June and Early July 2025 Farm Update
June was quite the busy month for us! Setting up a farm “officially” is a lot of work. That’s still going on in parallel to the actual work of farming (which doesn’t seem to wait for things like filling out forms or visiting government offices).
Cherries
Most of our time in June was spent harvesting, pitting, and processing cherries. Overall, we weighed 108 pounds of cherries from our three trees. This probably misses 10-20 pounds worth of cherries that were eaten directly off of the tree or before they could be weighed. Thankfully, about halfway through the harvest season, our neighbor Emma started helping us as a summer job. That made the work go much faster.
This year’s cherry products represent quite the eclectic mix, as we’re curious to see what actually sells. We made mostarda, jam, cherry sauce, cherry shrubs, extracts, liqueurs, and brandied cherries.
We bottled last year’s Bing cherry wine – 2 gallons resulted in 9 bottles after filtering – and started a new batch of Bing wine (which will result in another ~2 gallons). We also started 1 gallon of Queen Anne cherry wine from this year’s harvest. Having wine in progress means that we can run winemaking workshops that show the end-to-end process when it’s time to deal with plums and apples.
A nice benefit of having cherry wine is that we can turn it into cherry vinegar – which means that next year’s cherry products can be made with cherry vinegar instead of red or white wine, further emphasizing the flavor.
Flowers
What a stunning month for flowers it was, especially for the rose and yarrow displays. Some photos have been collected on the 2025 Flowers page. We sold several bouquets and gifted several more to teachers and for dance performances.
We’re starting the process of expanding our cutting gardens for next year. We’re growing additional yarrow and dahlias (our personal favorites), experimenting with new flowers (Zinnia, Calendula, and others), and collecting native wildflower seeds to put out in the fall.
We’re also planning on excavating one of our existing raised beds this fall to create a tulip garden. Not only would we be able to offer tulip bouquets, but we could completely stop irrigating the bed after the tulips are done, reducing the water needs over the summer. Win-win!
Mushrooms
We love growing our own mushrooms, but growing them at a larger scale certainly takes practice! The trick is managing the pipeline so that you have a steady supply of mushrooms coming – not so easy when your attention is pulled elsewhere, like cherry harvest and processing.
We have, however, been making progress on that front. We have white and pink oyster mushrooms in our greenhouse, where they can take advantage of the humidity and water used for the plants (though there are challenges too with pests!). Unfortunately, the current stretch of heat makes it unlikely we’ll get more in the near term.
We also inoculated several batches of lion’s mane and yellow oyster mushrooms. These are our final batches of mushrooms in single-use plastic bags (the most popular way to grow mushrooms). From this point forward, we will be using glass jars (“bottle tek”), buckets, and trays. This fall, we plan to harvest oak branches and inoculate them. While we have quite a dry climate, they will likely do well enough under our cherry tree, where they can receive near constant shade and frequent waterings.
“Weeding” the Mint
The previous owners planted spearmint, and it has absolutely taken over some of our primary food garden beds. We desperately need to get it under control. Emma has been “weeding” these beds – and we’ve been drying the mint for tea and making mint extract. It’s great when the “weeds” you need to deal with can be put to use!
Up Next – Harvesting and Processing Rye
We identified one of the volunteer grasses on a portion of our property – and it’s rye! So this year we’re experimenting with harvesting it by hand. We have a small mill here, so there may be some fresh rye bread coming your way in the near future. After we’ve threshed the grass, I plan to cut the straw and use it to grow oyster mushrooms.
Otherwise, we’re currently in a nice “break” – nothing urgent to take care of on the farm until our next big harvest push when the plums ripen!