living seasonally: june 2018

May. Is. Bananas. Please remind me next year to plan nothing for the month because it will fill up anyway. It has been a heavy several weeks both in our community of friends, in our city, and the headlines are just relentless. We spent last weekend at the Nowhere Else Festival, and it was just the therapy that we needed. Music fills us up. I’m working on better curating this playlist, but take a listen if you could use some music therapy too.

Looking ahead to June, here is what we will be up to…

Around the house/farm:

• June is typically a little less hairy around the farm. Everything should be in the ground, but the weeds aren’t too bad and not much is ready to harvest besides greens and radishes. We try to plan our summer vacation during the month of June because I don’t like being gone when the garden is hopping.
• More planting. Did I mention that May was crazy? We’re behind on planting, and we still have stuff that we need to get in the ground in the next week. Even if you haven’t planted anything yet, it isn’t too late! With climate change, unfortunately, our fall seasons have been stretching longer and longer, but that means that we can be a little less stringent about getting stuff in the ground before Memorial Day.
• Lazier schedule. We sleep in later and stay up later in the summers, we try to plan less and be home more, and we try to keep more margin for spontaneity than we do the rest of the year.
• Strawberry season – we have just a few at our place this year, but we’ll head to Spencer’s several times once their season starts popping.
• The black raspberries and mulberries will start coming around mid-June (or sooner if it stays this hot), so we’ll be busy picking and preserving those at Funky Farms.
• I like to wait and plant annuals from seed around the first week in June when I know the soil is nice and warm. Cosmos, marigolds, nasturtiums are my favorites, but I always try some new ones too.
• Watch out for garlic scapes if you have garlic in the ground. You trim the scape at the base, so that the plants puts more energy into the roots (i.e. the garlic bulb). Here is our favorite thing to do with it.
• We spend most evenings in the garden, weeding or pruning or picking. It is my happy place, and the rest of the family joins in as they want to.

Eating seasonally

• Our meals are haphazard, based on what is coming up in the garden. Our freezer is stocked with local beef, chicken, and pork, plus lots of salmon from these guys, so we thaw out something and throw it on the grill along with whatever veggies are coming up in the garden.
• I don’t spend as much time in the kitchen during June because there is typically plenty of work to be doing outside (and not much to put up yet), so our meals are simple and quick. Our go-tos include: frittatas, big a$$ salads (as we affectionately refer to them out of the kids’ earshot), egg/tuna/sardine salad variations, or just throwing stuff on the grill as mentioned above.
• Once the berries start coming, I do spend some time prepping those and making jams. If/when I get tired of jam-making, I just clean them and put them in the freezer to either eat in smoothies or desserts down the road or to make more jam from the frozen versions.
  • My go-to method for freezing berries: clean berries thoroughly, then spread out on large baking sheet and put in freezer. Once frozen, I dump the berries in large jars or plastic bags, label them, and put them in the freezer.
  • If I have more strawberries than I want to deal with, I just wash them and leave the stems on. These make great additions to smoothies because the stems have nutritional benefits, and you can’t taste them in a smoothie anyway.

Celebrating the season

• The summer solstice! In many agricultural societies, the summer solstice was one of the biggest celebrations of the year. Maybe Google your family’s ancestry and “summer solstice traditions” for some fun ideas. For example, my family is mostly German, and Grant’s is mostly Dutch, so we keep experimenting with different traditions and foods as a way of honoring and learning more about our past. Or maybe just picking a different country’s traditions each year to learn more about a new culture.
• Juneteenth Day (June 19): We actually only learned about this last year, but it is celebrated as the abolition of slavery in the United States. It is a great opportunity for good conversation around the dinner table, even if you don’t plan anything too formal. This year, I’m planning on tackling some traditional foods too.

Ayurveda
I am fascinated by the wisdom of Ayurveda, a 5000 year-old mind-body health system with its roots in ancient India. It recommends various practices and foods based on the season of the year (you can see why I am fascinated!) and your individual constitution, so it is tailored to meet your body’s specific needs. I will share a bit of what I’m learning and incorporating about this ancient wisdom each month.

• As the summer heats up, keep your diet easy, cool, and light. Choose sweet, bitter and astringent tastes to counter the heat.
• Stay well hydrated as we roll into Pitta season, which can be fiery and intense. Cultivate stability and relaxation to counteract the intensity of the season. Here are some signs of Pitta imbalance to watch out for.
• Try to exercise in morning before the heat of the day. In your yoga practice, focus on staying grounded and flowing versus efforting too much.

What are YOU up to this June?