It is hard to believe how busy we are these days. The boys were scheduled to perform at an outdoor event with the Chelsea House Orchestra Saturday evening. We had a hail storm that afternoon and then rain. The festival coordinators canceled the event at the last minute. The sun came out again so we took advantage of our evening at home and the wet ground and set to work weeding our raspberry row. With all of us working we were able to get finished fairly quickly. We then came in and played cards.
Last night P. and I took a walk around and surveyed the garden areas. We saw little pears,
and our freshly weeded, 250 foot raspberry row along the side of the path.
We had the idea this year that we would stop mowing some of the areas that we usually mow. Since pumpkins are supposed to grow well where there was previously lawn, we decided to plant them in these areas. Here are some of our over 90 hills of pumpkins. I am not sure what we will plant in these areas next year. I would like to find something that the chickens can eat that requires relatively low labor. 
We saw a little hail damage on our onions.
Not so much on the potatoes. Maybe it is the rye... We planted our potatoes in rows within the garden plot of rye. The rye was there already and was, of course, not ready to harvest. We left the rye and dug the rows for the potatoes. We have carried mulch down the rows. We have noticed that they are growing very well in this environment. The potato beetles have not found them there. I think that the tall rye protects them a bit. 
