June 29, 2025

Garden Notes: June 2025

Rainfall

  • 5th: 0.01"
  • 7th: 0.31"
  • 8th: 0.19"
  • 12th: 0.11"
  • 13th: 0.51"
  • 14th: 0.02"
  • 16th: sprinkle
  • 17th: 0.25"
  • 19th: thunder
  • 24th: 0.17"
  • 25th: sprinkle
  • 26th: 0.32"
  • 28th: 0.03"
  • 29th: 0.12"
  • Total: 2.05 inches
 Temperature
  • range of nighttime lows: 57 to 72°F (14 to 22°C)
  • range of daytime highs: 79 to 95°F (26 to 35°C)

Weather Notes: 

  • Fortunately, it hasn't gotten as hot as our weather forecasts have predicted!
  • Small rainfall amounts are welcome, but tend to evaporate out of the ground quickly.
  • With the fairly frequent rain showers, the humidity has been high and so has the heat index!

Garden Notes

  • Every day has been busy with preserving. The month began with daily picking and canning of peaches, cucumber pickles, or greens. I've been able to rotate these in a way to keep busy but not overwhelmed. 
  • Sadly, something ate all of my dill transplants so I've had to buy dill for the pickles.
  • The peas are about done. I'll have plenty of seed to save for next year. I should try some of the dried ones in soup this winter. Maybe make a pea powder?
  • Lettuce all bolted by the end of the month, but little Swiss chard leaves are nice in salad.
  • Cherry tomatoes came on toward the end of the month, so our salads are now mostly cucumber and tomato.

Planted

  • sweet potato squash
  • buckwheat
  • sweet potato slips
Harvested
  • peaches
  • lettuce, cultivated
  • lettuce, wild
  • snow peas
  • lambs quarter
  • Swiss chard
  • oregano
  • mulberries
  • cucumbers
  • daikon radish
  • broccoli bites
  • beets
  • carrot
  • blueberries
  • cherry tomatoes
  • slicing tomatoes
  • Egyptian walking onions
Preserved
  • peaches, canned
  • peach vinegar
  • peach jam
  • greens (mix of chard, kale, and lambs quarter), canned
  • cucumber pickles, canned
  • mulberries, frozen
  • wheat berries, frozen
Photos

Garden pickings from early June

Garden pickings from late June

Jars of canned cucumber pickles

Bucket of peaches

Peaches and mulberries for breakfast

Jars of canned peaches

Making and canning peach jam

Bell pepper plant in the African keyhole garden

Preparing greens for canning: lambs quarter, kale, and Swiss card

Simmering greens for hot pack canning

Volunteer carrot. It grew in one of my greenhouse containers. It became a carrot raisin salad.

Wheat harvest

Preparing wheat for threshing. I use the dryer & golf ball method.

How's everyone else's garden doing?

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June 22, 2025

Solar Ventilation For the Little Chickens' Coop

 One last touch for the little chicken's coop was a small fan for ventilation. It's in a mostly shaded spot, except for a little sun in the morning. But Dan was concerned about helping keep the air fresh in the coop, so he added a ventilation fan. 

The fan he used came from an old 12-volt travel cooler. He used these coolers when he was on over-the-road truck driver. While they aren't true refrigerators, they keep the cooler contents cool by forcing air over a small fan with aluminum fins. It won't  actually cool the coop, but it will help keep a modest air flow going and that's the point. He just used what we had!


The fan is powered by a 20-watt solar panel, attached to one of the barn window covers.


It gets good sun in the afternoon, which is the hottest part of the day. Dan mentioned hooking the fan to a battery to run it at night, so that's a future possibility. 


No complaints from the chickens, at any rate. 
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June 14, 2025

Expanding Our Little Chickens' Territory

 Once our little chickens got into the routine of sleeping in their chicken coop (rather than under it), we opened the lower door and let them out to explore their yard. 



Our possible rooster is looking more roosterish. His comb is the most pronounced of
all the chicks, he's bigger, his legs are thicker, and he has hints of curled tail feathers.




They all come back to the coop at night, where they are safe from nighttime predators (skunks, opossums, owls, and raccoons). 

Typically, chickens start laying eggs around 5 months old. So hopefully in September I'll have our first pullet eggs to who you. 

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June 6, 2025

Moving Day for Little Chickens

At about five-weeks old, our little Buff Orpingtons are fully feathered and look like miniature chickens rather than chicks.


 Plus, they were starting to perch on the rim of their box.


I didn't want them hopping out of their pen, where they could inadvertently get stepped on by goats. So it was time to move them to the coop portion of the converted chicken tractor. 


It's roomier than their box. For the first couple of days, all the openings were screened off so they could look out and get used to their new surroundings. 


Then I removed the screen from the door to let them see what outside is like.





The ramp gives them access to the enclosed area under the coop. Soon we'll open the front and let them roam in their new chicken yard. I just want to make sure they know to go back to the coop at night.

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