Welcome to June on the farm! Here is a summary of what happened last month. Besides being an informative article for you, the reader, I like to record what we did each month so that I can look back on it each year as we learn more about homesteading.

June on the Farm

The gardens have been the main focus in June! We finished planting everything we had planned: sweet potatoes, summer squash, etc. See my YouTube Short HERE.

We had some seeds fail to germinate, so we still hope to buy a few squash plants from the local garden center to put in those spots. I wasn’t able to buy spaghetti squash seeds in the spring, so I want to get at least one of those plants.

Our corn may be “knee high by the 4th of July”. It is our first time growing corn, so we are not expecting it to be a bumper crop.

Speaking of a bumper crop, our blackberries are loaded with blossoms and the bees love it. We DO expect a lot of blackberries! We always pick and freeze dozens of gallon bags each year. Check out my YouTube Short showcasing the Blackberries HERE.

I have been harvesting greens: spinach, lettuce, and kale. I made an egg, pork sausage, and garden greens casserole the other day – everything was from our farm! I love it when I can do a farm-to-table meal like that! (you can watch a short video my husband made featuring it HERE) Basil is starting to “pop”, but the cilantro is not doing well.

Strawberries have been delicious but few this year. I did make some strawberry rhubarb pies. I also made a Finnish Rhubarb Cake.

Our old cherry tree is bearing (some) fruit for the first time since we moved here in 2019 so our TLC has been working! We will continue caring for it – and hopefully, it will do better next year. Meanwhile, I think it is beautiful overhanging our table in the kitchen garden. I love the tranquility it produces (yes, I need to sand down and refinish the table ASAP)!

All of our fruit and nut trees are full of green leaves, but not many will bear fruit this year because they are still young. Our weeping mulberry tree IS bearing some fruit even though we planted it last winter; it is beautiful!

Farm Animal News

I am still milking goats. Everything is going quite smoothly now. We decided that our mixed breed goat most likely has Nubian in her plus a smaller breed. She gives us the most milk, but it is not as rich as our Nigerian Dwarf goat’s milk! I am mostly making yogurt and kefir. I strain some of the kefir for cream cheese. We are enjoying the gift of fresh, raw dairy daily!

We had Muscovy ducks years ago and gave our (elderly) neighbors some. We decided to stop raising ducks, but our neighbors continued to expand their flock. Now, our neighbors are downsizing their farm, so they offered our children two mama ducks with their ducklings and we accepted. So, now four of our children are raising ducks once again! Ducks are fun to watch. We will have duck eggs soon, and maybe duck meat eventually.

Our mama (mini) pig had piglets – 11 of them! We do not plan to continue breeding pigs, so this will be our last litter. We will raise them for meat.

Our Abigail Rose Garden

June is the month that all of the flowers budded and bloomed! It has been beautiful and so fragrant! Having a “memory garden” has been therapeutic for all of us. I will always be thankful for the evergreen tree our neighbors gave us when Abigail died because it inspired us to plant a garden in her memory.