Welcome to July on the farm! 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.

July on the Farm

The gardens started producing more in July! All the plants started looking lush, abundant, and green!

So far, I have put fresh cilantro, basil, kale, and spinach in the freezer. I learned this trick last year: fresh herbs frozen in freezer bags are great for salsas, soups, sautees, etc. without the extra work of preserving them some other way.

I like some herbs dried, but the ones listed here are better “fresh”, so freezing them retains more of their fresh flavor (but, not texture). Herbs & Greens overview:

My spinach didn’t do great this year.
My basil is doing well.
The cilantro is average.
The kale and lettuce did okay, too.

Beets were another thing ready to harvest in July. I like to slice them and make refrigerator pickles for salad toppings, so I put 3 quarts in the fridge.

We got our first few handfuls of cucumbers and zucchini towards the end of July. I mostly make refrigerator pickles with the cucumbers and we have been eating the zucchini in a variety of ways: shredded in casseroles, sliced and sauteed, roasted, zoodles, etc. Yum!

We harvested our garlic at the end of July. We are curing them now and then I will use some to make 1 quart each of fire cider and fermented garlic honey to use throughout the year to fight sickness. We will save the rest to plant in autumn. We hope to continue expanding our garlic crop each year.

The children and I spent a lot of time weeding the garden. I also “spooned” our onions (a trick I learned from Ruth on Instagram) – it helped them grow wonderfully, but they are not ready to harvest yet.

My husband worked on the strawberry beds. He dug up the “mothers” in two beds and replanted the beds with “daughters” from our most prolific strawberry bed that he had collected during strawberry season.

I picked and ate the first plum from our young fruit tree! I prefer them a little underripe – it was delicious!

Our two rows of corn grew to 6+ feet tall in July! It is fun to walk between them and through the tunnel they create.

We also got our first harvest of blueberries from the several bushes we have. Only a few handfuls this year.

My husband and sons loaded hay from our local farmer’s field to fill up our hay barn. We are hoping it is enough to last until next year’s hay harvest season.

Farm Animal News

I still milk 3 goats every morning and 2 goats every evening. I am continuing with making yogurt, kefir, and kefir cream cheese!

Our ducks are laying eggs. We get about a dozen a week from two adult hens!

Our chickens provide us with an abundance of eggs. I filled up 3 gallon-sized jars with “lime water” eggs.

The mini pig sow and piglets are doing great. They are very active and dig a lot in the forest.

We are culling our meat rabbits this year and plan to only keep a few for pets. If we had to choose between chicken and rabbit meat, we prefer chicken. Since chickens also give us eggs, it makes more sense to put our time, energy, and resources (land use, etc.) towards chickens.

The children enjoyed playing in the neighbor’s creek which borders our property. A summer clothesline always includes swimwear!