bluehorizonfarm.com Blog

We’ve had a huge amount of rain this spring, and the plants are lovin’ it (other than the apple trees, which are having a terrible time with cedar apple rust). The blackberries are getting huge, the squash, tomato plants and sweet corn are growing like crazy, and the pastures are as lush as I’ve ever seen them at this time of year.

Of course, nothing likes moisture more than fungus does, which is not a positive thing in most situations, but is a big plus for us because we grow shiitake mushrooms. The shiitake logs were completely loaded with pounds and pounds of giant mushrooms this week. The mushrooms were sprouting out of the logs’ top, middle and bottom, and I harvested bags full of the delicate fungi.

If this much rain equals this many shiitakes, let the rain keep falling!

Click this link to learn how to grow shiitakes in your own back yard

Sunflowers are one of the most cheerful and easy to grow flowers that I know of. Drop a little birdseed (the sunflower kind) in a garden and BOOM! An explosion of sunflowers is likely to follow within a couple of months.

When sunflowers are in bloom here on the farm, they’re likely to be mobbed by goldfinches, who often cluster on the plants, nibbling the seeds out of the flowers. It’s common to see two or three goldfinches on each flower, gorging themselves.

Although there are hundreds of varieties of sunflower, and I’ve grown a fair percentage of them, I’ve never met a sunflower that I didn’t like.

A squash blossom at Blue Horizon Farm

If you answered “a cannibalistic pumpkin”, you were probably wrong! The answer is squash blossoms, of course! Squash plants make some of the most gorgeous flowers in the summer garden.

In fact, squash flowers are so stunning that I’ve seen people selling the blossoms at farmers market for $1.00 each, packaged in a plastic clam shell-style box. Quite a good deal for the farmer, not so great for the customer, who will probably be disappointed that the bloom only lasts a few hours before wilting away.

Another popular squash blossom trend is to deep-fry the flowers and then stuff them with cheese. I think that’s way too much work! I prefer to enjoy the squash blossoms just as they are!