Difficult summer but enjoying myself

Hello, been reading this sub and enjoying! In my neck of woods (Finland) it's been a super difficult summer gardening. May was on cooler side and through june to long into july we had once in a decade rains, just nearly constant downpour, and cool temperatures, very little sun. Then a couple of weeks ago a record breaking heatwave struck, no rain. It's like everything burst into growth at the same time like taking revenge, including weeds, while I was all the time watering cucumbers.

The winter squash is the only crop that actually failed, it's growing but hasn't set fruit. That's fine, I'll just feed the wines to my compost. Tomatoes are woefully late but red ones have been trickling down for a week now, soon it's going to be a deluge. Cucumbers having time of their life. Beets are ok now after I reinforced the fence, there's a big mean hare who thinks me it's personal gardener and is willing to jump a 80cm fence to get to my dill while on the next allotment unprotected dill grows just fine. While at it, it also helped itself to my kale and beets, the furry ass thug.

Overall having lovely time. Straw mulch is really helping with weed pressure and harbouring beneficial insects, breaking down on it's own to create a little humus. New things I'm excited about are growing a long variety of cucumber (Tanja) which has proven to be excellent eating, and composting with intent for once, trying to really make soil out of the weeds I have pulled. And this autumn I'm going to try sowing oats and peas for soil improvement. They'll be terminated by the winter and hopefully the roots will protect the soil from erosion during snowmelt. So exciting to try new things!

Happy gardening!