I feel like I begin every one of these posts complaining about the temperature, so to keep with tradition, I’m going to start things off with a weather whine. Friends, it’s hot out. Like, oppressively hot… the kind of heat that makes you break into an instant sweat when you leave you comfort of your air conditioning. The humidity has reached levels the local meteorologist refers to as “soupy.” I am not built for “soupy.” I’ve been racing outside to water the second my body is able to get moving each morning, but it’s already toasty out in the sunshine. I shouldn’t complain- I know the way that weather karma works. Every annoyed huff out of me now is going to equal that many more days of bitter cold next winter. Alas, here we are.

I wasn’t able to get the weeding done that I wanted last week, but I did harvest quite a few veggies. We have two pumpkins sitting inside the pantry now. Every other day, I’ve been picking green beans to blanch and freeze. The tomatoes and peppers are also ripening quickly- we seem to have more to harvest each day. I managed to get the tomatoes tied up again last week. They have been growing like wild and needed a little more support. I have a few more leeks, potatoes, and carrots that I’ll probably pick this week. I’m hoping these last few carrots thicken up before the heat makes them bolt.

In Insect News, we’ve had a lot of wildlife activity in the garden. Our second black swallowtail butterfly hatched just this morning. I wanted to take her picture, but the second I opened the flap in our butterfly house, she took off. No paparazzi allowed!

The monarch caterpillars continue to grow. They are happily devouring the milkweed plant I have inside the butterfly house, and have tripled in size in just about a week. They have about a week more to grow before they will form their chrysalis’s. It really is wild to watch them grow so quickly. They look like different creatures every day.

This morning, while out watering, I saw something really odd. On our pokeberry bush, there was a katydid, that was in the process of molting. I didn’t even know they did this, but a trip to Google informed me that katydid’s molt five separate times, shedding their exoskeletons just like our monarch caterpillars. They stop growing after that point, having developed wings to fly off and enjoy their little katydid lives. I’ve seen a handful of these well-camouflaged insects in our yard over the years, and I hope to spot even more as summer carries on.

That’s about all that I have for the week. We’re expecting some thunderstorms a few days, brewed up from all this hot weather and humidity. I desperately need to get some weeding done in our shade gardens and the compost pile needs to be flipped. Perhaps the mood will strike one of these mornings.

I also have some more herbs to harvest, and some bolted lettuce to add to the compost pile. We were able to enjoy quite a lot of it before the heat struck. There’s a bit more growing in the shade on the deck, and I’ll probably plant a few more pots in the shade next month so we can have fresh lettuce this fall. I’ve really become a total lettuce snob since I started growing it myself. It’s just so delicious straight out of the garden.

Hope you have a wonderful week in your garden!