Late last week I started to pick green beans and zucchinis. My beans were late compared to most of my friends, but now I am harvesting a large bowl every day. Beans are one of the things that I do like to blanch and freeze for the winter so I am going to start that soon.

This summer my plan is to “pick ’em young” and harvest both zucchinis and beans when they are small and tender. This requires some vigilance, so I am trying to get out there every day. I had my first small zucchini last Friday, we ate three more on Monday, and there are a few ready to pick today.

My big lesson (again) this year is: Give plants enough space. My cucumbers, zucchini and squash were all planted too close together and are not only competing with each other for space, but are crowding out the nearby chard, carrots and leeks. I made a super simple trellis with four bamboo sticks for the cucumbers and some of the plants have started to climb.

Other updates:

Last night it finally rained after more than six weeks of straight sunshine. The trees and grass have suffered in the heat so I hope it rains again soon.  Everyone hates when I say that, but I do like the rain.

The hive is “stagnating”. Two weeks ago Bryn added a new honey box because the other one was almost full. Yesterday he came by and the old box was still only 80% full and the new box was still empty. So he removed the new box with the hope that the bees will finish filling the old box. Although he didn’t see the queen, he saw lots of eggs and larvae.

This has been a great year for beets, chard and kale.