Important Dates:

July 1, 2025: Next subscriber giveaway drawing.

July 9^th 2025: Community Farm Alliance (CFA) is coming to Loving Farm to talk with us about agrotourism, one of our favorite topics. Registration is open and participation is free of charge. The program will include a brief tour of our farm, followed by a presentation by Kati Bowman from KCARD to talk about ways to increase the success of agrotourism on Kentucky farms. Nicole Gwishiri will also be here representing American Farmland Trust. We are looking forward to hearing what they have to share with us! Feel free to share the links to this event from your socials or via email. It is open to anyone with an interest in this topic.

Happy summer everyone. Thanks for being here as the flowers start really showing off and the heat rolls in. It was another busy week with farm school where Perriee had the chance to tour a couple of amazing farms (Salad Days Farm and Rough Draft Farmstead) and have a pizza lunch at Locals. We cut and arranged so many flowers, did a flower market delivery to Frankfort, Perriee made some soap at Sunflower Sundries, and we spent Saturday at the brewery with some blooms where we happened to meet a group of folks from Newport that live exactly where I lived when I moved to Newport in 2004. It was pretty cool.

I had my first up close and personal experience with Purple Martins at our friends’ farm on Friday and now am more motivated than ever to get some boxes set up for them to move into. Aside from their mosquito loving palate, they are absolutely darling to watch. Let me tell you, I love visiting other people’s farms. It is quite literally one of my favorite things to do. This farm had the most beautiful pollinator stand that released the scent of bergamont into the air as we drove through it in their side-by-side that we toured around in as if we were on a safari in a distant land.

The highlight of the week was spending the Junteenth holiday on Thursday hosting a screening of the film, Farming While Black. We received a copy of the book at the Black Farmer’s Conference in February and were thrilled to have the opportunity to view the film for free upon requesting the link in advance from the makers of the film. We freshened up the house for the first time in what felt like months and made some snacks to share with those who came, mostly from our garden group with one of our classmates from farm school making the trek to view it with us.

It was so exciting to see a quick cameo of Chef Fresh in the movie! She is an amazing farmer and cook who we happened to cross paths with years ago when we shared space with a family who sold her their Airstream in Indiana. Although we never met them in person, it has been inspiring to watch all of the ways they uplift their community through nourishment. I loved the movie and hope to have the chance to watch it again.

It definitely planted some seeds of ideas regarding ways we can open our space up to support some aspiring farmers. The movie invoked deep thoughts about agriculture and the history of industrial methods of farming which really underscored our reasons for adopting the methods we employ here on the land that we care for.

Speaking of caring for the land, we happened to have lost our great cookie maker tree out front this week. It always made me think of the Keebler Elves who surely made all of the treats inside of it. We had a big storm the other night which took the tree to the ground leaving a mulberry tree in its wake. If anyone has a wood chipper and/or a chainsaw that we can borrow for a few weeks, or has a good place in mind who might deliver a rental to use, let us know! I would normally be inclined to leave it, but it happens to have fallen in the center of the pollinator patch so I do feel a hair more urgency to get it parceled out. I will miss the tree terribly, but we were honestly waiting for this day to come and are happy it fell at night when no one was around it.

We are thinking about setting up at the Fleming County Farmers market on Tuesday evening in lieu of going to Frankfort this week to save a trip in the car. Get in touch if you need any flowers this. We can arrange pickup at the extension office on Tuesday evening or here at the farm another day. I have an appointment in Edgewood on Friday, so if anyone up north needs anything I am sure we can work out a drop off spot for you to pick up at. Let us know!

Stay cool everyone. Get your flowers local. Support your community’s economy.