Lots of food and a little hope about Cabbage Butterflies

This week marks the beginning of the time when there is a lot produced by the yard. We have been getting about 4 cups of strawberries a day for the last week and have picked 16 cups of rhubarb. Now the Saskatoons are ready, and we are eating kohlrabi, cucumbers and beans. The peas are also getting ready to produce, but I think we are a week away on them.  We are also eating beat greens, chard, spinach, lettuce and a myriad of herbs.

All this food has produced the typical seasonal eating. This includes lots of types salads, pesto, strawberry pie, tabbouleh, strawberry rhubarb crisp and a great new rhubarb BBQ sauce Mike is making. Since the Saskatoons are ripe in the yard, we hope to go and pick what we'll freeze at a U-pick next week, as our two small bushes just make a few handfuls at this point.  I think we'll also be picking raspberries in the next week, and this looks like it will be a great summer for them.

My biggest organic triumph of the year is the kohlrabi, but I am still nervous about them. Last year they were decimated by cabbage white butterflies, who lay single white eggs on the underside of the leaf. These hatch into nearly invisible green caterpillars, who hide on the underside of the leaf and munch the leaves. I have a few holes in the leaves this year, and have seen some white butterflies, but the floating row cover I made seems to be working so far.  I am worried the mesh is too large (I have caught butterflies inside it so I have good reason to be concerned), and I don't want this to turn into another negative lesson learned. So far this seems a much better year than last year - almost everything in the garden and most flowers are ahead by about a week.