This year, the skeeters are particularly bad - maybe because of our unseasonably rainy May. We sleep under a bug net every summer, but this year, I even read during the afternoon under the bug net! The insects circle me whenever I stand still to garden or sit in the hot tub, or try to eat on the front porch. My homemade insect repellent (vinegar with herbs) has been ineffective. We live a pretty organic life, but this month, we are burning chemical coils anywhere we linger for pleasure or projects and spray ourselves with DEET. Indoors, we wield battery powered tennis racquet-like bug zappers which are satisfyingly effective, but the burnt hair scent is pretty gross as we sizzle dozens of them that invade every time we open a door. Fortunately, their period of supremacy lasts only 3 weeks or so, and is waning as I write.
In June and July, our latitude enjoys about 20 hours of daylight, so we are very active during long days. To sleep well I wear an eye mask and outfitted our bedroom with black out draperies. Temperatures are great - high 40s(F) at night and 60-mid-70s during the days.
Because of the short growing season and maximum sunlight, everything grows super fast in June... whether you want it to or not. It is like watching time lapse photography. I love seeing the succession of wildflowers bloom, on the ground, and above, in bushes and trees. Dwarf dogwood carpets the ground on either side of our paths. Shy starflower peeks out from beneath shaded woodland plants. Eye-level, the white flowers of elder and cranberry nod in a breeze. The tallest flowers appear on ash trees that have evaded the reach of moose. I have been encouraging the growth of wild prickly roses, too, in a meadow and in between cranberry bushes. They bloom briefly in June, followed by bright orange/red rosehips, which look like firm berries. I harvest some elderflower for teas and wine and rose petals for salad and tea.
All of our domestic berry plants flower in June. The currants, haskaps (honeyberries) and saskatoons are the first to form fruit at the end of the month. Strawberries (which I grow both in a raised bed, with mint, and as a ground cover near the lake) and raspberries follow in July. With the extra rain we had this year, I anticipate a bumper crop, which I will can for enjoyment throughout the winter in all sorts of preparations. Of the various melomels (honey + fruit mead) I have attempted, raspberries produce the most consistently delicious result.
Naturally, June is a busy time in the yard. Because we free range our hens, we concoct various ways to keep them out of the garden beds and away from the haskap berries they favor. Right now, the haskaps and apple trees are surrounded by fencing that looks like Alcatraz for plants. This year, I wove a small wattle fence out of alder shoots around a 4 x 4 garden which required about 80 long shoots for 8 inches of fence height.
Every summer, my vegetable gardens are hit or miss. Some seeds are old, some plants succumb to aphids or other critters, others are wonderfully productive. And there are always surprises. This year, several potato plants are spontaneously growing from tiny potatoes that evaded my harvesting last year and three sunflowers grew in my greenhouse from seeds dropped last fall. Each year, I try a few new plants, among them, okra and tomatillos in the greenhouse and brussels sprouts and garlic outside. We will see how they fare. I am particularly enthusiastic about growing tasty perennials - less work and expense. Rhubarb and asparagus are robust and thyme overwintered this year. My new favorite perennials are horseradish and sorrel (a leafy green with a citrusy taste). We have added sorrel to many recent salads. Last night, I served a sorrel pesto with goat cheese for an appetizer. Tonight: a dip of horseradish leaf and three onions I grow here: scallions, chives, and leeks. Perhaps because of the rain, my brassicas are being chewed to lace by little gray sluggy things. Since that food is supposed to be FOR US, I quickly harvested a lot of it. I really like mustard leaf pesto, I have discovered. Other leaves I blanched and froze and then canned the broth for use in cooking this winter.
June is also a busy month for foraging. I let tasty lamb's quarter grow wild in my gardens because I like the nutty flavor of the leaves. Cleavers, mint, yarrow, leaves of the berry bushes, dandelion, plantain all dry on my outdoor drying racks if it is warm and dry or in a cold oven if the weather is damp. Over the course of a year, they find their way into food, home remedies, and shampoo. The aggressive mosquitoes abbreviated my forays so I am a bit behind.
CONSTRUCTION: Summer, of course, is the time to tackle various construction projects that we have envisioned all winter. This month, we built a 8 x 11 extension to the roof and walls of our wood corral. We made every mistake in the book but figured out how to correct them, and remain married, too. For some reason, the new doorway is our hens' new favorite spot for dust baths. I love seeing the five of them splayed out in shallow depressions they have dug, turning and tossing dust into their feathers and then standing to shake themselves clean. “A day at the spa.” We also restain or repaint various buildings every few summers, and add or replace steps or banisters or shelves. We are also, now, the proud owners of a two hole outhouse! The second seat is not for... uh... socializing, but because, after 12 years, the pit is getting full of... sewage... under the first seat. By cutting a second hole and wrenching out the dead root ball that blocked that side, we gain another year or two of use before we have to dig a pit elsewhere and construct a new outhouse over it. Since our current space is part of a larger building (the back 2/3 is the food shed or pantry), we will repurpose the 4 x 8 space for storage.
By the end of the month, the wild grasses can be five feet high - just in time to obscure the approach of bears, which we tend to see in July and August. So when all my seedlings are doing well in the gardens, I become a whirling dervish with the weedwhacker. I cut to ankle or shin height so I can see what plants “want” to grow in that spot, if the grass weren't so high. In this way, I have nurtured hedges of raspberry, loose thickets of cranberry, and dense ground cover of dwarf dogwood. More remote acres await a single cutting in late June before the seed heads form and spread a gazillion seeds. I have finally made my peace with devil's club. That perniciously spiky, prickly plant has well regarded medicinal value and rather attractive white flowers followed by red berries. If I keep it cut low, instead of cutting it out, its broad leaves retard the fast growing canary grass and other plants that I value more, like cranberry, rose, and star flower, seem to thrive in their presence.
All these tasks may sound like a lot of work, and they are, but they serve as an alternative to going to the gym or the supermarket or paying a carpenter. For us, the trade off is an appealing one, in a lovely setting, resulting in a welcome sense of accomplishment and great appreciation for a leisurely afternoon kayak, bath, and dinner, with whatever salad greens I have gathered that day.
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