Summer is Finally Here: A Garden Update for June 2025

It’s almost hard to believe that less than a month ago, the ground was all black earth and we were just starting to get things going for the year. Now, in the middle of June, the garden is fully planted and we’ve already begun harvesting a few things. Summer has come on very fast.

Most dramatic is our front yard. These are mostly perennial bushes and flowers, so they’re among the first things to come up. When the rest of our property is mostly newly-sprouted plants, the front yard is fully grown and thriving. The front yard also keeps the bees busy—between flowers on the mustard, strawberries, raspberries, and decorative flowers, there is lots of food and opportunity for pollinating insects.

Early harvests

The front yard is also where I’ve done some harvesting already.

• First were the chives and chive blossoms. I’ve focussed mostly on the pastel purple blossoms and have made some chive blossom jelly and chive blossom vinegar. I’ve also frozen some blossoms with plans to try making some biscuits with them in the next few weeks.
• Strawberries have started ripening too. It’s just a few here and there right now, but there are several dozen green ones that are only a week or two from being ready. I’m cleaning, chopping, and freezing these so they can be enjoyed later, either on ice cream or in oatmeal.
• Chamomile, while not a perennial plant in this climate, has come back and fully established itself in our garden. Similar to mustard and borage, chamomile self-seeds, so wherever you first plant chamomile, that’ll likely be your chamomile patch going forward. It’s only been a few weeks and I think I’ve already harvest as much chamomile as I harvested last year. We definitely didn’t have enough last year, so we’re looking forward to the larger harvest this time around.

Everything is planted

While we tend to receive gifted plants throughout the summer that we replant in our garden, so planting is never truly over, we’ve finished the bulk of it.

Our front garden is largely perennials or self-seeding plants that regrow every year (like mustard and chamomile). Our patch along the side of the house will be beans and peas this year (versus corn and peas last year). The corn has moved to a far distant patch in our neighbour’s yard in an attempt to prevent the squirrel from raiding our crop and destroying everything.

The squirrel is resourceful, though, and has already found the corn. And rather than wait for the corn to fully grow and develop, it’s started attacking the small sprouts that are coming up. With the help of a friend, we collected some pop bottles to create little safety domes over the corn to protect them for the first few weeks. (Since it looks like we’re growing pop bottles, I call it our “soda patch”.)

Our back garden this year consists mainly of garlic, a few squash, broccoli, peppers, and Brussels sprouts, with a collection of a few other random things.

The neighbour’s garden is where we’ve got the corn, popcorn, tomatoes, potatoes, beets, onions, cucumbers, and canning peas, as well as a random assortment of a few other things.

And our other neighbour’s yard, where we do a strip along the shared fence, we’ve got peas and squash.

In the meantime, while we wait for things to grow and flower and produce food, we are keeping the bees happy with our mustard. It grows plenty of vibrant yellow flowers and the bees and other pollinators love it. On particularly busy days, you can hear the buzzing from several feet away because our mustard patch is the social hub for these insects.

Books to add to your library

I’m a writer at heart, so while I love writing this blog and will continue to do so (and it’ll continue to be 100% free), I can’t help but also put things into book format.

I recently released Preserving Your Urban Harvest, which collects 73 of my favourite recipes for 21 favourite garden crops. Some of the recipes are already here on this blog and some are not. Whether you’re new to food preserving or experienced, you’ll likely find some tasty recipes to enjoy.

If you’re feeling a bit more adventurous, I’m currently working on a book of wine recipes so you can “drink your garden”, which I hope to publish this summer. After that is a sourdough cookbook with a whole wide range of recipes. And then I may have a few other ideas after that. So stay tuned!