I love your update
@Trudie - I totally feel the same way about gardening. I am not FIRE'd or I would be spending more time and growing more food in my garden.
@Jon_Snow - veritable garden porn those photos.
Farm Report
I spent a good chunk of time Sunday morning sweating out at the farm. I was a weeding machine. (By 11 am, it was 25C but with the humidex, it was 31C)
Everything is coming along nicely. We got a torrential rain at lunch that was about 1/2 an inch. It was so badly needed. I was hoeing dust.
I picked my first half -basket of pickling cukes and they are now soaking in brine. The two larger ones are in a vinaigrette in the fridge to make a quick pickle (or cuke salad). The balance will become dills. I am only going to do three bottles of dills in attempt to match storage with consumption. I am the only dill pickle eater. I make a nine day sweet gherkin type recipe that the kids love. It doesn't take much each day to do the step, but there is a step or two every day for nine days. If I am going to the effort for this, I want to have at least four baskets of cukes (12L in total). Last year I did 7L of cukes into gherkins and had to ration them. I paid $27 for the basket. I spent about $5 on two different types of seed because neither said they were specifically for sweet gherkins. (Last year I grew one hill and turned them into dills and relish - as I missed picking them small). There are so many cucumber beetles - but I killed as many as I could by hand but they are certainly going to be a problem. And I hope the plants will be bountiful all at once!
The black beans are coming along really nicely - I hope they start flowering soon. I did a good hand weeding. There is still a lot of twitch grass in the bed. I am hoping I can keep on top of it and then this fall get it tilled again and pull out the roots.
The raspberry canes were neglected last year as it was our first year without my Dad cracking the whip on raspberry maintenance. The crop is going to be way less as a result. I have been keeping them weeded a lot better this year and have a plan to get them back in top performance. I think we let them get to thick and did feed well enough. I am keeping them from suckering and am going to feed them heavy with a thick layer of rotted manure once they are finished picking. I didn't get to that in the early spring and thought that I shouldn't. There are large sections of rows that have completely died out. I plan to do some propagating once I get the weeds under control. The golden berry canes are almost entirely died out. I also suspect that we have a pollination problem - this spring the beekeeper moved his four hives off the farm so we didn't have the same number of pollinators.
The potatoes are all up over a foot high and I did not see a potato beetle. I have gotten them really well hand weeded. I need to keep working on the hilling.
Tomatoes are fruiting nicely or have an astonishing number of flowers. This is good because the plants in my city garden are 50% withering with wilt. I am coming to the conclusion that the soil in the city garden is contaminated with wilt in the soil and it is going to be 10 years before I should be growing tomatoes there again. Next spring, I am going to plant 6 plants on my front lawn for day to day eating and go big at the farm with the rest. I will just have to commit to going to the farm twice a week to pick. This might also mean that I could grow beets and carrots out at the farm as well. And reserve my garden in town for peas, herbs, greens and beans.
Another frustration or novice mistake. I have a huge harvest of basil right now. But no paste tomatoes for sauce making. I have all the pesto I need in the freezer. I have dried all the basil I need for the spice cupboard. I need to get the planting of the basil timed better so that the harvest coincides with canning time.