with the weather misbehaving. The oriental peas have started showing signs of unhappiness, they stopped growing and started yellowing a bit, which is a huge contrast to the other green peas. The corn are about six inches tall at most, and I doubt they will mature if the it continues with the weather trend, we also cover them up a bit when it gets chilly out. My lettuce plants are still tiny, about 1 1/2 inches tall, and are growing very slowly.

Meh plants: the squash still look horrible and stunted. I’m pulling them this week completely. Next year I think I will put them in better soil. The radish bolted, with only half the plants producing a big enough bulb to pull and eat. They are also being dug up this week though I think I will try and see if I can plant another round before frost since they grow so fast. We were able to dig up and eat about two dozen of them and they tasted wonderful. My tiny little spinach plants are the most interesting. It looked like something came along and nibbled the tips off though I haven’t been able to figure out what. What plants are growing have already developed what looks like flower buds…which look odd on the small 2 inch plants. The weather is doing a doozy on them I think.

I have also noticed a huge amount of brown golf tee looking fungus (cup fungus?) growing happily in the boxes. I carefully scoop them out with the edge of my trowel as I find them. For some odd reason they kind of gross me out, with their slimy surfaces and disease looking growth patterns.

I did add a little bit of blood meal to the nitrogen loving plants and some kelp last week to everyone to try and help them survive me, but I can’t tell if it worked. I have started saving stuff for this fall to try and help add nutrients and organics to the soil, like fish bones and egg shells and veggie leafy left overs. I put them all in our freezer for now in plastic bags, hoping the temperature will help break them down a bit. I plan on grinding and smooshing everything up and burying it in the garden boxes before the freeze up. Hopefully if I time it right it won’t attract animals. A man from the Fairbanks area said it worked well for him, though he says it probably made it too nitrogen rich for his tomato plants to make fruit.