Family Easter and fruit tree planting!

Kale status update

I only have kale planted in the "city" raised bed.  It will provide plenty!   The new kale looks good so far.  The old kale is blooming and going to seed.  We will collect and use for next years kale needs!

"New" kale

"old" kale.  Very pretty!

Fruit trees planted!

I picked up the trees on Friday the 21st and actually got a lot planted that afternoon!  Well, not all fruit trees, there was a couple English walnuts in there too.   I got 15 sour cherries and 1 sweet cherry (they ran out of sour so they gave me one sweet).  I planted two of the sour cherries in the front of the house to replace the two that had died there from last years plantings.  I put the rest of the cherry trees below the hazelnuts on the other side of the stream.

I honestly forgot what I had ordered for the apple trees so I had to dig a bit more than I had anticipated!  I got 7 more honey-crisp and 4 more crab apple.  I also planted 2 apricots and 2 English walnuts.  I wedged them all in!  Whew - getting short on places to plant these trees.

I also took down the electric fence around the orchard since it was getting in the way and I don't think it provides much protection.  I will put cages around the trees for protection from the deer.

Sour cherries

Sour cherries

Replaced one dead eating apple (I don't recall what kind) with a honey-crisp and I also replaced one dead crab-apple.

I put the "extra" crab apples in the front and added the remaining 6 honey-crisp to the other side of the apples.  I also took down the electric fence since it was in the way.

Strawberries and blueberries

I also got 100 strawberries and 12 blueberries from the county.  I planted those in the front patch.  I planted the blueberries Saturday morning and just got them all in as the rain started!  The rest of Saturday we attended Easter celebration with family at mom's place  On Sunday I got up as early as I could and started in on the strawberries.  I put down the black plastic first in case rain started and made things muddy.  I usually do it in that order anyway - plastic down and then plant.  Its a good thing I started early - it rained on me a good bit as it was!  I got them all in though.  Whew.

New blueberries in back row.  New Strawberries in front.  

I got Tristar and Surecrop strawberries this time.

Tractor Supply Company

While I was down in McConnellsburg getting the trees I stopped by the Giant grocery there for some sodas.   Right next to the Giant is a new Tractor Supply Company!  Its not open yet, but soon - I think they said 3 more weeks.  Its a shame they weren't open since I needed to get more fencing for the tree cages.  I ended up going to the Everett TSC for that.  I picked up 2 50ft rolls of 3 ft and 2 50ft rolls of 4ft.  I will use the 4ft for the fence around the front garden and to replace some on the pawpaw patch garden.  The 3ft will be for tree cages.

A visit to Foltz of Hagerstown, family easter, and spring chores

Easter at Mom's

We all got together at mom's place on Saturday for our Easter celebration.  Was wonderful weather and good food!

Tom did the camera work.  He set it for time delay and was able to get in the shot.  Great job!

After the meal we went on a quick walk around the place to fix some damaged fence stringers and just take in the spring beauty.

Katherine and me! :)

Katherine and I are trimming mom's Elderberry bush.

A visit to Foltz in Hagerstown, MD - AMAZING!

Katherine had done an internet search to find places that sold metal stock that were on my way to our farm.   I have been getting some stock through the mail, but shipping can be a bit high (metal is heavy and awkward).  She found a place in Hagerstown that we decided to stop at on the way to the farm. The front of the store, what you would see if you just saw it from the street, is nothing particularly special.  However, I asked to see what metal stock they had in their inventory at present and was permitted to go into the back section and look...

This is the metal stock rack!  Plenty of hot rolled and a bit of cold rolled steel.  Even some brass and copper!  A good selection

OMG - the old, wonderful machines!  this is a Mill/drill - looks to have about a 8-10 foot throat!

Millings machine

A metal lathe with what look like a 6 foot swing and a 20 foot bed!  The owner says this was brought in from Baltimore by horse and cart in 4 sections.  It was used to service the trolley system in Hagerstown.  That face plate on the lower right is about 4 feet in diameter!

The old machines were powered by a steam traction engine out back of the shop.  Here are the power distribution pulleys

Another view of that faceplate!  You can see the headstock of the lathe better here too (up and to the left of the faceplate)

Drill press.  Massive.  Hard to get a good sense of size in this picture.  It must have been about 12 feet tall,
maybe a tad more.

This place also has some nice deals for machinists metal workers near Hagerstown.  They still have one gentleman on staff that can fabricate stuff, if you have a need.  I might have to visit them if my tries at making my milling arbor don't work out...

Gardens resize and plowed!

I wasn't feeling great this weekend due to springs wonderful allergies, but I was able to get out long enough to pull and move some garden posts and to plow all the patches.

The big patch was pretty much cut in half.  I sectioned off the "clay" region since that was not very productive anyway.  I plan to plant some of the new elderberry plants there in a couple weeks.

"big patch" - not so big anymore.

Plowing went very well.  No broken shear pins and soil didn't stick to the plow blades.

Here you can see the unplowed old section that I am not going to garden anymore.

Soil looks fairly decent.  I may still have some water issues, of course, but this should help by keeping to the section without so much clay.

The "new" section of the front patch plowed much better than last year due to the fact that most of the tree roots are now gone.  The soil is still not up to snuff, but it will get there - just need to keep putting mulch on there!

I left a bit more room on the left between the blackberries so that I can mow easier.

Again, plowing went pretty good.  Very few tree roots left.

The soil is still crap, but it will improve as I add amendments.  

The paw-paw patch also changed shape a bit.  I moved the patch up the hill a little bit and extended it toward the road a few feet as well.  I sectioned off the wet section.  I redrilled the posts but did not put up the fence yet.  I figure that can wait until after I till.

The grounding rod for the electric fencer put up a hell of a fight!  I never did manage to pull it!  I think I will just cut it off below ground level and bury it.

The soil in the paw-paw patch looks so rich!  This is where the sweet potatoes go this year.  I think I have beans scheduled to go here too - although it might be corn.  I can't remember.

These patches will sit like this for a months or so before I till and plant.  This will give some of the organics in the mulch to decompose and get integrated with the soil.

 More flat-electric fence put up

I didn't get to do a lot on the farm, but i did get some more of the flat electric fence up.  Just did the blueberries.  This stuff is way more visible than the old polystrand.  I hope the deer take notice!

More work on the spindle thread protector

I mounted the thread protector into the 4-jaw chuck and dialed it in.  It is within 4-5 thousandths of centered, which is fine for this purpose.  Then I used brill bits in the tailstock drill chuck to drill out to about 1 1/8".   After drilling to 1 1/8" I was able to mount up a boring bar and start boring to the final dimension (I am not 100% sure what the final dimension is yet, but I have a ways to go before I have to worry about that!).

I found these big drill bits in the stuff I bought from Ken's family.  Biggest is 1 1/8".  They have .5" shaft so that worked out well!  I am not sure drilling bigger than 1 1/8" is advisable.  The drill chuck did slip a couple times in the MT3 tailstock.  No damage was done, but anything bigger I think would cause excessive spinning in the taper possible causing damage.

Showing boring bar and hole in center of spindle-thread protector.

When boring I noticed that a lot of chips go inside the spindle.  I guess its ok to use air to blow those out.

Looks like at least another 1/4" to go.  The bore is about 1 3/8 right now.

Discovered some Wilton Vises!

While looking for some drill bits to enlarge the bore in the spindle-thread-protector, I discovered several little vises - about 2" jaws.  Two of them are Stanley, and two of them are Wilton - little bullet vises!   Very nice!  I really need to get a workbench surface so that I can mount these - I need a vise or two installed!

Cherry trees and grape vines

Prelude to planting...

I got an email from FedEx last Tuesday saying that my Cherries and Grape Vines would be at the farm Wednesday!  I contacted FedEx and was able to delay the delivery until Friday (for $5).  Katherine and I got to the farm around 10:30am and FedEx showed up around 11:30am!

I had plenty to do before getting the trees and vines planted though.  The ground was very wet (it was raining on and off Friday) so doing anything with the soil was impossible.  I checked the grape arbor posts and decided that they needed another coat of copper naphthenate.  I got a good coat on them and let them to dry.

Later on my brother Tom called and wanted to know if they could come over Saturday morning to get a tour and then go grab some lunch.  We agreed.    I decided to put the last coat of polyurethane  on the canning shelves so that they would be dry.   I built a good fire in the fireplace to make sure everything dried out downstairs.

"Easter" with the family

Well, mom, my brother Tom and his wife Julie came over around 10ish Sat morning and I proceeded to walk them around the farm showing everything I was working on.  We finished the tour around noon and then Katherine, me and the rest of the family traveled into McConnellsburg for lunch.  Tom took some pictures during the farm tour - here are a few:

A great panorama shot looking out toward the valley from the top of my field.

Me on the left, Tom in the middle and Mom on the right.  Checking out the Pecan trees

Mom next to a Pecan tree - looks like she is checking out the White Walnut trees
The butternut trees are not in the picture, but off-frame to the left.

A view of the wood-house-it made it through the winter!
The box leaning up against the wood inside contains the cherry trees and grape vines

Walking up to the nut trees.  That is Mom in the white and me in the black.

Still on the trek to the nut trees.  Mom is watching her step.  I am ahead there on the left with Julie on the right (in blue)

Mom, Tom, and Me!

Planting the Cherry Trees

After Katherine and I  returned to the farm it had dried out enough that I could plant the cherry trees. First I marked where I wanted to place the trees in the front "cherry area".  I placed the Dwarf Star Sour Cherry trees (6 of them) between the old sour cherries and the house.  My logic was that since they are dwarf trees they would not obstruct my view to the other trees when they got larger.  Meh.  I placed the Montmorency cherry trees (again, 6 trees) to the right of the old sour cherry trees, as you look from the house to the road.  When I was done I placed the spiral "rabbit protectors" around them and then I went to laying out the grape arbor posts.  After that I called it a night.  Later in the weekend I put wood shavings around the cherry trees to help keep the grass and weeds down.  

The new ones don't have any wood chips by their base in this picture.  20 sour cherry trees!  4 sweet cherry on the far left.

The wine grapes

The next day we had to pop over to Mom's to get my post-hole digger and digging iron.  Tom has been working on the upkeep of Mom's fence and he needed a post hole digger.  Anyway, I picked up some old short steel posts that I hope to use for my expanded electric fence around my cherry trees and gardens.  Katherine picked up mom's old electric slicer.  Mom said I could have the old garden posts too - they are the large metal posts that I will certainly need soon when I add to my garden,

Once we got back to the farm, unpacked, and ate lunch it was about 1:30pm!   I got the auger ready and started drilling out the post holes.   I cleaned the holes up with the post-hole digger.  Fortunately, despite being in a rocky area, the posts went in nicely with only a little movement needed to get the deep holes I needed.  I brought the posts down from the barn using the front-loader.  I brought 3 posts at a time since the front-loader can't really hold a lot (more at once would have gotten in the way anyway).   I used a level to get the posts nice and straight and aligned.  It took a few hours, but I got all the posts in.  They look pretty good!  

While I was working on the posts, Jay Knepper dropped by to pay rent on the field.  We got to talking and I asked him about cutting down some of the trees on the other side of the sheep pasture fence - he said they were probably on my property anyway, but even if they were on his it was OK to cut them down.  Until those trees are down I am afraid to plant anything on the hill facing the sheep pasture.  They are BIG trees and would destroy anything in their fall zone.

Anyway, I got back to the grapes and got them all planted.  It was tricky though - that ground has a lot of stones in it.  It was hard to find dirt to cover the grape roots!  I made sure to use the rhizome inoculate and the goop that makes it all stick and hold water.  I also watered them all in.  They will need a lot of luck if the weather gets dry this year!    I planted Pinot Gris, Sauvignon Blanc, and Zinfandel grapes.

I need to put the tops on the arbors and run the wire too, but that all can wait.  I just wanted the posts in there now because putting in posts after the rape vines are in would be a nightmare!

Between the posts, there are little dirty areas - those are where the grape vines are planted!  

This bank where I planted the grapes and hazelnuts is a drain-way for the mountain.  It doesn't drain through here so much as to be running with water (usually), but it always seems to have moisture without having any standing water.

Wood mulch

I didn't get any pictures of it, but I did put wood chips, plane shavings, and saw dust around all of my planted trees that weren't otherwise protected - the grapes, the apples, pears, peaches and plums.  I even started putting some around the paw-paws - but I ran out of time.  I will need to finish those off next week.  

Preparing for the next wave...

I have arranged to take off some time from work so that I can plant the next wave of trees and get the gardens started.  I pulled up a lot of the barbed wire fencing along the top of my pasture (to the right of the apples as you look from the road).  I also got the tractor in there and pulled most of the posts and brambles.  However, I still need to do a lot of prep work on that ground before I can plant trees there!  I still haven't decided whether to use tree protectors or not.  I am thing that I will put in 2 rows of locust.  Katherine suggests using the tree protectors only on the top row and hopefully that will provide some deer protection as well as a visual guide to whoever mows that field!

Oh - and seedlings are coming along!

We left the seedlings here to fend for themselves this weekend.  They survived!  In fact, some of the pepper plants are finally emerging!

They are reaching for the window light (I didn't leave a light on for them).  Tomatoes, brasicas, and eggplants in there.

You can't see them - but there are some pepper plants coming up in there!