This summer is just flying by. I don’t know if that’s a good thing or not. Work days are flying by too, well kind of.

I do not enjoy doing sheetrock. But boy, after doing tongue and groove for almost 2 weeks, in some ways I’d have preferred the sheetrock! But, it is finally finished and it looks fantastic. It smelled pretty good when you walked in before we put the finish on it as well. Hopefully it’ll go back to smelling good once the finish dries.

I am not usually a fan of all wood, wood floors, wood walls, wood ceiling. But, for what it’s meant to be, it really is pretty. The owner is currently laying down the flooring, and then we’ll have to go back in and install interior doors, base trim, and the cabinets. This job is fast approaching being finished.

While the flooring is being installed, we have been out working on the deck. It’s not quite finished, but it’s getting close. This afternoon it started to rain on us, so we decided to call it a day. My husband was tired and had a package at the Post Office he was excited to pick up. I can’t say my back was upset about being done though either.

While we have been hard at work with our jobs, the greenhouse and garden have been growing beautifully despite my neglect. I do get everything watered, but no weeding has been done since June. It’s one of those – it is what it is – kind of things I guess.

I have struggled growing broccoli for the last couple of years, I get small shoots of broccoli rather than large heads. The small shoots are edible too, but it takes a lot of them, and I want big heads. Well, this year I set my mind to getting the watering done every single day, sometimes in years past, if it looked like rain, or rained at all, I just decided that was enough. I learned last year that was not the case. Gardens need lots of water.

This year even when it did rain, unless it was supposed to be over 1/4 of an inch, I got out in the rain and watered it anyway. Well, it paid off, or mostly. I planted about 12 broccoli plants. 5 of them have produced beautiful, large heads of broccoli! The other 7 are doing the small shoots thing again, but I am just so excited about my 5 large heads!

The other thing that thrills me to no end, is my tomatoes. Last year was my first time growing in my greenhouse and we did get tomatoes. But, my nutrients were off and I had a lot of blossom end rot that ruined at least half of the tomato, or the whole thing sometimes.

This year, no blossom end rot, and the tomato plants are so much healthier as well, they are loaded with tomatoes. The cherry tomatoes have been producing tomatoes now for about 2 weeks. It started out just one or two each day, but yesterday I went and picked 12 or 15 cherry tomatoes.

The large tomatoes have obviously taken a bit longer to ripen, but yesterday was the day. I finally have 3 very large beef steak variety tomatoes ripe, and then several medium size tomatoes, as well as those cherry tomatoes. My Roma tomato plants are loaded with tomatoes, but they look like they’ll be a while still.

I don’t even really like raw tomatoes, except in fresh salsa, but the ability to grow them myself is thrilling to me. Here in Alaska, there are very few varieties that grow outdoors, and the ones that do are fairly new hybrids. Most of the ones I am growing in my greenhouse wouldn’t be possible outdoors.

I guess the last thing that produced quite well but has finished up it’s growing season is my green beans. I planted them in my greenhouse and they thrived. I’ve picked a lot, we’ve eaten a lot, and I saved 4 jars to make dilly beans with for the holidays. I am not a huge fan of green beans either, but again, thrilled they did so well, and I actually find roasted green beans and dilly bean to be fairly good.

I know I hate to think about it, but summers in Alaska are very short, and this one is going to come to an end long before I’m ready. But, it’s been a good summer, we’ve gotten a lot of stuff done, and in some ways, winter will be a bit of a reprieve from the hustle that this summer has been.

Also, the empty bed in the picture above. My peppers got infested with aphids. Remember the neglect I mentioned. Well, I finally harvested what I could off the plants and pulled everything out. I treated the bed with neem oil and have waited about 10 days. I am planning on doing a late planting of greens, some spinach, my husband wants some head lettuce. Things like that that will be easy to keep warm well into the fall and cooler, even freezing temps outside.

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