best raspberries growing out of cement

A walk around the garage yesterday revealed an exciting crop of wild (?) raspberries growing on the north side of the garage (with 4-ft tall stinging nettles!) and through a crack in the cement in front of the older side stall. There are other wild raspberries growing under a stand of mature pine trees, plus some more that grew out of a wood and trash pile back where I planted some bare root raspberry plants that haven't fruited. Those others have small fruits, though, and these ones growing by the garage have big, juicy, luscious fruits on them. I put a question mark on wild up on that first sentence because of the size of these raspberries. Whatever they are, they're impressively persistent. They have been sending up shoots inside the garage as well.

I'm working on pulling up more grass in the garden today, harvesting my peas finally, and putting in a fall crop of carrots, spinach, kale, and romanesco broccoli. I still haven't gotten around to mycoremediating the soil in front of the house with the oyster mushroom spawn. I guess I should get on it soon or I'll have to wait until next year. I harvested a reishi mushroom from my Fungi Perfecti indoor mushroom kit. More are growing.
I want to cultivate those outside too. I need to do more research on that first.

how my garden grows

It rained today for the first time in over a week, and like most areas of the United States, northern Minnesota has been rather hot as of late. Still, miraculously, the majority of the plants in my garden show no signs of water stress. I credit this to evening shade and tough love. I have found that most plants adapt to a lack of supplemental water, and that if watered too often, plants will begin to depend on it and wilt if the watering isn't kept up. Our high temperatures have remained in the double digits, so that has certainly helped as well. There were some casualties, though. Some of the peas died, and the rosemary I overwintered from last year and recently replanted in the garden is looking pretty bad, and a couple of the hardy kiwis (including the only male) have lost all their leaves to drought. Perhaps the rain falling now will bring the kiwis back (they seem to be rather tough--the ones I planted at work have survived trampling and neglect) and the rosemary.

I harvested two sunflower seed heads yesterday after working on staving off the invading grass. I saw some bees crawling all over the yellow wood sorrel (Oxalis stricta) flowers so I decided to let them remain in the garden. The peas are finally starting to form. The plants are growing so tall and erect, full of pretty white flowers.

The grasshoppers are abundant again this year. At first they weren't so bad, and the crows were showing up to eat them regularly (hopefully they still are--I just haven't noticed any). Then they started eating stuff I don't want them to eat. They have nibbled my rhubarb and turmeric down to nothing, they have bitten half-moons into many of the gladioli, and they have probably finished off my last remaining chamomile plant by now. Something--I'm not sure what--has eaten two of my rosemary plants entirely. I didn't think anything would eat rosemary.
I sprayed the biodynamic preparation 502  on the garden a couple of weeks ago. 502 is supposed to help plants maximize the energy they absorb from the sun, and it can be used to regenerate leaf damage. I was hoping it would give the watermelon radishes and red Russian kale the boost they need to stay alive after a brutal attack from the grasshoppers. Their frass (droppings) are visibly littered all around what is left of the poor plants. I don't notice much of a difference, but I remain hopeful they will pull through (um, long enough for me to eat them...)

The garden truly does feel magic this summer. I love having so much space and freedom to help facilitate the creation of this beautiful, edible landscape, and I feel energized by it and lucky to be its caretaker.