And the garden is off! The heat of summer arrived late May and the tomatoes, beans, corn, and cucumbers haven’t looked back. To help you keep up with what’s growing at Cottage Farmstead this year, we’ve put together a June 2021 homestead video roundup highlighting the latest happenings around these here parts. Enjoy!
With the sudden vegetable garden growth, we began trellising our tomatoes with the string. I fell in love with string trellising tomatoes last year when helping @growinggreenff in their greenhouse. It just seemed to tame the jungle better, prevented blight, and the fruit was easier to harvest. So I knew I wanted to scale it down for our smaller homestead garden this year.
Not everything gleefully grew the first time, so we spent some time replanting a pepper that didn’t survive the freak late frost, old corn and bean seeds that didn’t sprout like we had hoped…and the rascal chickens that broke into the would-be sunflower patch.
To keep the garden growing happy and hale, we applied our favorite foliar feed–fish emulsion. It’s one of our favorite ways to help our garden thrive all season long. In addition to adding a bit of nutrition it also is a great time to slowly walk the garden keeping an eye on possible pest and disease issues. Farmer Nathan breaks down how to apply foliar spray step-by-step.
To make way for our growing winter squash and beans, we pulled out our garlic harvest for the year. SO MANY BULBS! They are currently drying on a rack in our garage, but we look forward to filling up the larder again.
Elsie went broody on us and on a whim I asked my sisters-in-law for some fertilized eggs to make her a mama. Subscribe to our YouTube channel or follow us on Instagram to be some of the first to see the cute baby chicks when they hatch!
We also took a couple strolls around the garden checking on progress. Join us for our mid-June garden walk:
Hope videos in this edition of June 2021 – Homestead Video Roundup help you grow your vegetable garden and inspire you to grow more food.