Homestead Journal - Summer at Cobble Hill Farm (entry 4)

 The flowers are in bloom, the garden is just about to burst with fresh produce, and the birds are busy with their littles.  Summer is here!

We've had all of the weather, as most of you likely have, featuring a lot of rain and sunshine.  On the plus side, our rain has not caused any local flooding (something to truly be grateful for), and it has meant that I haven't had to worry about watering gardens or flowers too much as of yet.

My mini garden, as I've taken to calling it, is doing pretty well.  There was a couple of weeks that I was concerned about the health of the plants, but a little more fertilizer and mulching it with freshly cut grass (adding nitrogen) seemed to perk everything right up.  Because there appeared to be a nutrient deficiency my pepper plants have gotten off to a slow start, but they should have plenty of time to catch up.

I'm still harvesting sugar snap peas.  Can you believe it?  I'm also continuing to harvest lettuces.  We've had some high temps, but they haven't yet caused bolting on the lettuce or stressed the sugar snaps so much as to stop producing.  I expect that could happen this week.

We have tomatoes!  All are green, but I'm just thrilled to have them.  We have cherry tomatoes and large slicers on the vines.  I'm hopeful that we'll be harvesting the cherry tomatoes in a couple of weeks and we can't wait!  

While I'd like to say I have a specific meal in mind for the first of the tomatoes, the truth is, we'll be eating them right off of the vine for the first few weeks.  Once the newness wears off then I'll be featuring them in a bunch of summer dishes.

The summer squash is doing well.  These plants were also stunted so they are still small but are finally bearing fruit.  I had to hand pollinate all of the squash plants as they weren't getting pollinated by bees.  Where are the bees?  It's concerning, to say the least.

We have cucumbers the size of my pinky finger on the vines so we should be harvesting those within the week.  The broccoli plants did not do well this year, so those were pretty much a bust, and the green beans are all looking great.  I planted quite a few and will put more seeds in this coming week so we are sure to get our fill both fresh and for the freezer before their season comes to an end.

Our fruit trees are loaded.  The squirrels have been busy stealing mini pears and asian pears and the birds have been busy scouring blueberries from the very full bushes at the first glimpse of blue.  The trees should be fine - we should still have plenty, and we need to move the blueberry bushes into more sunlight, add additional bushes, and then cover them with netting.  So, the birds will enjoy the bounty for another year.

Thankfully, the work we put into double fencing the garden area has worked to keep out our resident woodchucks, bunnies, and everything else with exception of chipmunks, squirrels and birds.  And honestly, you could never keep those three out.  We hope to have a nice harvest this year.

As mentioned in my meal-prep post, I haven't baked too terribly much since the temps got above 80 degrees (Fahrenheit) but when I do turn the oven on, I make sure to fill it with anything we could possibly desire.  Including baked items to store in the freezer.

I've been enjoying my time away from the internet.  This has given me a lot of time for reading.  The last 3 times I picked up books from the library, the librarian said she was overwhelmed by the number of books I was checking out.  I thought that was funny.  I do check out a few extra just in case there are some I decide not to read after starting them.  I can always extend my checkout date if they all end up being winners.  

I'll share a post specifically on books I've read soon, but currently I'm re-reading (affiliate link) Growing A Farmer: How I Learned To Live Off The Land by Kurt Timmermeister. I originally read this about 10 years ago and remembered that I enjoyed it, so I thought I would read it again so that I could officially add it to an upcoming books post.  I'm happy that I did!  

This is Kurt's story of how he went from a Seattle-based restaurateur to purchasing a dilapidated property with 2 houses on it on Vashon Island and creating a farm.  This is not a how-to book rather a memoir-style read, and I can't help but think how difficult it must have been back when he started this adventure to have built up a small farm as well as many products from scratch (vinegar, hard cider, cheese, etc.). The book was written in 2011 so I would assume this was set in the late 90's/early 2000's.  Nowadays we are inundated with resources but back then, not so much. 

If you find yourself looking for a homesteading-style book to read, I hope you add this one to your list!

Oh, those coop girls.  They have slowed down on laying, and I don't blame them.  But they are doing well.  The photo above is from eggs we received this week.  The one in the center is a regular large egg.  You just never know what you'll be collecting out there in the coop!

Wishing you happy summer days filled with sunshine and garden bounty.