Start your fall garden now

Have you been gardening this summer? Ready to take it a step further and plant a garden for a fall harvest? It’s super easy to plan out your garden for fresh veggies the rest of the year!

The trickiest part of fall gardens is knowing when to plant your veggies, during the summer. For example: in order to have a good harvest of sugar snap peas in late September, seeds need to be planted at the end of July.

I am going to include a list of what we are planting and growing for a fall harvest. And even what/how we can cover crops to extend even after a hard frost!

But first I want to share with you about this new seedtime app that I discovered this summer. It’s free and amazing! If you get easily overwhelmed by knowing what to plant and when, this app is going to be for you.

In a nutshell, it’s essentially a plug in crop planner that tells you exactly when to prep a bed, start seeds, direct or transplant, when to weed your bed, and then when you should expect a harvest. The layout is a calendar and each crop is color coded.
It’s as easy as hitting the button “Add Crop” and choosing carrots, and the software does the rest for you! Check out the screen shot below of the start of my calendar.

So you can see if you look at the left column, each crop is color coded. You can click on each one and it will highlight it on the right and show you each step, and when it needs to be done.

Again, this is free to use! You simply just need an email to create an account and you can get started right away designing your fall garden. This can of course be used in the spring too, to plan out your garden. Including multiple successions of crops like lettuce or beets.

I won’t go back. Haha, once I tried this, there’s no way I’m going back to planning my garden on my own anymore. This is such a simple way to do it!

You can customize it to your zone, as precise as adding your address so it knows your exact location. The light and dark blue shaded areas show you when your area would expect light and hard frosts. So that’s helpful too!

Here’s another look at my calendar going into October.

So you can see that some of my crops go into the time of year where we might get a light frost. Since I know that, I might cover some of my crops like root veggies with straw or plastic just to keep the soil warm enough to harvest until they’re gone.

There are many ways you can cover your crops to extend harvesting (and growing) times. You can use hoops with a row cover or plastic, straw, old windows by building a frame around/above your plants, or if they are in containers, by bringing them into a side porch or small greenhouse structure. I plan to just cover mine with hoops + plastic, and straw over things like the carrots and beets.

What I’m grown this fall/late summer:

Peas, Carrots, Green Onion, Beets, Radish, Lettuce, Spinach, Kale, Broccolini, Late Cucumbers, Zucchini, Green Beans, Sunflowers.

Be sure to check out the Seedtime App by clicking the photo above and creating your free account. You can schedule your fall garden right away.

And if you’re interested in more resources from the site, they do have a paid option starting at just $10 a month with lots of webinars, courses, classes, and a store! You can purchase all your seeds right from the site too.

Check it out! Happy gardening!

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Berry Fruit Pizza Recipe

One of our favorite ways to use fresh Berryhill blueberries is by making this fresh fruit pizza. We make one every year for 4th of July to take to neighbors and family. It’s perfectly dessert-y, fresh, fruity, light, and sweet but not too sweet. It can be made with any fruit on top, we just love to use the red, white & blue color scheme.

Enjoy!

Let us know if you try it! Tag us on Facebook and Instagram, we’d love to see your creations!

Homestead Dinner

If you are an aspiring homesteader or want to learn more about specific areas of homesteading like growing berries or raw milk, this event is for you! Be sure to scroll to the bottom of the page for times and details.

We are excited to put together a special dinner event with 10 local farmers/homesteaders where we will share our knowledge in our specific area of homesteading. At this event you will get to hear from the following farms & families:

Berryhill Farm - growing berries in our climate and raising grass-fed beef and pasture raised chickens.

Three Trees Farm - maintaining quality soil health and growing veggies without toxic pesticides.

4 Arrows Farm - Kimber will share all she knows about egg laying chickens, production, and predator protection.

Beanies Farm - raising hogs and turkeys on pasture.

The Wragg Family - raising bee hives and raw honey.

The Lucius Family - using essential oils for natural home remedies.

Ferry Brook Farm - raising & milking Nigerian dwarf goats.

Happy Cows Creamery - Jackie is going to talk about raw milk and what it’s like milking cows.

Demi-Brooke Kerr - Demi is going to chat with us about herbal plants and growing a medicinal garden. She makes tinctures and balms too that I’m sure she will share with us!

During this event we will share a meal together put on by each contributing farmer.  Everyone will have a chance to introduce themselves and what they grow.  An exact menu will be emailed to you just before the event so you are aware of foods/allergies - so be sure to include your email in the Venmo note!
After the meal, there will be a time of mingling and chatting with each homesteader. You will get to ask questions and talk with them about their farm, their growing practices, etc. Each farm will have their own table set up. After that, we will join back together again for  a Q and A where you can ask questions you may have! We will all stay up front to answer as many questions as we can. So bring a notebook!

Swag from each farm will be available and each guest will be entered into a raffle drawing at the end of the evening.

Purchasing Tickets: $50

Please note that space is limited! You are more than welcome to invite your spouse or friend to this event, but each guest will need their own ticket. If you can carpool, that’s great! There will be parking signs at the farm so please be sure to watch for them when you arrive.

Venmo is the preferred payment for each ticket. You can Venmo with the note “Homestead Ticket + your email” to Sarah-Sutton-24.
Cash/Check also accepted and can be mailed or dropped off to Berryhill Farm
127 E Krepps Rd.
Xenia, OH 45385

GSP

Our sweet Penny had a litter of 9 puppies a few weeks ago! They are so cute and lovable! We are selling them and they will be ready to go home around March 10th.

They are AKC registered, and both mom and dad are great hunters. We’ve got 4 males and 3 females available. If you have interest, please email us at berryhillfarmxenia@gmail.com or text 609-774-4380.

You’ll see seven pups below because two have been claimed already. We are asking $850 per puppy with a $200 deposit to secure your selection. The remainder would be due when you pick up your puppy. We’d love to see them go home to amazing families who will run the pups and help burn their energy daily.

Look at these sweet faces. If you’ve got interest in a specific puppy, screen shot the one you love and message us!

Born 1/15-16
Ready to go home March 10.
Papered, Shots up to date, dewormed.