Trying to crowd everything into the upper garden this year just did not work. I'm used to two micro climates and space to really grow. Plants were shaded which needed full sun...and companions were difficult to isolate from antagonists. We did not make our goal of a subsistence garden. The past decade and a half has spoiled us. I need to revamp the upper garden and reclaim the lower garden I've let go fallow. My bad. Trying to downsize in the garden was not an area in which getting small was a success story. I feel motivated, though. The weather was very strange this summer. Nearly perfect in every way until the 4th of July...and then along came 6 inches of rain in a few hours...followed by a string of thunderstorms and heavy rains. It rained again yesterday a couple of inches. That's over 20 inches in a month or so. I was ill prepared. Coupled with the high humidity were temperatures more akin to the south. Rarely do we have hot and humid periods lasting more than a week during the summer. This was different. There are more mosquitoes in the past month than I can ever remember here. Is this the new 'normal'? Will it continue? Will the winters be harsher and the summers become more turbulent with each passing year?
This fall will be a flurry of activity. Harvesting wild rice (we'll need more to supplement our food stores this winter), preparation of both gardens. Culling winter killed fruit trees, transplanting others we have in reserve. Adding on to the house off the front room as we did off the kitchen last fall. Get firewood under the third woodshed which is now complete. (We must have 8 years of fuelwood on hand now)...
Learning and relearning. Stumbling and brushing ourselves off. Making changes.
I need the exercise.
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