Last two plum trees in. First lawn mowing of the season on the farm.

I got a call from the Fulton County Conservation District, Thursday, saying that I need to pick up my last two trees - they were in!

So, on my way up to the farm this weekend, I stopped at the USDA offices in McConnellsburg and got my trees!  It rained heavily at the farm on Friday night but I was able to get the trees planted.  Before I put in the trees though, I needed to relocate the electric fence because the location I wanted to place the trees was outside of the fenced portion.  I dug the holes for the trees by hand since the tiller was on the tractor from last weekend (and switching out the auger is a pain!).  It turned out that hand digging was probably best anyway because the trees were small and they needed more "width" dug, then they needed depth!  I did mix up some rhizome slurry like i did for the other trees I planted this spring but I added too much coagulant so it was too thick to dunk the roots - so I just poured it over the roots after I placed the tree in the hole!  I also used a couple of the slow release fertilizer packets each tree, just like I did for the other trees.  Here are some pics of the new trees:

The two new ones are the closest to the camera.  You can just barely see the electric fence there just to the left of the frontmost tree

From a little further away.

Showing the electric fence a little better.

I really needed to mow the orchard lawn as the grass there was getting pretty tall. I fired up the Huskee riding mower and mowed most of the lawn (not in front of the house though - that sections grass wasn't very big yet).  Then I got into the mud and somehow snapped the mower deck belt.  The Huskee doesn't protect the mower deck like the Husqvarna does so when it hits something immovable the belt evidently takes the brunt of the impact.  Anyway, I didn't have a spare belt so I got the Husqvarna mower out and finished (well - I bent one of those blades too - but I straightened it out and finished the lawn).

I also,assembled the push mower that I bought at walmart last weekend and used it to clean around the left of the house driveway and trim in general (I really got it for the elderberries).  I am thinking that I might clean some trees out of the section of the yard and plant berries there.  Mom has some berries that I could get cuttings of and I could use more berries!  It's at least worth a try!  Anyway, I also removed some of the old barbed wire fence between the big patch and the road.  I cleaned the posts out and removed old posts and rocks and mowed that area.  Eventually, I am thinking I will remove that entire section of barbed wire along the road and put up a wood "slat-type" fence.  Anyway, while mowing around the elderberries I ran the push mower into a bunch of mud and it bent the mower blade so bad that I couldn't finish mowing!  I went and got the battery powered trimmer and trimmed around the elderberries; just around the berries - not the grass in between.   Anyway, I went to TSC and got a new belt for the riding mower and blades for the Huskee and push mower.  Here are some pics of the orchard after mowing:

I had to get this picture of Smokey.  He was attacked by a sticker bush over there.  I got vengeance for him though; I tore that fence out and mowed that whole area!  No more stickers!

It as too wet to plow/till this patch - I really wish I could have.  It's supposed to rain all week and I really need to get the tomatoes and other transplants in ASAP!

Oh, and the peach trees are starting to bloom:

The cherry trees will be coming soon.  I hope that there is no frost!  Would be interesting to see a peach or some cherries this year!

Progress on the raised beds at the "city house"

I prepped the last 2 of the raised beds at the "city house".    I didn't plant anything in the middle bed right away - I am reserving most of it for the peppers!   I did plant some more Spinach in the front end of it though; Katherine likes her spinach and I wasn't growing any!  The spinach in the first, little bed, doesn't look like its doing anything.  I re-planted some in the little patch, but thought I better hedge my bets by planting more in the middle patch.   While I was at the replanting of the spinach, I went ahead and "transplanted" some of the kale, collards, mustard and even cucumbers!  There were multiples coming up in some hills while other hills had none, so I evened things up where I could.  I don't know how well they will transplant, but I thought it was worth a try - especially since we are going to be getting rain for the next couple days.

Here is a video describing the onions I planted in the far left bed:

Here are some pics of the beds:

Final, "left" bed, ready to plant!

I put in some onion (yellow) sets (and 3 cloves of garlic!)

This is the middle bed, ready to plant - saving this for peppers and greens rotation.

The first, narrow bed, plants are starting up!

The narrow bed, some plants are seen here, but they are patchy.

Narrow bed, spinach doesn't seem to have caught on.  Hmm

The far right bed with row cover on it.  I saw squirrels and birds in it and noticed that several of the new plants had been snipped off!  I put the row cover on, but still noticed a squirrel trying to get in and messing with the cover!

Here is a video I made to document the locations of the plants:

NOTE: I have taken the row cover off of the far right bed because I am afraid that the heavy rain they are predicting may cause the cover to crush the plants.  Fingers crossed that the squirrels don't destroy it!

More gardening updates

I have been lax at putting up these blog entries, which leads to poor record keeping!  I will try to do this more frequently!

Last weekend my family had an Easter get together; it was fun but it took a whole day of my short weekend. I was able to prep the "front" patch on the farm; I was putting leaf mulch on the patch until almost 9pm!  I worked my ass off and got the patch tilled and all planted Sunday - whew!  Here are some pics:

Here is a video of the description: 

Vacation summary

Yep, I had last week off and spent it up at the farm!  LOL - it was no vacation!

The main reason for taking "vacation" at this time of year was to plant the order of trees and plants that had just arrived for me from the county conservation district group.  The county gets these plants at a discount from local nurseries and then sell them at a discount to people to raise some money for conservationist projects throughout the county.  Anyway, this year I got a "small" order consisting of 6 honeycrisp apple trees, 4 plum trees, 25 elderberry seedlings, 10 blueberry seedlings,  and 12 grape vines.

Blueberries:

I used woodchips to amend the soil and to mulch around the berry plants to keep the weeds down.  I have two of each variety that was available from the county.  To document where I planted each type of blueberry, I took this video:

Elderberries:

Next I planted the elderberries.  I got 25 more this year, more than I really needed to fill the space I have, but they only sell them in packs of 25.   Before I planted the new berry plants I examined last years plants to see if they were alive or dead and needing to be replaced.  While I was checking the plants, I removed the plastic weed protection since it was obvious that the plastic was blocking the berries from spreading.  Elderberries, evidently, send out runners like bamboo and thats how they propagate.  When I was looking under the plastic I noticed many dead branches where the berry plant was unable to get light and died.  So I removed all of the plastic protectors from the old berry plants, noting only one of the old plants showed no sign of life.  I planted most of the new plants near the old plants, filling in where I could.  Then I used wood chips to surround the all of the plants (new and old) to help keep the weeds down (and help me locate them later if the weds grow up too fast for me to keep under control - that happened last year!) .  I had 8 plants left over so I took those and planted them out in the field near a puddly-problem area.  While trying to plant those berry plants, I found out why water puddled there: CLAY!  The puddly area was actually a problem 

because there was only about 2 inches of topsoil on top of almost pure white clay.  I might find a use for that clay later!

Apples & Plums:

Anyway, on to the apples!  I put the honey crisp apples right next to the crabapples that I planted last year. Planting the apples went fairly smoothly.  Just ran the holes with the post-hole-auger on the tractor.  The holes, of course, needed to be widened to accommodate the roots of the trees, but that wasn't too bad.  I dipped the roots in a root-gel mixed with endo/ecto rhizome that I bought just for this purpose.  I highly recommend this for planting new trees and shrubs.  All the trees that I planted last year were dipped in the root gel, and they all survived and flourished.  I plant only bare root transplants, so that gel really helps provide the new trees moisture at a critical time of their development.  I had a couple plum trees that I put in below the peach trees that I planted last year.  I should note that only 2 of the 4 plum trees that I ordered were delivered; the other 2 will be delivered later - or I will get  a refund.   Here are some pics:

Here are the two plum trees.  If the other 2 come in, I will put them to the left of these.

Row of honeycrisp apple trees going down the hill.

View of the apple/pear/peach/plum orchard, as it stands today.

Grape Vines:

The grape vines needed an arbor to support the vines as they mature.  I could have chosen to put the arbors in later, but I wanted to plant the vines in 3 rows of 4, with one row in between the other two rows.  Therefore, putting the arbors in later for that center row would be a problem because digging the post holes with auger would be difficult without risking crushing the grape vine plants.  That would mean  I would have to dig the holes by hand in an area full of mud shale!  Not something I wanted to do.  Therefore, I spent a day and a bit more preparing 5 posts (cutting them to length and stripping the bark off of them), that was a lot of labor!   I also had to re-layout the electric fence around the orchard.  I was able to get a total of 6 of the 15 posts for the arbor up.  At least I got the critical middle row complete, and one more that i needed to hold the solar charger for the fence (its an solar powered electric fence - surprisingly effective!)  Here are some pics:

Here is a video documenting what is planted where (sorry about the sound - it was a breezy day!): 

I took a break of farm planting to head back to the city and plant another raised bed:

Videos describing the raised beds so far: