Deer damage

Deer damage to the new pines!

Dammit!  Not even 2 weeks in and the deer have found the pines and begun their assault!  UGH!!

I plan on spraying some deer repellant when the weather is suitable.  Won't be long now that I will be able to spray some dormant oil on the fruit trees too.

Ratatouille and locust tree deer damage

I made Ratatouille!  (kind of)

Remember those eggplant that I had no plans for?  Well, here is what I did with them.  I made 

Ratatouille.  Used all of those eggplant that I picked last weekend, some of the tomatoes, and some canned tomato sauce from last year (well, from a previous year).  I also used a jar of my home-canned salsa because I didnt have the right spices.  It was risky and almost ruined things, but it ended up turning out quite good.  Although, I doubt if anyone who has eaten Ratatouille before would recognize this as ratatouille - LOL.

This ratatouille tastes awesome over white rice!

Most nutcrackers can't crack hickory nuts! 

I learned this the hard way!  Bought these off Amazon.  Fortunately, I was able to return even after they broke. 

I actually repaired this one and broke it a second time.  I guess I will keep it now since I did get some of the nuts cracked with it.

This one, however, broke on the very first attempt!  I am not sure it wasn't actually a defective casting rather than just being overwhelmed by the hickory nuts!

Deer-tree damage

I walk the property usually when I first get to the farm.  This time I noticed something when I toured the locust tree grove.  Freaking deer!  They really hit the locust trees hard this year - maybe 15-20 trees are severely damaged. :(   The good news is that NONE of the fruit trees got scrapped up this year (so far anyway).  The tree cages seem to work! Yay

Cabbages, broccoli, blooming stuff

Cabbages and Broccoli planted

They are a bit rough for wear, but I really don't care how they do.  Cabbage is good when fresh or canned into sauerkraut, but how much sauerkraut can you eat?  Of course, I cold try the root cellar approach, but I will need to get moving on that project and its just not likely this year.

I actually don't know which plant is which!  I might have planted mostly cabbage or mostly broccoli!

Grapes

The grapes are blooming!  Well, they are starting to.  Lots of blossoms about to break open.  I did find quite a bit of black rot on the grape vines though.  Not surprising since its been so wet this year. I need to get out there and spray!

These are blossoms that haven't come out yet

This is black rot!  Ugh.  

On quite a few of the leaves.

This stuff can really wipe out your grapes - especially young ones like these

As if the black rot weren't bad enough, the friggen deer have been chowing down on the new grape shoots!   I really like not having the electric fence up and in my way mowing so I am looking into trying some deer repellent spray.

Here you can see where the tips of the plant have been clipped off

The deer trimmed this whole plant!

I hope these recover!

Peaches

The peaches are doing ok.  It is about time for them to start the "June Drop" though.  I am crossing my fingers that I don't loose too many!  This is the first year that I should be letting them reach maturity.

As you can see, some are dropping already!

Strawberries

Still coming in!  I am lazy and didn't take pictures of all of them.  They all look the same!  I think I got another gallon and a half this weekend.

Box Turtle

This box turtle showed up (again?) this year.  I assume its the same one we have been seeing around here, but I didn't mark it and I am no good at telling one turtle from another.

Elderberries

The elderberries are blooming!  Yay!  Oh man, where am I going to store all these things when they are ripe?  I have got to get the freeze-dryer ready!

More garden cleanup and deer hunting

I am a deer hunting fool

Probably should emphasize fool, lol!  I went up to the farm late Friday and was able to get out and do some hunting before sundown.  It may just be my impression, but I kind of feel that they (the deer) are watching me go to the blinds in the daylight but don't see me going out in the morning.

Is nice though, in the woods

Nope, no deer up there!

I get bored sometimes when I am waiting for these deer!

Tiller upkeep

Getting ready to till the garden patches so I can plant my cover crops (or grass - as the case may be) I had to hook up the tiller to the tractor.  Well, the tiller had rolled on its side and allowed the gear oil to leak out!  Arggg.  I had to search online to find what kind of oil to use - 80-90W!   I searched all over the farm for my gear oil - of course I found it just a few feet from the tiller!  Of course since that's the only thing I use it in!  I only found one bottle of it and it was already open, so I just added all I had and hoped it was enough.

 

Several nuts were missing or loose so I had to get these all fixed up as well.

Oil add port on side of tiller.  I must have had enough in there because after i was done tilling I noticed some had leaked out

All ready for some tilling action!

Front patch cleanup and till

The front patch still has strawberries in it that I want to try to preserve for next year.  The strawberries are NOT hilled this season and I did put plenty of wood chips on them so they should survive the winter this time around.  Anyway, I tilled as close as I dared.  I did mash down some of the fence, but nothing that I can't fix.

I managed to pick a few more daikon radishes that had come up from an earlier planting (the early radishes went to seed and that's where these came from!)

The paw-paw patch

Or the sweet potato patch, since that's what I grow in there now.  It tilled up nicely, even though I had the tiller set to the wrong side of the tractor for the direction I was tilling.  I seeded this patch and the strawberry (front) patch with hairy-vetch.  Hairy vetch produces more nitrogen fixation than any other common cover crop.  It does have the draw back of being quite invasive though.  I have to make sure it is plowed under and tilled in (or sprayed down with roundup) before it goes to seed, otherwise it goes wild!

This patch still has some uneven spots due to the fact that it is on a bit of a slope and this is its first year in this configuration.  By next year it should be looking much more uniform.

The "big" patch - no more!

This patch was cut in half this year and still I had more then enough work to keep me busy!  After the problems I had getting the corn to grow here and the need for some decent space to plant more cherry trees, I decided to remove this patch entirely.

I planted elderberries where the other half of this garden was.  They took some heavy deer damage.  I hope they get a good foothold next year.

Before

After

I did a lot of landscaping to get this area leveled again.  hard to tell from the pictures but there is a bit of a slope on this lot and because of the way it got plowed and tilled a large raised ara developed on the right and a large ditch developed on the left.

I planted grass here.  Next spring I will plant my sour cherry trees here.  I may also plant some more apple trees further out along the hill.

Deer damage to apple trees

This is why I am hunting this year!  I have put up special fences, baited zones and have even taken to putting up wire mesh protectors around my trees to keep the damn bucks from scraping the bark off. But still, I get damage (well, not the trees that have the wire mesh - that's on the list of things to do for all trees now I guess).  

This one should recover ok.

This one will be a close.

Healing up from last years deer attack.  That white stuff is a parasite that gets into the trees bark when it gets weak like this.  If I am lucky the tree will recover.  

Another one too close to call.

This tree will probably die - the bark was stripped off too far.

This is the type of wire mesh protector that I guess I will need to put on all of my trees!  Over 42 trees to put this on.  Not counting the new cherry trees next year.  Ugh