Paw-paw patch tilled, bean planting, elderberries blooming!

Blueberries!

The new blueberries are doing well.  Actually, they look a bit yellow to me.  But the soil there is pretty good so it might be a special blueberry nutrient deficiency.  

The new blueberries have blueberries on them!

June drop continues

I keep finding more peaches on the ground, but there are still a lot in the trees yet too.  I am going to put up tree cages around these trees to protect them from the critters (raccoons) who stole them all last year!

It actually smells like peaches around these trees now - probably due to the fruit that falls.  I am sure that will interest many critters!

Elderberries blooming their hearts out!

Paw-paw patch tilled and planted

Finally was able to get the tractor over there to till.  It has been so wet and muddy this spring that this was the first chance I had to get in there!  I had to put up the fence for this garden too.  I will put a gate in the upper side I think - later.  I used the push-type planting tool to plant pinto beans and some of the fancy green beans that I have been harvesting for the past couple years (I really need to shell the rest of those!)

Free mulch/Wood chips!

The guys who trim the trees around the power lines stopped to trim along my driveway this weekend. I asked them if they could give me the chips from the trimming - they said yes - and if I wanted they could dump more there too!  I thought that was a grand idea! Sweet!  Now I won't have to be milling and chipping wood to get chips to put around all of my trees!

That's just one of their truckloads.

Daikon radishes are blooming

I just thought they are kinda pretty so I took a few pics!  These are volunteers that I did not remove from the front patch.

Cabbages surviving - just

Actually, not all of them look so good.  I am going to have to put some Sevin on them soon.

These are the good looking ones

More strawberries

Another gallon and a half (I think).   I don't take pictures of all of them and I have been bad at posting these updates on time so I can't remember how many we got this picking.  I think, all told, that I have picked about 6 gallons so far.  Between us and mom though, only a few have made it into the freezer!

I am seriously thinking of making strawberry jam and strawberry wine!  Maybe next year though,  depending on how many I get and how much time I have.

Mower tire issues

Well, the zero-turn mower tire finally gave way to the sidewall slash and wouldn't  hold pressure any more.  I (thought) was prepared with a spare wheel and a spare tire - BUT - I had purchased the wrong size!  Argh!  So I went to the McConnellsburg TSC and returned the wrong ones and bought a tire - no wheel though.  So I had to remove the old tire from the rim and place the new one on.  All with out any tire changer tools!  I just used crow bar, prybar and screwdriver.  I finally got the new tire on (with the help of some window cleaner spray) but then had to "re-bead" it.  Well, I got the idea to try the old "light the ether - explosive fuel" trick...  I sprayed some ether into the tire, threw a match at it - but no explosion!  It just sat there burning.  So I push on the wall of the tire a bit and BOOM!  Big fireball encompasses me and singes the dickens out of my facial hair (and head hair)!  It didn't hurt though - very fast flame and it was gone.  Embarrassing though.  I tried again, this time using my foot to push in the sidewall after it was lit - boom again - but I wasn't engulfed this time and the tire sealed up nice.  I rushed to fill it with air before it cooled and things went well after that.

Ugh - I could smell burned hair all weekend!

Chokecherry and choke berry clean up and mulching

Since I  now had enough woodchip mulch I decided to mow around and cleanup the chokecherry, chokeberry patch.  I used the weed wacker to clean them up nicely.  I got the old red push mower running too.  I had to take apart the carburetor and cleaning it - but it started right up after that and ran quite nicely.

Of course, I didn't get a picture of them after I put the mulch on!  D'oh!

Strawberry moon

Evidently, this time of year something happens and the moon is low in the sky such that it appears reddish.  The native Americans called this the strawberry moon.  When they saw it they knew it was time to pick the strawberries!  I couldn't get a very good picture of it with my phone though.

Weed wacker - trimmer died 

I was using it one minute, laid it down to do something, then the next time I picked it up it just wouldn't turn on!  I took it apart and never did find out what was wrong.  I figure its probably the switch.  Anyway, I went ahead and order a new one.  This ones newer version - the LST420 - lol - "weed" wacker  - too funny!

The old wacker 

Family reunion, mole problems, and squash planting

Family reunion time

We went to the family reunion on Saturday.  Attendance was a bit sparse, but not bad.  It was a good time and plenty of good food!  We took the puppies in their cages.  They were well behaved, shock of shocks!  No barking (well, a little - but not bad) and no problems.  We were a bit concerned about the heat (was a hot day and no AC in the place) but we survived until after 4pm.  Then we decided to get the pups out of there since they weren't drinking or eating and Sugar seemed to be breathing shallow.  When we got back home though she perked up and all was well.

Corn still sparse.. why?  Moles!

While deweeding the brassicas I happened to look up and saw a mole chewing off a young corn plant! So many moles!  So few corn plants!  So we went shopping for mole "suppressants" at TSC.  All that I could find that looked promising was some poisonous "worms" and a solar powered sonic spike.

Mole suppressants

Three plantings and this is the only corn I have!  

OK - the first planting was with old seed and I don't think it germinated, but still!

So I placed the poison and the sonic spike and we will see what happens!  BTW, while planting the squash (see below) I discovered a dead mole  - but I don't know if it died from me stopping around or from the poison.

Tree protector replacement continues

I replaced the plastic tubes on all of the pecan trees and the rest of the paw-paws trees!  I bouhgt 2 100 foot rolls of fencing while at TSC and used a whole roll.  I have a few more trees to go so I will probably have a bit of fencing left.

Paw-paws are all caged now!

The pecans are actually looking pretty good!

All the pecans are caged now.  Good thing because there are SO many deer in this area!  In fact I chased a young fawn out of the weeds just next to these trees.

Deer safe?  For a while, maybe

"pond" spearmint is doing well

I trimmed around the pond spearmint - it looking good! I am hoping that this stuff takes off!

Orchard and vineyard care

I dusted the grape vines last weekend with sevin and sulfur.  Shortly afterward Connie warned me that Concord grapes were not safe to use sulfur on!  I looked it up and she was right.  I looked at the vines this weekend and think I did notice some damage (chlorosis - the leaves loose their greenness).  So this time I mixed up a batch of sevin and fungicide and oversprayed the vines, hopefully washing off the sulfur.

I finally got around to trimming off the base shoots around the trees.  While doing so  I noticed that I did indeed have a Japanese Beetle problem on some of the trees!  The Honey Crisp and one other variety seemed to be hit hard.  In fact, most of the trees didn't have any beetles - really just those tow varieties.  Weird.  I also notice some disease issues on some of the other trees though, so I sprayed the whole orchard with sevin and fungicide.  I also applied some more Roundup around the trees and various problem areas.

Fungicide, sevin spray on the trees  Trimmed the base shoots 

Roundup working - applied more where I missed

Good to see the smartweed dieing!

Hopefully this will help with the mole issues too since they wont be able to hide in the weeds!

Planted the Squash

I planted the winter squash in the corn patch and winter and summer squash in the tomato garden.  I just pulled back the plastic and planted several seeds in a hill.

All Winter squash here

Summer an winter squash here - I put the summer squash in the front.

Parrotia Tree

Tom and Julie brought a Parrotia Tree for me to plant.  The tree is supposed to have nice fall colors.  Its not a good time to plant, but not much else to do with it!  I hope it survives until the fall!