It’s hard not to wonder what happened to June here at the farm. How could it go so fast? How is it July 2 with nary a post in June?

One reason June went so quickly was because most of the time I had my head down trundling a load of mulch to one garden or another. If May is about weeding and planting, then June is about more weeding and mulching.

Thank goodness I love weeding because it is my main activity in the gardens. Take for example the Red Shiso crop. The whole crew helped plant it this year and we had great germination.

Since then I have needed to meticulously weed through the baby Red Shiso plants three times already and the plants are only an inch or two high. I don’t mind spending this much time with the Red Shiso. In fact, I enjoy my hours tending it. After all, Red Shiso is our one indispensable crop. I am so happy that the crop looks so healthy and strong this year. Last year was a near endless battle with slugs.

Weeding is necessary everywhere, even in mulched beds. Crab grass is relentless. Big weeding projects this June included the three enormous Rose beds running along the backs of all the perennial gardens as well as the Rose Garden itself. These places always get weeded, but this year I tried to dig up every last crab grass root ( or so I hope).

What have I noticed so far? The deer now enjoy the pristine weed free spaces to stroll on as they seek plants I have forgotten to spray with Deer Off. Some days I think I should just leave my Deer Off garlic sprayer on my back to spray everything all day. (Yes, I suspect I smell of garlic spray all the time anyways- thank you deer!)

Now I am weeding my way through the section of the garden that begins with asparagus then moves on to raspberries then red and black currants then gooseberries finishing off with the blueberries. I have finished with the asparagus, raspberry and blueberries, leaving the gnarly center section of currants and gooseberries. For the record, I am about a third of the way through this part of the garden.

I had 20 cubic yards of mulch delivered to the farm in two truck loads and most of that has been moved wheelbarrow load by wheelbarrow load to various well weeded gardens. Elizabeth gets all the credit for the blueberry patch mulch. After I weeded, she covered it in mulch. The blueberries are everyone’s favorite, so when I asked for help with the mulching, she was motivated.

Everywhere else I am the mulch hauler. Fortunately the mulch pile sits uphill from all the gardens so most of my runs are me controlling the wheelbarrow in a downhill run. Some routes contain a lot of twists and turns that keep me on my toes as I barrel along with my precious loads of native bark mulch.

Another reason June goes fast is that I need to make a lot of Flower Essences in June, especially from the Roses. I took the staff goddesses out on a Rose tour this week, and by the time I had finished showing them all the blossoming Roses, I am sure they were thinking that eventually every garden on the farm will be swimming in Roses. It is sort of like that already as this year I have even planted Roses out front of the vegetable garden.

So most days see me carrying bowls of water to points all over the gardens to make Flower Essences, especially Rose Flower Essences as this is when they bloom with such abandon.

One other thing which has been a bit of a project this month, especially for Jim, newly released from his eighth grade classroom, is the Arbor Garden. After thirty years of glory, the Arbor collapsed in a high wind. We knew it needed to be rebuilt this summer, but the wind confirmed this.

By the time everything was cleared away, the garden was a big mess. It will now have a chance to recover its mojo in the remaining summer months. I have started to mulch it like crazy. Let’s just say, I am glad I made Arbor Garden Essence before the Arbor collapsed and when the garden was in its full May glory.

So heading into July, there will be more weeding, more mulching, more Flower Essence making and more stopping to smell the Roses. I hope your July is peaceful and full of Flowers.

As I went out to the gardens this morning, I realized I had never seen the air so yellow with pollen. The wind was blowing the pollen from the pines across the whole landscape. The air was literally yellow. Even as I sit down to type this, my keyboard is covered in pollen.

We have been hearing about high pollen counts from other people in other places as well. My heart goes out to all of you for whom this is a problem.

It occurred to me that perhaps this would be a good time to write about Flower Essences that are helpful for allergies. While in the very early years of Green Hope Farm, we would have listed individual Flower Essences to consider, the Animal Wellness Collection has made support for allergies much simpler. This should be a short and straightforward blog!

In the Animal Wellness Collection are three combination remedies offering dovetailed and powerful support for dealing with allergies. These three are Breathe, Healthy Coat and Outburst.

Breathe offers an incredible group of Flower Essences all intent on helping us clear and strengthen our respiratory system. Speaking from my own experience, Breathe is a game changer.

We developed Healthy Coat for animals and their skin and fur but discovered almost immediately it supports the healing process for all raw, inflamed or reactive tissue internally as well as externally in people as well as animals. The ingredient list includes many Aloe Flowers as well as many dynamos for soothing surface irritations inside and out. Don’t let the name Healthy Coat dissuade you from working with this mix. You don’t need fur to benefit from this one!

Then there is Outburst. The original intent of this remedy was much more modest than the immense purpose this remedy serves. That is so often the way with our combination remedies. We think little picture and the Angels and Elementals are thinking BIG PICTURE. From the start, Outburst proved to offer support for so many situations. It helps with ANY kind of outburst in any system of our bodies. If the pollen is exploding your allergic situation, Outburst is for you. I can’t begin to enumerate the many situations this remedy has helped people and animals with, but many many people have reported on its wonderful support for allergies.

As you check out the ingredient lists for these three gems, please remember that Flower Essences do not contain the chemical plant matter of the Flower. Instead they hold the vibrational wisdom of the Flower and its electrical pattern. If you are allergic to one of the Flowers in these mixes, you will not be getting the physical Flower in the Essence but its healing wisdom that will support you in your situation.

As always, email us with any questions and know we send you our love on this yellow sky day!

Each spring day, I move about the gardens from task to task by asking the Angels and Elementals to prioritize. They give me a job and gently remind me when I stray from my assignment. This may sound bossy on their part, but they have an overview which I do not have. I bow to their superior wisdom, because if I was trying to prioritize, it would involve making a list of tasks that would overwhelm me and also lack the wisdom the Angels and Elementals assignments have. My main jobs are to be the muscle and have faith in my partners’ guidance. After nearly forty years together, the faith comes easy while the muscle comes a little bit harder.

So far this spring it’s been about seven weeks of trotting from task to task. I appreciate whenever an Angel or Elemental pipes up, “Don’t worry about that right now.” and keeps me focused on the task at hand. BTW this happens every three minutes. I pass a lot of crab grass and unweeded beds this time of year, and I need their confidence I will get to those projects at the right time which is “Not Yet.”

April is usually so cold I wear mittens and a winter hat. Any job I get done seems like a bonus, because April is a month in which reasonable people might stay inside and wait for better conditions. I consider it my secret weapon for May sanity, since anything I get done in April doesn’t have to be done in May. Bundled in my winter gear, I planted a lot of the vegetable garden in April. Crops like Peas, Carrots, Kale, Spinach, Onions, Beets, Arugula, Dill, and Potatoes were planted in April, some during snow flurries.

Usually I expect a month long gap until June before the rest of the vegetables, all frost sensitive, go in. But this year the Angels and Elementals had me start planting these crops in the middle of May. Meanwhile there were other May tasks that I either worked on per guidance or tried not to think about.

If I made lists anymore the one for May would crush my spirit. There is so much to do in the gardens in May that the list would run for pages. Anything that didn’t get cut back in the gardens in the fall, needs to be removed now and added to the compost pile. Every garden needs compost from the oldest compost pile which is now soil. This sounds simple enough, except I have to sift this compost before using it, then wheelbarrow it to the garden to spread on the beds. As I sift the compost, I consider the mystery of how so many clay pot chards and rocks get in the compost pile. I don’t think of myself as composting these things, but there they are. Somebody had to put them on the compost pile, and that somebody would be me. The rich dark soil consoles me from my thoughts about rocks in the pile. I also top dress gardens with organic amendments like lime and kelp.

All the gardens need weeding, edging and mulching. I have already gone through 10 yards of bark mulch delivered this spring. I need to order more. The mulch delivery guy and I always have the same argument about where he drops the mulch. He wants to put it on the spot where staff park. I want him to back his truck further off the driveway. I have been known to cut branches he claims are in the way of his truck while he watches. The negotiation is an annual thing with us. He rolls his eyes, and I roll mine. This year I got him to go as far back as I ever had. He retaliated by leaping from his truck and racing over to my apple and pear trees where he gave me a five minute lecture on the problems with how I prune.

Some gardens are so big they take a few days for me to weed. The Rose Garden is a real handful as the Roses send out suckers that need to be removed. This garden usually gets done first and needs a second weed through as soon as I have finished the other gardens.

Winter damage has to be dealt with. This year that means pruning back almost all the Roses as we had a very bad winter for Roses. Yes, the tense change is intentional. I haven’t pruned the Roses yet. I think that is on the Angels docket for me today, but I won’t know until I pull on my big girl garden pants and get out there and ask.

Yesterday was a big moment. The hoop house was empty, and I could plant the Tomatoes and Cucumbers in its warm interior space. Here is a messy shot of this. I covered the ground with a tarp to keep down the weeds and keep moisture in. I cut out a hole for each plant and dug in compost and soil amendments. The plants should be happy there and the sides are open so bees should pollinate the Flowers. We will see how it goes. This is a new hoop house onlt just coming online in March of this year. We are calling it “the Rex House” for the former staffer who built it for me.

I was free to plant the Tomatoes and Cucumbers because in the past week, plant babies started in February and transplanted into bigger pots in March or April got moved out of the Rex house and into the ground. Well, all except one flat. Hundreds and hundreds of baby plants have gone in the ground the last few days. Just ask my back, and it will tell you I am not exaggerating.

Usually I do not start putting in these babies until June, but this year the Angels and Elementals had me start to plant annuals in the middle of May. We haven’t had a frost since the beginning of the May. In the early years here we often had frosts in early June.

There is so much beauty in a May garden. I admire all that is happening as I trot from task to task. This year it all happened in fast motion or maybe that was just the way it looked because I was always on the run.

Today is overcast. I hope this means rain. It’s been another very dry spring, and the soil is powder dry. As I head out to hear my first assignment, I’ll pause in the greenhouse to water all the tropical plants and remind them they will be outside in their peat moss beds, living in the open air and feeling the rain on their leaves soon, very soon. How soon only the Angels and Elementals know.

Sheba will be at my side of course. Snuffling under tarps, barking at crows, inspecting my every move. I am grateful for every day I get to spend with her on our appointed rounds. I love her so much, and I love our life together in the gardens.

This last shot is of one of the precious souls in my life whom I am encouraging to LOVE gardening. So far, she’s a natural.

Each morning we meet for meditation and a chat before we begin our day together, but last week we had a longer GHF staff goddess meeting. Calling in all our Angelic and Elemental helpers, we gathered to brainstorm about how, in this time of so many transitions, we can best serve you the Green Hope Farm community.

Before we began we wondered aloud. What matters as we pick our way forward through the rubble of structures that have fallen apart or are currently collapsing? To best support us all, what do we focus on? What additional Essences and Flower Essences mixes do you want? What the heck is going on?

What we usually do and what we did in this instance was extend our meditation and stay present to what rose up in us. When everyone felt ready we opened our eyes and began to share. There is always a bit of silence before ideas and thoughts spill out, but then they do, often very fast. Vicki was scribe as she (our official lady of label writing) has the best handwriting.

While we didn’t get definitive answers, especially to that last query about what the heck is going on, we did all find ourselves in agreement about what felt particularly important. Today I’ll share one topic.

Community with you felt important. You sharing your world and ideas and our sharing ours. We sometimes talk about your animals as if we know them. We carry your stories in our hearts. I can’t imagine my life without GHF friends. This community matters so much to all of us.

We realized we needed to share more of our lives here because if we get so much from what you share, perhaps you feel the same about what we share.

I love writing this blog and of course will continue on with it. As of a few days ago I’m back on Instagram too. The Instagram account for the farm is greenhopefarm . A couple years ago I got so discouraged about Instagram. I just didn’t get why people did or didn’t like a post. I still don’t. I finally gave Instagram a rest, because I was puzzling over the mystery of likes way too much. This time I vow not to even check for likes.

For now what I am going to post is video clips from the garden. That’s one of the things about Green Hope Farm. It is a real place. Every day something happens here that astounds me with its beauty.

Last growing season I took short video clips in the gardens almost every day. I put them together into a movie, hoping to share this movie with you. Then I couldn’t figure out how to download the film to any other platform. I couldn’t even get it off my phone. So I watched it a few times myself and then let that go too. But at the meeting, the group suggested I start in again taking these little clips and post them on Instagram. The rest of the crew have some ideas for content they want to add, so maybe soon there will be more than just these short videos. In the meantime, check out our Instagram page for moments of real life at a real farm.

It’s been in the low 30’s most mornings recently with the occasional tumble back into the 20’s. Today there is another deep frost on the ground.  Bundled in my winter coat and mittens, I’ve planted many of the vegetables in the garden.  The peas went in two weeks ago. Above is a photo of their little sprouts poking up through the ground in that determined but sassy pea way. There are baby radish and kale in amongst other greens that haven’t yet germinated.  The carrots are taking their time as carrots do. I water their bed each day because carrots like to be kept wet until they germinate.  Maybe today I will begin to see their long whispy first leaves.  Yesterday I planted onions, arugula and spinach and prepared one of many rows for potatoes. This afternoon I got my four year old grandson, Henry, to help me plant some of the potatoes. I would love to have him join me in the gardens on a regular basis and Henry is interested. Pushing a nice fat seed potato through a mound of fluffy compost was a fun task for a four year old and of course, we will celebrate any potatoes harvested as HENRY’S POTATOES.

In the hoop house and on the counters going into the main office every square inch is covered with flats of baby Flowers and tender vegetable starts like cucumbers. Their time for transplant into the garden will come, BUT NOT YET. We have another month before we can safely put out plants that would be killed by a frost

Out in the gardens, kestrel birds put on a show of aeronautic tricks, sailing and swooping from the lone plum tree in the middle of the hayfield.  Birdsong fills the air. Most mornings, a cardinal bird sits atop the larch tree with an occasional flight to the nearby gingko.  He is the primary soloist with chickadees, and robins the bulk of the chorus.

The Arbor Garden is in blossom with Siberian Squill, Chionadoxa, Hellebores, Cowslips and the first of the Daffodils.  Funny bell jars cover a number of plants with their own mini-greenhouses.  I purchased some hard to find perennials from a place in California called Annies, and they need the protection of these domes until our world warms up to the one they came from.

I always work to build up the soil here with mulch and with compost. I put compost on various beds and dig it into the vegetable garden.  The older I get the more interested I am in soil.  Good soils is why we have any nutritional value in our food or glory in our Flowers. I screen load after load of compost to remove rocks and sticks that didn’t break down during the composting process. I never understand how there can be so many rocks in the compost when the compost is created primarily from dead plants removed from the garden after the harvest.  During these early spring weeks I cart these wheelbarrow loads of rich dark soil down to the vegetable garden. As I pass the Roses,  I promise them that they are next.  

The gardens are organic so no petroleum based fertilizer from Russia. But Russia is part of our gardens as the Arbor Garden is a sea of Siberian Squill, the blue Flower below, and so many of the seeds I grow originally came from Russia. I think so often of all the regular people in countries at war who wish for peace and keep planting their gardens.

I also think a lot about people who might love to garden but don’t live with the space I have here. A friend told me that last summer she grew potatoes in something called a grow bag. Grow bags sounds sort of ugly, but they are attractive and easy to use.  When the potato leaves died back she just emptied the bag and pulled out all the potatoes.  She got a bumper crop.  This comforted me that the joy of growing one’s own food is still possible for anyone with even a small outdoor space. Growing Flowers and vegetables gives me such happiness that I want everyone to have this option, though I am aware not everyone shares my interest in this or even any interest in this!

I recently read that during WW2 45% of all the food people ate in America was grown in backyard victory gardens.  This emphasis on vegetable gardens was alive and well in my childhood in the 1960’s. My best friend’s family was Polish.  Besides their wonderful sauna in their backyard, there was also a spectacular vegetable garden.  When I stayed for supper, Lynn’s mother would send us down to the basement to raid their amazingly organized freezer full of produce.  Hanging on a hook by the freezer was a book in which each vegetable packet was accounted.  We thought ourselves very grown up to cross off the vegetable packet when we removed it for dinner.  Theirs was the most delicious Polish food.  I am grateful to them and so many other gardeners who taught me how to care for a garden, grow beautiful, healthy plants and cook them to make fabulous meals.

As we face the end of petroleum based fertilizers and potash shortages, we have the option to solve our problems now by making our own compost, raising our own vegetables or purchasing food from farms practicing regenerative farm techniques. More and more I hear of people in food deserts growing food, sometimes on the top of industrial buildings. By necessity we have to turn away from the massively destructive ways we have farmed in the last century and go back to our roots.  I love that the seed companies selling non GMO seeds are doing so well,. I hope more and more of us will seize the day and begin to garden in harmony with earth. The Angels and Elementals of the Nature Kingdom will support all of us in any way they can if we ask for their help.

This is not just a hollow promise the Angels and Elementals give. One of my favorite stories from the years I ran classes to help people garden in conscious partnership with the Angels and Elementals was the following.  One very skeptical woman arrived for the first class.  Given her high degree of doubt, I do not know why she was there, but I am so grateful she was.  Right off the bat she told the group that she didn’t believe in these beings I was talking about.  She noted that they would have to prove to her they existed. 

How I loved her honesty and her clear request. I knew that there was nothing the Elementals liked more than a challenge like this. So I asked her to consider what she wanted for her garden and to ask the Elementals, the manifestors of all form, to send it.  Speaking with passion, she threw down the gauntlet. She told all of us gathered that she wanted a free garden- free seeds, free plants and free soil amendments.

At the next week’s class, she blew into our midst absolutely aglow.  What a wild week she’s had.  First a woman she hardly knew gave her a large and diverse collection of vegetable and flower seeds.  Next another woman gave her an entire perennial garden that she no longer wanted. There was work involved in the moving of plants, but it was a very fine garden now all settled in on her property.  In the midst of this a passing farmer with a dump truck  filled with well composted manure offered to dump it wherever she wanted for FREE. The manure had gone into the new vegetable garden as well as the new perennial beds. 

Wow!  Was this ever a wonderful example of the Elementals’ ability to manifest anything and in a humorous and over the top way at that!

That week transformed this woman’s life. She became a wonderful gardener, ever intent on co-creating with the Angels and Elementals.  She often created a labyrinth in Corn that she generously shared with anyone who wanted to walk a labyrinth. As an oil painter, her focus turned to the creation of many paintings of Angels and Elementals. She spent the rest of her life serving others as an Earth Angel of generosity.

So ask for what you need and let me know what happens! Don’t let limitations curtail you! I’ve seen the most beautiful tiny gardens, even apartment fire escape planters, co-created into such gems of beauty.   I will be rooting for you, quite unnecessarily of course, because you and the Angels and Elementals have this. I also can’t wait to hear your stories!