Finally, some real rain

Rainy day

It rained Saturday,  up at the farm.   I stayed inside and put the old canned goods on the oak shelves I made this spring.   I got them all on the shelves,  but with almost no room to spare.

The "clean" storage room where the canned goods used to be.  This became the storage location for the wine making supplies...

The wine making supplies used to be here in the guest room!  I may or may not move that dehydrator out.  

Orchard care

I finally got the spiral tubes that I had ordered and brought them with me this weekend.  I placed them on the fruit trees.    Well, most of the fruit trees.  Some of the cherry trees were too small.  I will have to trim the tubes to fit.  Hopefully I will get to that next time....

The orchard trees have white spiral protectors on now.  Hopefully these will dissuade the deer and rabbits from damaging the bark

I cut off the two dead dwarf apple trees that died this summer - if you are wondering why the trees aren't planted all the way tot the top of the orchard hill (below).    There are two crabapple trees (which you can kind of see in the pic below - they don't have spiral tubes on them - 3rd row from the left) that are looking rough.  I think I will replace them with new trees next spring.  They not only have bad bark damage but are infested with white aphids.

I put a full front loader bucket of wood chips around the newest apple trees (those that survived the summer anyways)  I want to put this much wood chips around all the trees to help keep insect damage down, keep soil temperatures under control and help maintain moisture.

Most for the cherry trees have spiral tubes now.

These little ones need a special fitting.  I also need to put wood chips on all of these.  I hope they survive the winter!  Wood chips should help I think.

Sweet pickled Jalapenos

Before I left the city I picked the jalapenos peppers.  I didn't grow as many as I did last year, so I only had enough for these three pints (I may have more - they aren't ripe yet - not sure I will bother though as I have so many canned from last year...).

So pretty!

These should be good on sandwiches.

More tomatoes for pasta sauce

I picked the tomatoes again - this may be the last time (I keep thinking that though - so we will see!). I got quite a few from the volunteer tomatoes in the front patch.  Almost a third of the juice that I made into pasta sauce came from the volunteer tomatoes!  I didn't get pics of the tomatoes that I processed into the sauce - they looked like the other tomatoes I have shown already!  I did sort the tomatoes though.  Some of these weren't quite ripe yet so I saved them to make sauce with later when they do ripen.

After the sort.  These will be made into sauce later when they ripen a bit more.

10 more pints of pasta sauce!  I used the Mrs. Wages mix like before.  Looking at about $7 worth of mix (I got the mix at Southern States on the way back from, they are a bit pricey)

Last of the Green Beans!

I went down to the beans patch to pick a few beans for dinner and after I saw how many (and how ripe they were) I decided to just pull and pick them all!

I started out just planning on picking a small bag full.

Then i got serious!  I ended up with two full grey trays of green beans!  I would not be surprised if they canned out to 12 or more quarts!

Other things

I harvested the last of the cucumbers.  Those plants are dead for sure now... or if not dead then at least not producing more fruit!

I also harvested more eggplant.  They were a bit on the small side.  The weather has turned cold (in the 50-60's this weekend) and things aren't getting big anymore.  Well, except for the brussel sprouts - they are looking good!  I got a little bit more broccoli - which I processed and froze,  I could have got more kale - but frankly I am tired of eating it and we have so much left in the freezer from last year!  I picked a few bell peppers to take back.  We really dn't need them though.  We already have 21 pints of sweet bell pepper pickles.

I was looking over the castor beans and noticed that a bunch of the seed pods were missing.  I at first assumed that the animals had got them.  I did find one pod intact and shoved it in my pocket so I could save some seed.  Well, as i was driving along to moms place I felt a "pop" in my pocket - starlted the heck out of me!  Felt like a little party popper novelty going off.  The castor bean seed pods acutally explode to distribute the seeds!  I did not know that! Very neat.  But i will have to put a bag or something over the remaining seed pods so that I can collect the seeds for planting next year.

Spring Vacation Summary!

Spring Vacation Summary!

We went to the McConnellsberg Fulton county conservation districts tree pickup location of Friday April 17th and got this years batch of trees and plants.   I will have to add a copy of the tree order to the blog later.  From memory I got: 2 english walnut, 6 dwarf apple, 2 Dolgo crab-apple, 25 earlyglow strawberries and 25 surecrop strawberries, 50 elderberries and 100 locust seedlings.  I got them all planted as well as 12 ornamental trees that I got from the Arbor Day foundation.  Below are some pictures and descriptions of what I did.   

Some of the things I did besides plant:  Mow the lawn with my new mower!  I do have some pictures below of the new mower.  I also got some milky sport (2 bags) at Zimmerman's in Everett and applied them to the grape vineyard and the apple and cherry groves.  Note for next time:  Get 3 bags of milky spore!  While I was at Zimmerman's I also picked up an electric box for the shop as weel as 250 ft of 14/4 and 250 feet of 12/2 wiring for the shop.  I picked up 2 20 Amp breakers and 2 15 amp breakers.  This should get me started with the wiring.  The lighting wire can go in, but the plug-source wiring will need conduit. Before I left for Zimmerman's I thought I had a couple of electric boxes already so I went on a whirlwind search of the farm and couldn't find them (then I began to suspect that maybe I didn't buy them after-all!).  Anyway, I went downstairs in the house and found that sewage had come out onto the basement floor!!  ACK!  So I called Chestnut's Septic service and he came out Sunday morning and pumped the tank.  He suggested getting 4 bottles of root remover and dumping it down the drain to clear the field.  He said that it may clear the field since there are now no more trees putting roots in there (although the sweet cherry trees should probably be moved). He said that it may take a year or two though and that I will need pumping again before then.  It cost $150 for a pump-out.  Oh, and I finally finished assembling the oak canning shelves and put up the 2nd attic vent.  Also, Katherine and I searched the woods near the paw-paw trees for Morel mushrooms, but could find none.  Katherine went on line to check and thinks that it may be too early yet.

Sunday April 26, 2015

Some of mom's flowers

Mom's forsythia (yellow) and peach trees (pink)

The hill behind mom's place

A view of the canning shelves with some food on them!  They seem pretty sturdy, but now I am concerned that maybe I should put on some side-to-side bracing (a diagonal across the back maybe?)  

I finally got the other attic vent in!  UGH.  What a mess, but it looks OK and is already keeping the wasps out (or in)

Found a nice spot to hang up the auger!

Whew!  I will have plenty of firewood for quite sometime to come!

And plenty of wood chips!

Blueberries are looking good!

The new blueberries planted right at the end of last years berry plants.  I need to extend the electric fence.

The view from the entrance to the driveway.  So nice!  Starting to look like a farm!

You can kind of see the locust grove to-be where the old fence line was.

Strawberries are sprouting out nicely!

I got black plastic down on the strawberry mounds (left) and the garlic (right).

It dried enough to till the new patch.  It took awhile to remove the roots!  I might smooth out the dirt a bit and re-till before planting - its pretty uneven right now.

Front lawn area with the old trees all gone and the new ornamental planted!

there are 3 each of dogwood and red-bud on the left side of the yard.  2  ornamental crab-apple in front of  the new garden, and  2 each of  hawthorn and crepe-myrtle on the right (12 total)

Saturday April 25, 2015

Dried off enough to work on the soil some more.  After cleaning out the rose bushes, wild pear, and russian olive trees debris I decided that I should till where I was going to put the locust trees.  I planted about 30 of the locust trees today.

I tapered the elderberry rows for a couple of reasons:  1) I wanted to put them in an area with the most water, and 2)  it is easier to place the electric fence around them if they are in a tapered config.

I planted the elderberries in 3 rows instead of the more spacious way i did in the past.  These are planted about 3 feet apart in rows that are 16 feet apart.  I am hoping that this will make it easier to mow and take care of them.  The elderberries in the "swamp" are a pain in the ass to mow around and mulch.

I left about 6-9 feet between the end of the garden and the elderberry rows so that I could maneuver the tractor for plowing and tilling without risking the berries.

Thursday April 23, 2015

Opps!  I decided to take that last remaining tree down to make room for the new "Arbor Day" ornamental trees that I got (I got 12 trees for joining Arbor Day foundation for $10 a year).  Anyway, I thought this tree was smaller than it was and I thought it wasn't leaning as much as it was...  I tried to cut the weight off of the tree so the lines wouldn't take more damage, but after two cuts I was getting too close to the "action".  The power was still flowing through those lines and it was frying the tree while I was using the saw there!   The power company came and cut the tree; the lines were undamaged so they reset the fuse and left.  I eventually planted my ornamental trees.  

Wednesday April 22, 2015

Rained again today.  I moved and put the oak canning shelves together.  Got a nice shot of a rainbow.  It was the second rainbow this week in almost the exact same location.

Tuesday April 21, 2015

I got my new zero-turn radius mower!  I also got a cart for hauling stuff behind lawn-mowers.  The cart is a lot lower to the ground so for hauling stones and dirt its way better then using the dump-bed of the UTV (besides, the UTV bed is usually being used).

I used this mower to mow essentially the entire mowed area of my property and some of the field areas near where I was planting trees.  Its a joy to mow now and SO FAST.  It can, however, still get stuck.  I got it stuck in the mud a couple of times and slid on the hillsides a bit.  The ground is still very wet from earlier rains.

Monday April 20, 2015

Pretty rainbow!

Lots of water run-off

plenty of wet in the far garden.

plenty of wet in the front garden

Closeup of the new plowed garden area.

I need to till this yet but need to wait for it to dry a bit.

Maple tree stump.  

more stumps.  I am thinking of renting a stump grinder to get rid of these.  They are an eyesore and are hard to mow around.

Hickory stump.  

See the huge hickory bole there next to the light post?  I had to drag it - its way too heavy for the tractor to lift in forks.  Not sure what I will do with it yet.  Hickory makes nice tool handles

Plowed the new garden patch.  Was kind of rough going with all of the tree roots in that section.

The tree trimmings pile continues to grow.  I need to service the wood chipper and get chipping!  I used one of my old piles of chips already using them as mulch around the trees.  I will need more!

Looks a lot different now without those front yard trees.