Sunrise this morning was at 3:39 am; sunset will be at 12:11 tomorrow morning for 21 hours 32 minutes of potential sunlight. Sunset is rapidly approaching being the same day as sunrise — sunset will be midnight by the 15th. We’re losing close to 6 minutes a day, now, and the sun dips nearly 3° below the horizon.

Plants can photosynthesize whenever they have light, as long as it is not too hot. If the temperature becomes too high, photosynthesis shuts down. The rapid growth of Alaskan plants is due to the fact that we have very long hours of light coupled with temperatures that rarely go too high for photosynthesis to occur. Result? I now have zucchini swelling almost visibly, beans in bloom, delphinium buds well over my head, ripe strawberries and more lettuce than I can keep up with.

This comes with a cost, of course. Many varieties of leafy greens (such as spinach) bolt to seed up here because of the long days, and we have to be careful to select varieties of others, such as squash, that do not wait for short days to start producing female flowers. Plants which require warm soil, such as squash, corn or tomatoes, are greenhouse crops or must be grown through clear or infrared-transmitting plastic. Raised beds help, but only so much. And unfortunately the weeds are affected by the growing conditions as much as are the more desirable plants.

So far this month, we have been getting water in afternoon and evening thunderstorms, but the last couple of days have been dry enough I’ll be watering today. Temperatures? Daily highs from the sixties to eighty; lows generally in the fifties.

The Farmers’ Market is open Wednesdays, Saturdays and Sundays, and I’m trying to market my book there on Wednesdays. At least that gives me first crack at the vine-ripened, though greenhouse-grown tomatoes. The mosquitoes, I’m sorry to say, are still around. At least I haven’t seen many yellowjackets this year.