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June, for us, is the month of transition from spring to summer. During this month, the last of our spring crops finish blooming – and while it will be a while yet before our summer cutting garden is in full bloom, we’re putting lots of warm-loving plants in the ground in anticipation of that late summer abundance.
June often feels long. There’s a lot of work that needs to be done and it’s not uncommon for us to put in some long days to make sure everything gets completed right on time…
I’ll be honest, June used to stress me out. But over the years, I’ve gotten better at pacing myself and knowing how much of a workload I can realistically accomplish. What’s even better is that as I’ve gained experience, I’ve become more efficient at these annual tasks. Chores that used to take days, sometimes now take hours- and this has naturally allowed me to take on more without feeling overburdened.
Related: Building A Flower Farming Business Without Burning Out- Here’s How!
Now, with all this talk about work- let’s actually dive in and share exactly what sort of work we accomplished for the month of June!
Main Tasks:
Pumpkin Planting
This year has been particularly dry. In fact, conditions were severe enough to be considered record-breaking for our area.
Not exactly ideal pumpkin planting weather…
As much as I wanted to get our pumpkins in the ground early, I knew that putting seed into the ground wouldn’t do any good unless we had some rain to go along with it. You see, our pumpkin field is over 5 acres of unirrigated ground. We rely on Mother Nature to provide the rain that will keep our pumpkin field hydrated all season long.
One of the hardest lessons I’ve learned while working with Mother Nature is that conditions won’t ever be perfect and it’s up to us to make the most out of the cards we’re dealt. And that’s what we did this year… we planted our pumpkins a little later than we’d normally like (on June 10th), but we timed our planting with the best chance of rain we could find in the forecast.
We hope that this will give us the best chance for an abundant harvest of pumpkins come fall. Only time will tell!
Potting Up Our Mum Plugs
Nothing goes better with fall pumpkins than potted mums and June is the time of year when we finally get our chrysanthemums in their pots.
By now, all the prep work- like filling our pots and setting up our irrigation, that’s all done. All that’s left to do is to add our mum plugs into their corresponding pots once they arrive from our plug supplier.
This year we growing several hundred more mums than we have in previous years and I’m truly excited to see what grows. We have, what I think, is a great line-up of color combinations planned and I simply can’t wait to see the finished product in a few short months.
Related: How We Grow Our Potted Mums for Our Fall Farm Stand
Plugging Away in the Garden
Our summer cutting garden is a never-ending project. Even though the initial flush of dahlias and annual flowers are planted in late May/Early June, the truth is, that in order to have flowers blooming all season long- we have to consistently plant waves of flowers.
Each week we plant even more sunflowers and every few weeks, as transplants become ready, we fill even more beds with successions of summer favorites like zinnias and cosmos.
By diving up our plantings it does help to make the workload more manageable. The other advantage of having multiple plantings of flowers is that should something happen to a bed of flowers (like a wind storm that topples over mature plants or powdery mildew that devastates a row of flowers) there’s always more flowers coming into bloom to replace any that may be damaged or lost to disease.
What’s in Bloom:
Our hardy annuals – many of which were planted last fall – are the true stars of June. I haven’t always grown hardy annuals as I’ve found their timing to be a bit difficult to master, but the more seasons I try my hand at growing them, the better results I seem to experience.
Our late spring garden is tiny compared to our summer cutting garden but even on a small scale, it’s so fun to get to experience unique spring varieties like campanula, yarrow, feverfew, rudbeckia and more!
Things I’m Loving:
With so much time dedicated this month to planting and getting my hands in the dirt, I find that my hands take the brunt of it all. Yep, my hands are always unbelievably dry and cracked after spending excessive amounts of time in the garden. I recently purchased this working hands cream, hoping it would make a difference- and wow, even I was surprised by how well it worked.
I’ve definitely felt pulled in a lot of different directions as of late. With so many responsibilities to tend to, there are definitely areas of my business where I have dropped the ball…
… With our YouTube channel especially, I have been sporadic with the sharing of new content. I truly do enjoy sharing so much of our flower journey over there and to help get me back on track, I recently purchased this book. I thought I knew a lot about what goes into creating a successful channel- but this book truly opened my eyes to how to effectively create + share content so that you’re able to scale your business in a big way. After reading this book, I definitely feel inspired to take more strategic action + I can’t wait to get sharing again!
Conclusion:
And that’s June in a nutshell. June is the month where we make a lot of progress but there’s not yet a lot to show for all that hard work that we put in. And that’s alright! Like I said in last month’s re-cap, I absolutely love sharing with you the way things are now, the sort of before shots that give you a little perspective into just how much transformation can happen in a short period of time.
I hope you enjoy seeing the full transformation too- may it inspire you to keep taking action even when the rewards of your hard work aren’t evident quite yet. As always, I love hearing from each of you so let me know one thing that you’ve taken action to complete and what you hope it turns in to… share it in the comments below!
P.S. If you’d like some guidance as you plan (and take action), don’t forget about the resources we have available. Both our Garden Planning Workbook and our Quarter Acre Cutting Garden Plan can help ensure you have the best season ever!
Wishing you a beautiful and abundant season ahead
