Elderberry jelly

Making Elderberry jelly

Weather was kind of uncooperative this weekend so I decided to do some work indoors.  I grabbed 2 gallon bags of frozen elderberries from the freezer to get ready to make some jelly!  I used the old standard recipe and made 2 batches.  The first batch made 12 half-pints and the second made 11 (although I canned one pint and 9 half-pints because I didn't have enough jars!).  Good stuff.

Old potatoes

I checked out the old potatoes downstairs and was not pleased.  They are not keep too well!  I gathered a couple handfuls up and made some fried potatoes.  I will have to go through them and see if maybe I should can some of them.

They fried up nice!

Funny how much more yellow they look because of the purple ones in there!

Tree cages and trimming new trees

I worked on putting more cages up on the new trees.  I used the remaining of one of the old rolls of fencing and another whole roll of the 3 ft fencing.  I got the new apples mostly done (all but one I think) and some of the new cherry trees.  I can't remember if I did the walnuts earlier or just this past weekend.  Its all turning into a blur!

No pictures of the cages, not terribly exciting and I forgot!

Trimming

I got around to doing some yard trimming and trimming around the old blueberries.   After trimming the blueberries I cleared around the base of the plants.  There are quite a few struggling to survive - maybe 2-3 dead.  I am thinking it might be worthwhile to put some blood meal on them to see if that helps.

I actually took this picture the weekend after I trimmed around these.

Auger Stand 

I also started work building a stand for the auger/post hole digger.  I got the base done.  I made it out of old locust fence posts.  I will try to use only locust for the project, but not sure I have enough of suitable size and quality.

I think Spring is here!

Pruning and spraying the fruit trees

The snow is almost entirely gone and and I was able to get out and trim the fruit trees!  Whew!  I was getting worried that the snow would run right up against the spring, but we have a few weeks of cold yet I think.  I was able to attack the "big" orchard and trim the apple, pear, peach, and plum trees!  I took the big tree protectors off and discovered many hidden ailments.  Many had some kind of powdery fungus (I think) - either that or some bug webs of some kind.  I trimmed the trees as best I could according to the articles that I read.  Apples and Pears get central leader treatment (and headed off), while the peaches get their central leaders removed (and headed off).   After I got all the trimming done I hit them all with a good dose of dormant oil.  I am hopeful that that will finish off any fungus, mildew, bugs, or whatever was attacking my trees!  Oh, and i dormant oiled the grapevines too.  Looking over that orchard, I think I will need to get even more deer pops and deer bait!

Sorry, but no pictures of the trees - they just look like sticks in the ground right now anyway!

Lathe finally moved off of the pallet!

I had the crane legs positioned a couple weeks ago, but then the snow... anyway, I found some nice 10ft + oak 2x8's and hefted a couple of them on top of the crane legs!  Not an easy job, but i got it done.  Just needed 2 - those things are strong.  Then i chained up the hoist and lifted the lathe off its pallet.   I unbolted it and then slid the pallet out from under the lathe.   Whew.  Was a mighty endeavor!

Here are some pics

Those 2x8's didn't even creak or bend at all when they came under load!

I hope thats was an OK place to attach the chains!

Ta-da!

close up of how little room I had to work with 

Right up against the edge here too!  Amazing that it was this close and that I didn't measure any of this stuff for fitting it in!

Next step is to get some electrical work done!  I need some light circuits and a heavy circuit or two for the woodworking and metal working equipment.   Anyway, the shop is starting to look less junky and more like a shop!

Canning shelf work

Well, the ground was not covered with snow, so i decided to plane some more oak boards for the shelves to my oak caning shelf.  I did up a bunch of the leftover boards from the woodshed.  I also noticed that I have a few boards in the shop under the workbench.  I might need those for the chop-saw station though...  No picture of the shelves yet, but i got a few of the huge pile of saw dust left from planing!

Locust trees and the search for grape arbor posts

I dared to take the tractor up to the upper edge of the field and clear out some fallen trees.  While I was up there I decided to take a couple of the locust trees down that where kind of in the way of where I want to plant my walnut trees.  Since I need the locust posts anyway, it was a good thing.  My chainsaw is still dull as crap, but I managed to get 2 decent size posts - and one small one.  I think I can count on 3 posts total from that work.  Was a mess to clean up in that mud!  The tractor was really making a mess!  I hope it doesn't damage the field too badly.  The ruts should back fall in I think long before they make hay there this year (if they are planning too).

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: