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!

Finally got my last 2 gardens planted!

Went up to farm on Friday, with Katherine to plant the gardens.  The car was packed with plants!  Poor Smokey had to ride on mommies lap!  Anyway, we got there we ate, and then I got to tilling right away.  The ground was still a bit wetter than I liked in some places, but I wasn't going to risk planting any later!  I did the big patch first and tilled in all the mulched horse manure and straw/hay & dirt that I took out of the red barn in the previous weeks.  I didn't use any of the baled hay/straw though - just the stuff that was mixed with manure and dirt.  Then I tilled the paw-paw patch.  I used some of the mulched wood chips from the pile up by the house (the oldest pile - i wanted them as mulched as possible) for mulch - just about 5 loader buckets full.  I also had 2 hay bales there that I dropped off a couple weekends ago that I decided to till in.  BIG MISTAKE!!  DO NOT TRY TO TILL HAY/STRAW BALES into your soil!  I had to go over it many times, compressing the soil more each time - grrrr.  Finally got the soil to an acceptable state (barely) for planting.

The next day, Saturday, I started planting the big patch.  First I put down the black plastic around the borders.  This was made more difficult because I did not label or put aside the plastic that I needed so I had to filter through all of my plastic rolls to get it right!  Also, of course, I had to reset the end fence.  The first thing I planted was greenbeans.  I put down a row of bluelake 274 and then a row of tendergreen (? name ?).  Then i put in 6 rows of white and yellow sweet corn.  I planted both the corn and beans using the earthway seed planter.  Everything seemed to work OK, but I felt that the corn was not put down at the rate I thought it should have been.  I didn't even use 1/2 lb of seed for those 6 rows!  We will see in a week or so when this comes up.  I might have to overseed more.  Also, because of this I didn't plant any of the pure yellow corn, which Katherine wanted.  After the corn was in I started transplanting the tomatoes - 144 of them!  It was backbreaking to hoe out the rows - but I thought it was the best way after doing the potatoes that way.   So, 4 rows (?) of tomatoes and then my onions (from seed) and then the eggplant were transplanted.  Then I popped in some cucumbers, spaghetti squash, summer squash, and butternut squash in the remaining space.  Not near as many as I did last year!  Also, this year NO pumpkins or sunflowers are going in the patches!  I plan on tilling some rows outside of the big patch, but inside the electric fence for the pumpkins and sunflowers.  That will be next week - weather and time depending.  I really don't need pumpkins or sunflowers - but I want to see how they grow in those conditions.  Local farmers warn that deer LOVE sunflowers - so that is why they will be inside the electric fence.  In any case, after I finished planting the big patch I did some mowing in the far field - the grass grows so fast there!

OK, so next was the paw-paw patch.  I did that the next day to give it more time to dry out.   First I put in Kale in two rows along the paw-paw side of the patch because that seemed to be the best soil. I hand planted the kale seed because I didn't have much seed and I wanted it in as perfect as I could!  Then I transplanted the cabbages, broccoli and cauliflower together (because they were all mixed together and I lost track of which were which).  Then I put in the artichokes partially into the hay mixed soil - we will see!  Some of that soil feels like bricks!  A couple more seasons and much more organics will bring the soil into a good state - its still pretty 'rough' for a garden.  After the artichokes I used the seeder again to plant beets and carrots.  The beets were partially going into the hay mixed soil and the seeder couldn't handle that, therefore, I simply skipped over that soil, planting beets in rows on either side of the hay area.   The carrots went in next.  I forgot were I was and started planting some of the carrots overtop of the Kale!  ARGGG!  I hope I didn't screw things up too bad.  I broadcast dill seed over the hay mixed area since there was really no other way to seed in there.

OK, here are the pictures of the big patch:

Here are some of the paw-paw patch:

See the hay-mix there in the center? What a mess.  Never again.

The hay mix is very visible here.  See the cabbages on
the left?

Rows from the left: 2 Kale, 4 (?) carrot, 4 (broken) beets - dill planted in the straw

Cabbages, broccoli, and cauliflower

Here are some pics of the front patch - the onions are doing well - and the potatoes are starting up!

Three rows of potatoes on the left!

closeup of potato

More potatoes sneaking out!

I have not idea what this is - lol, will have to look at the front patch blog post.

Ahh - the onion sets are doing great!

Again, no idea - check front patch blog-entry!