Well, we are not quite halfway through the summer here in Alaska, thankfully. But I think we’re almost halfway through the gardening season as a lot of the produce is starting to ripen and we are starting to be able to eat fresh veggies from the garden. Well, fresh greens anyway.

Most of our garden is growing fantastic this year, and I’ve tried to be a lot more organic in my approach. It seems to be paying off. I do need to do a midseason fertilizer of blood meal for most of the plants in the garden. There has been a surprise dud that I have since replanted but hasn’t quite had time to germinate yet to see if it’ll finally grow.

The potatoes are growing fantastically this year. We had such a low yield last year, and I remember why I love having potatoes as it was expensive to buy potatoes all winter. I was able to start all my vegetables that needed to be started early here at home, and they are doing fantastic. The broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, and zucchini (all starts) are growing well.

The peas have shot up in the cooler temps we’ve had this past week. We also have beets that are growing great, lots of onions planted in a variety of locations, and carrots. This has been the unexpected dud. We have had some carrots sprout, but a large amount have not. The seed is new seed, so I’m not sure what happened. I had some extra seed from last year, so last week my husband, son, and I planted more carrots. These I have never had a problem with, so it was not what I was expecting.

This year I have also tried to plant a bunch more perennials, trying to create a food forest so to speak. Some I already had, the raspberries and rhubarb. Some I bought and planted this year, the strawberries, some blueberries, and a plum tree. A couple of years ago I planted a couple of sour cherry trees. My husband accidently sheered off one of them, but it came back strong this spring.

I’ve never grown strawberries before, so I am excited to see how they do over the winter, hopefully they’ll come back. The raspberries just keep on spreading, which I love. They’re in a nice contained area, and I have a second contained area that I transplant to each year. They are loaded with berries, and I’m excited to start picking. The plum tree, we’ll see if it survives. I think I waited too long to get it out in the ground.

I have really enjoyed gardening this summer. Partly because the weather has been so beautiful, partly because everything is doing so much better this year. I look forward to the harvest!