More elderberry picking

Raised bed "progress"

We continue to harvest cucumbers from the raised beds.  They seem to be ok - although some damage from the SVBs can be seen, they aren't hit as hard as the squash.

Just a few days of cucs here!  More on their way

Here is the last picking just before we headed up to the farm!  One squash (the last?) and a bunch of cucs!

The squash, below, are hit very hard by the SVBs.  I am not sure we will get anymore squash from these plants! :(

SVBs really tear into these poor plants

You can see the blossom of an eggplant here.  They are growing nicely.  

Some "Fruits" of my labor!

Katherine made these delicious black-raspberry muffins from the raspberries I picked last weekend! Quite tasty!

Black-raspberry muffins!

Prep for Harvest-Right Freeze Dryer continues

I ordered some things in preparation for the freeze dryer arrival.  We needed something to put it on - we decide that a rolling cart would be best.  I shopped online for almost half a day and decieded on the ULINE flat top heavy plastic cart.  LOL - THEN I read in a facebook group about the freeze-dryer a recommendation for this very cart!  

Nice cart with a flat top and shelf below for associated items.

And then to the farm 

When we got to the farm on Friday afternoon it was apparent that we had gotten some rain - about an inch according to the rain gauge.  The grass certainly appreciated it!  I set right in to mowing the lawn.   I got all but the orchard, cherry orchard, and the back field around the pines and pecans mowed.   I picked elderberries pretty much the rest of my time during the weekend!  Due to another storm moving through Saturday I was unable to mow that day, but Sunday I was able to get the orchard mowed.  The orchard really needed it!

Sweet Potato and squash status

It looks like something is still eating these potatoes!  Damn!  However, they are growing quite nicely now so maybe the effect wont be so bad.  

Some of these are nibbled right down to the ground!  And right next to the mole spike!  Deer?

Nice healthy growth here!

The winter squash (and a couple summer squash too!) are growing nicely.  I hope they have time to produce some decent squash before the season changes on them.

Squash are doing nicely - is there time yet for them to yield though?

Finally, to the elderberries!

I was so busy the rest of the time picking elderberries and de-stemming them that I forgot to take pictures of the berries!  Oh well, they look the same as always so no great loss.  We got about 4-5 gallon more from the entire weekends pickings.  The bulk of the berries have not come in yet!  I will need to do some re-arranging in the freezer up there to fit more in!

And more berries...

I also braved the black-raspberry patch again and picked about 1.5 pints of berries.  There were plenty more but I was tired of being sliced and diced by those thorns!    I also picked some more strawberries from our patch.  Not a great lot though.  Many of the ripe berries looked bad - I think they split because of the hot dry weather followed by those rains.  I tossed a bunch.  We have about a pint, all told now (minus the ones I ate last weekend).    I must remember to only order the ever-bearing berries next year - we just don't have the time in the spring to pick the early berries I guess.  If I can keep my wits about me this fall I should cover the strawberries with mulch so that they don't freeze out.

Katherine made a black-raspberry pie and another batch of raspberry muffins with this weekends pickings.  I think there are still a few berries left - not sure what will happen to those!

Black-raspberry pie!

Too HOT! First elderberries!

Berry (and 2 apples) pickings

I mowed a bit, mostly around the persimmon trees.  It was too hot to do mush else.  I went out and did a farm inspection and found a few ripe fruits.  Picked maybe 1 pint of strawberries from the ever-bearing plants in the front patch and 1 pint of raspberries from the wild ones along the road.  I picked the remaining two "pristine" (that's the variety) apples.  We ate two of the apples (well one and a half - one was damaged by the birds) and have one left now.

Last year I only got one or two from the strawberries because of weed overload and varmints - we did much better this year.

The "mole spikes" seem to be saving my strawberries!

More raspberries and strawberries.  Raspberries will be coming in fast now - if I can save them from the varmints!

Missing pears!

While doing my survey I checked on the pear trees.  Something removed all of the pears!  ALL OF THEM!   I didn't see any damage to the trees (well, a little damage, but I think that was from a T-storm) and no signs of big animals around the trees.  Damn weird.  Mom says it was probably racoons and/or opossums (which was my guess too).  Those pears weren't near ripe and they were being attacked by the birds like last year so I don't think any human would have bothered (I wouldn't have and they are my trees!).  Its strange though because there are still apples on some of the trees, so maybe the critters didn't smell them or don't like them as much as the pears?  I didn't see any peaches either, but then again I didn't look hard and there aren't many peaches anyway - maybe 2-5.

Pear tree looks ok - just missing all of the pears!

Dying (dead?) plum tree

I noticed that one of the plum trees is dying - or dead.  It is a two-year old, one of the bigger plum trees.  I don't know why its dying - it seemed healthy until recently.  My fear is that it might be dying from exposure to roundup.  I had sprayed roundup around many of the trees to keep the grass down.  I haven't seen any of the other trees looking bad ... yet!  I am scared to death that I will have more dying if its a roundup issue!  The funny thing is that I consciously didn't spray around the smaller trees for fear of this kind of thing - but I just can't say for sure if I sprayed near this particular tree.

On close examination of the tree I found a big split bark area - was this here before I sprayed the roundup?  If so that damage may have allowed the roundup into the tree. Although I didn't think I sprayed close enough to the trees for much roundup to get on them - maybe the surrounding weeds carried some into the tree wound?

See that bark split?  Maybe roundup got in there?  Or is this some other issue?

It sucks!  I will have to replant a plum - need to look up what type this was.

Elderberries!

Some of the elderberries were ripe enough to pick - so I braved the heat and picked!  I split the picking into two days.  All told we got about one and 2/3rds gallon.  We did wash these - submerged in water and skimmed out the trash - then we drained in a colander.  They look good!  Hopefully these will come in gradual enough that we don't get overwhelmed like last year.

Before de-stemming

After de-stemming and washing.

Grape vine status

The vines actually look surprisingly good considering the heat and humidity!  The rust is not running crazy, so far.  Also, some of the wine grapes are finally beginning to look like grape vines instead of small shrubs!

Wine grapes are up to the bottom of the arbor - this one is up to 2nd wire!

The white grapes are looking OK!  I hope they get a lot of growth in this year to catch up.  

Something ate a bird!

Something big enough to take out a crow it looks like!  Found a lot of feathers and some aweful on the one grape arbor.

Deer Damage

I noticed some damage to the beans this time around - looks like deer having been browsing!  This garden is unfenced.  I'd suspect rabbits, but the damage seems too widespread to me; although we do have plenty of rabbits!

See how this area of the beans is thinner?  Looking closer showed the bite marks

They seem to like both kinds of beans!!

Oh, and they trimmed off some of the dill weed up by the house!

Mom's Pretty flowers

We stopped by mom's on the way back to the city.  Her flower gardens are really pretty now!

Kale crackers again

4.5 C kale puree
.5 C  nutritional yeast
1 Tbsp salt  (a little less actually )
1.5 C almonds
1 Tbsp granulated garlic
1 Tbsp Aleppo pepper

Cook as before

Family reunion, mole problems, and squash planting

Family reunion time

We went to the family reunion on Saturday.  Attendance was a bit sparse, but not bad.  It was a good time and plenty of good food!  We took the puppies in their cages.  They were well behaved, shock of shocks!  No barking (well, a little - but not bad) and no problems.  We were a bit concerned about the heat (was a hot day and no AC in the place) but we survived until after 4pm.  Then we decided to get the pups out of there since they weren't drinking or eating and Sugar seemed to be breathing shallow.  When we got back home though she perked up and all was well.

Corn still sparse.. why?  Moles!

While deweeding the brassicas I happened to look up and saw a mole chewing off a young corn plant! So many moles!  So few corn plants!  So we went shopping for mole "suppressants" at TSC.  All that I could find that looked promising was some poisonous "worms" and a solar powered sonic spike.

Mole suppressants

Three plantings and this is the only corn I have!  

OK - the first planting was with old seed and I don't think it germinated, but still!

So I placed the poison and the sonic spike and we will see what happens!  BTW, while planting the squash (see below) I discovered a dead mole  - but I don't know if it died from me stopping around or from the poison.

Tree protector replacement continues

I replaced the plastic tubes on all of the pecan trees and the rest of the paw-paws trees!  I bouhgt 2 100 foot rolls of fencing while at TSC and used a whole roll.  I have a few more trees to go so I will probably have a bit of fencing left.

Paw-paws are all caged now!

The pecans are actually looking pretty good!

All the pecans are caged now.  Good thing because there are SO many deer in this area!  In fact I chased a young fawn out of the weeds just next to these trees.

Deer safe?  For a while, maybe

"pond" spearmint is doing well

I trimmed around the pond spearmint - it looking good! I am hoping that this stuff takes off!

Orchard and vineyard care

I dusted the grape vines last weekend with sevin and sulfur.  Shortly afterward Connie warned me that Concord grapes were not safe to use sulfur on!  I looked it up and she was right.  I looked at the vines this weekend and think I did notice some damage (chlorosis - the leaves loose their greenness).  So this time I mixed up a batch of sevin and fungicide and oversprayed the vines, hopefully washing off the sulfur.

I finally got around to trimming off the base shoots around the trees.  While doing so  I noticed that I did indeed have a Japanese Beetle problem on some of the trees!  The Honey Crisp and one other variety seemed to be hit hard.  In fact, most of the trees didn't have any beetles - really just those tow varieties.  Weird.  I also notice some disease issues on some of the other trees though, so I sprayed the whole orchard with sevin and fungicide.  I also applied some more Roundup around the trees and various problem areas.

Fungicide, sevin spray on the trees  Trimmed the base shoots 

Roundup working - applied more where I missed

Good to see the smartweed dieing!

Hopefully this will help with the mole issues too since they wont be able to hide in the weeds!

Planted the Squash

I planted the winter squash in the corn patch and winter and summer squash in the tomato garden.  I just pulled back the plastic and planted several seeds in a hill.

All Winter squash here

Summer an winter squash here - I put the summer squash in the front.

Parrotia Tree

Tom and Julie brought a Parrotia Tree for me to plant.  The tree is supposed to have nice fall colors.  Its not a good time to plant, but not much else to do with it!  I hope it survives until the fall!