Mid-June Garden and Orchard Update

It's been a while since I did a garden update, so I thought I'd share what's going on. 

Unfortunately, May was extremely hot and dry here, which caused our cold weather crops like peas, lettuce, and spinach to die prematurely.  If it's not one thing, it's another. 

Our garden on June 18. It's looking bare since so much has been harvested or pulled out. 

The chickens have the right idea. 

The chickens spend the hot part of the day underneath their coop. 

When it's hot like this, it's best to just stay in the shade! I've been spritzing their run with the hose a couple of times a day and putting ice cubes in their water. They seem to be weathering the heat well. Hopefully by this time next month I'll be getting eggs from my lovely ladies! 

Drying garlic

We harvested around 40 heads of garlic. We gathered them into bunches of five or six heads and have suspended them in our garage to dry for a month or so. Once they are dry, I'll cut them off their stalk - we grew 'Music', a type of hard-neck garlic - and put them into storage. I plan to save our best heads back to use as seed garlic for next year's crop. I am also going to try dehydrating garlic in my Excaliburand grind my own garlic powder.

'Copra' onions

The onions are doing well and will probably do even better now that the garlic is gone. Our garlic plants were three feet tall and were shading them.

Our green beans had spotty germination

Our green beans had spotty germination, as did our carrots, cucumbers, watermelon, zucchini, and cantaloupe. We replanted the bare spots. We also planted extra vine plants in the space vacated by the peas. We will soon have a riotous mess in those bare areas!

Lots of varieties of heirloom tomatoes

Ripen already!! I can't wait for that first homegrown tomato of 2012.

We planted some black oil sunflowers in this open area

We are growing some Peredovik black oil sunflowers for a treat for our chickens.

Sunflower bud

The Berries

The heat has led the blackberries to begin ripening a full month earlier than last year.

I've only picked enough to eat out of hand, but in the next week or so, we should be harvesting buckets of berries. Time to dig out the canner and make some blackberry jam!

Barn swallow nest

One of the things we are doing to help control the wasps that plagued our blackberries last year is allow barn swallows to nest on our property. We had been knocking down the nests simply because the birds make such a mess on our porches and deck. Barn swallows eat an amazing amount of insects, however, so we are leaving them alone this year. Hopefully this will cut down on the wasps sucking the juice out of my berries!

We're getting a few strawberries from our everbearing plants and little bits of raspberries, too, though our big raspberry harvest will be in September. Or August, the way things are going this year!

Only about half of the new raspberries appear to have survived

The good news about the raspberry canes we planted this spring is that we have a few survivors. Hopefully they will make it through the heat of summer and we can fill in the row with extra canes from our established raspberries.

Blueberries going strong

Our blueberry bushes seem to be doing well and they've grown quite a bit. We planted two year old bushes, so hopefully we'll get a crop from them next year.

The Orchard

Our little orchard faced some struggles this month. Two of our newly-planted apple trees came down with a bad case of Cedar Apple Rust. 

Our Jonafree apple tree has managed to overcome the Cedar Apple Rust 

The GoldRush? Not so much. It's growth is being stunted by its struggle with rust.

I really didn't think we'd have to worry about disease pressures this early! And I didn't think Cedar Apple Rust would be a problem since we don't have any cedar trees on our property.

What's that right across the road from our orchard?

Earth to Emily! There are cedar trees right across the road! After I did more research, I found out that to eradicate the chance of Cedar Apple Rust, I'd have to get rid of all the cedar trees within a square MILE of our property. As that's not going to happen, I'm going to have to pay close attention to the weather conditions next spring so I can stay ahead of the rust. In the mean time, I have been using an organic disease control spray that seems to be helping somewhat.

Our pecan trees

Perhaps the most impressive growth has been from our three pecan trees. They might not look so impressive to you, but considering they were mere twigs when we planted them last November, I'm pleased.

Oh, but I'm forgetting the real star of the show, our cherry tree.

Our not-quite-as-dwarf Montmorency cherry

We got this tree for free four years ago and have pretty much neglected it. This year we have lavished it with care. It got a proper mulching, fertilization, and holistic sprays in the spring. It has responded with enthusiastic growth of nearly two feet!

I also pre-ordered the new additions to our orchard for the fall - two standard-sized pear trees (Starking Delicious and Seckel) and an All-in-One Almond tree. I was really tempted to order a lot more but I remember how hard Hubby Dear and I have to work to bust through our concrete soil. Three trees at a time is probably all we can handle.


Between the garden and my poultry projects, we've been busy. What's growing at your house? 

Our Homestead in Pictures, Mid-April Edition

The scent of this Korean Lilac bush is the best thing I have ever smelled 

A neighbor gave a tiny potted lilac bush to me after the tragic death of my sister in a car accident. I planted it the following spring and it has grown to be enormous. Its heavenly scent reminds me that I will indeed see my sister again in Heaven someday. 

Baby cherries

Since I am attempting to nurse the cherry tree to back to health, I did some of the holistic sprays of spring during its bloom. The oils in the spray prevent blossoms from setting so any cherries we get will be especially appreciated. I thought the loss of the cherries was a small price to saving the entire tree. 

"Chester" blackberry blossom

Our "Chester" blackberries are blooming and the "Triple Crown"s are full of buds. I really hope we don't get a frost that will truly nip our blackberry harvest in the bud.

These are the berries that developed from these blossoms

The strawberries are developing quickly. I can't wait to taste that first berry. It is crazy just how much better homegrown strawberries taste than their counterparts from the store.

The strawberry plants we planted last month all appear to have survived. You can see them in the photo below (right side of the pic). They are all growing and some have even tried to put out flowers. We pinch them off since the baby plants need to focus on growth.

A shot of the north half of the garden

Compare this photo to the one taken  of the same view just two weeks earlier. Massive growth.

"GoldRush" apple tree in foreground, "Enterprise" in rear. The orange flag marks
the spot for our row of blueberries.

All of the apple trees are leafing out. I guess that sunny and windy day we planted them on didn't harm them too much. You can see that we put down some mulch around the trees. We used a particular kind of mulch and did it in a specific way. I know that sounds cryptic and I'll hopefully be able to post about it soon. I have to get my blueberries planted first, though.

Fishing line and bird scare tape will hopefully deter hawks

Our chicks are now five weeks old and are full-fledged little chickens. It is time to start giving them excursions into the great outdoors. First, however, we needed to do something to deter birds of prey. I often see hawks flying above our homestead and I do not want my chickens to become casualties. The chicken moat is supposed to be narrow enough that hawks won't want to risk snagging a chicken there. The main run, on the other hand, is a different story. Hubby Dear and I strung 50 lb. test fishing line back and forth over the run. Then I attached strips of bird scare tape to flap and flash in the sunlight.

This Salmon Faverolle is curious but cautious

The chickens themselves are a bit suspicious of this whole outside business. I suppose that's only natural since they have always been confined in one way or another. If we want them to go outside, it involves catching all the chickens and chucking them out the door. You don't even want to imagine what it takes to get them all back IN the coop after their outing. 

Chicken taming is a work in progress, that's for sure.  

How to Plant an Apple Tree

We've lived on our property for nearly five years and we have wanted to plant fruit trees from the beginning. Between Hubby Dear's grueling work schedule and the birth of two more children, we've had to postpone that plan. Last fall we were finally able to make a beginning; we set in motion our orchard plan and planted three baby pecan trees.

The additions to our orchard for Spring 2012 are three semi-dwarf apple trees and three highbush blueberry bushes. I'll cover the blueberries in a later post. :)

The first thing you need to do before you plant apple trees is find a good place for them on your property. Ours are located on the southwest corner of our 5 acres, the area we have set aside for the bulk of our fruit trees.

We marked the locations for the trees, taking their mature size into account and siting them well away from the pecans

The apple trees are just east of where we planted the pecan trees last fall. Since a mature pecan tree can have a canopy in the neighborhood of 80 feet in diameter, we made sure to select locations that would not be shaded in the future. Of course it will be a looooong time before our pecan trees are large enough to be a threat to the apples, but we're planning for the future!

Our apple trees are semi-dwarf, which means they can grow to be about 15 feet across. We measured out and marked an equilateral triangle with sides that measured 15'. Who said high school geometry isn't useful?

The night before we planted our trees we soaked them in buckets that contained a solution of liquid kelp in water. Our trees came bareroot and Michael Phillips, author of my much-beloved The Holistic Orchard: Tree Fruits and Berries the Biological Way,recommended soaking them in kelp overnight to help reduce transplant shock. I added about 2 tablespoons of organic liquid kelp to each bucket and then filled it with enough water to cover the roots.

Soaking the trees overnight in a kelp solution. Our storage
room is the coolest place I could find, so that's where the trees
landed until planting. 

The next morning dawned sunny and warm. Ideally, you would plant trees on an overcast, wind-less day. It's better for the plants. We didn't have much choice in the matter, however, so we trusted in the awesome  power of kelp to keep our trees from freaking out and got underway.

Please learn from my mistake: if you are going to dig halfway to China on a unseasonably sunny and warm spring day, apply your sunscreen with great care. I just kind of slapped it on and by the end of the day the back of my neck, ear lobes, part of my left cheek and triceps were burnt to a crisp. I look like I have some rare kind of skin disease.

It felt like we were digging to China 

Now for the hole.

You need a hole that is about 3 feet wide and 16-20 inches deep. If you are digging through clay, you will want to give up about halfway but persevere! A large hole means you are loosening a lot of soil and your tree will pay you with abundant growth.  We tried to break up the sides of the hole as much as we could because "otherwise [the roots] may circle around the glazed bowl that can inadvertently result from clay particle adhesion caused by digging the hole." (Phillips, 52)

After you have dug your hole, you will look at your small tree and wonder if it will be completely swallowed up by the giant chasm that you just made in your lawn. Nope, because the next step is to take some of the best quality dirt (i.e. topsoil, not clay) plus the amendments I will discuss and form a mound of loose soil on the bottom of the hole. Gently place your tree on top of the mound and spread the roots out.

Hubby Dear placed the tree on the mound of loose soil and spread the roots out

Check the graft union - that's the bumpy part where the rootstock has been joined to the trunk. Make sure it is about 4 inches above the level of the ground. If you plant your tree too deep, the rootstock might send out growth of its own and the resulting tree would not be the variety that you desire. As you add dirt back into the hole and tamp down the soil, the tree will settle a bit so it is important that the graft union starts off high enough.

Now let's talk soil amendments. Michael Phillips recommends the following: 

Organic soil amendments to add at planting: rock phosphate, mycorrhizal inoculant, azomite, and humic acids

Each tree gets 1 lb of rock phosphate and 1 lb of azomite. We mixed this as well as some humic acids into the mound at the bottom of the hole and into the soil we filled in around the roots. The roots themselves were sprinkled with mycorrhizal inoculant.

What's mycorrhizal inoculant, you ask? Mycorrhizal fungi are present in healthy woodland and orchard soils. They partner with trees in a symbiotic relationship. It's too involved for me to write it all out here, but suffice it to say fungi are the key to healthy, happy, organically-grown fruit trees. Mycorrhizal inoculant is the best way to insure fruit trees have these fungal partners from the beginning.

After we dusted the roots with the inoculant, we continued to fill in the hole with the best dirt, reserving the worst of the clay for the top. The roots will thrive in the good stuff and the tree will grow strong quickly. The clay will get improved over time from the amendments that will be applied from above.

When we had the hole about 3/4 of the way filled in, we placed a stake on the side of the tree opposite of the prevailing winds.

Then we tamped down the soil firmly and watered well. I took some of the remaining chunks of clay and arranged them in a ring around the tree to help hold water in the root zone.

Our new Jonafree, GoldRush, and Enterprise apple trees

And that's it! Most people recommend that you do not fertilize fruit trees the first year after planting, so other than watering as necessary, they won't require too much attention this year.

Other than a whole bunch of  ramial mulch. But that's a post for another day. 

March 2012 in Review, Part IV: First Aid and April Preps

Whew! This is the final part of my March prepping review. The last thing I did last month was to start chipping away at our first aid preps.


First Aid

I've had a first aid plan for a while but I haven't done much to build up our stockpile.

Triangular bandages, gauze, surgical masks, Ace bandages, Burn Jel and Coflex

This is but a drop in the bucket but at least I got started!


With March finally out of the way, here's what I have in store for April: 

1. Plant our apple trees and blueberries bushes. I'll post in-depth instructions on how to start off your plants right. There's a lot more to it than just plopping your trees in a hole. 
2. Get some more stuff for the chickens. The wee beasties are getting larger and I need to get some more items to keep them healthy and happy. 
3. BOB upgrade. I'll buy a few more items to upgrade and update our bug out bags. 
4. Food Storage. If I have room  in the budget, I'd like to buy some more #10 cans of milk
5. Inventory our First Aid stockpile. I need to get a better idea of just how much we already have.  

So that's me! How are you prepping this month?

September 2001 in Review and October Preps

September 2011 Preps

What did you accomplish in September? We had amazing weather all month long. We had very little rain or cloudy days and the highs were consistently in the 70s. The end result was picture-perfect fall weather. That encouraged this lazy woman to soak in the sun instead of prep or experiment with solar cooking devices.   

Even our sewage lagoon (our clay soil prohibits a septic tank)  gussied
itself up with a cloak of sunflowers this month. 

I did buy two bushels of apples and canned and dehydrated them. It was the first time I've used my Excalibur 9 Tray Food Dehydratoron something besides herbs and I was really impressed with how well it worked. I ended up with 3 quarts of dried apples that I'll use for desserts this winter and another 2 quarts of apples that I sprinkled with cinnamon and dried into crispy chips. The kids love snacking on those. I also made 3 pints of apple butter and 15 quarts of applesauce. Added to what was left from last year, we are fully stocked with apple goodness.

Our lovely weather is encouraging the garden to keep producing, albeit slowly.

I have enough green peppers frozen to last me until next summer's harvest. There are probably another 50 peppers still out there, so I think I'll try dehydrating the rest of them. We're still getting green beans from our remarkable zombie green bean patch and our raspberries are giving us the best harvest we've had from them yet. Not enough to can, but certainly enough for multiple batches of raspberry bars and fruit salad.

In between furious bouts of leisure and intermittent sprinklings of food harvesting and preservation, I also added some store-bought food to our food storage. I picked up some canned goods on sale at the grocery store as well as more clarified butter, coconut oil, freeze dried fruit, and tomato powder online. We are also prepared to stay warm during a winter power outage. And I'm excited to say that we were able to save up most of what it will take to buy the chicken coop of my dreams.

Oh, we also got one of these:

Christened "Goldie Butterscotch", but mostly called "Bunbun"

Mini Me has been obsessed with rabbits for about 2 years. We broke our "no pets in the house unless they live in an aquarium" rule and bought her this little guy for her birthday. Of course I also had to quickly buy a couple of months of food storage (timothy hay and alfalfa pellets) for the rabbit! That is not to be confused with using the rabbit for food storage. I don't think Mini Lops make good eating and it would definitely not be worth the trauma to our little rabbit lover.

What's in store for October: 

• I'll be returning to the Sun Oven. I'm bound and determined to cook something properly! I think I'll go for bread next. 
• After it frosts (Our frost date is quickly approaching ~Sigh~), we'll plant garlic. This will be the first time we've tried to grow garlic. Last spring we bought some garlic starts from the nursery as an impulse buy. They didn't do very well and therefore don't count! We bought a pound of "Music" variety organic seed garlic from Peaceful Valley.
• We have TONS of green tomatoes out there. I'll definitely have to do something with those before it frosts. I have several solutions in mind, so stay tuned for that. 
•  Maybe I'll do something with our pie pumpkins. We have about eight of them and while I enjoy using them as decorations, I'd like to try and cook at least a few of them. 
•  Hubby Dear and I will begin the infamous chicken moat this week. We priced out several options for fencing and discovered that this project is going to be more expensive than we thought. I'm sure it will also be more difficult than we thought, too. That's generally the way projects are at our house. Since we have never built fence before, it should be a grand headache adventure. 
• I'm still saving up for the chicken palace, but I should have some money in the budget to buy some miscellaneous preps. I'm not sure exactly what I'll buy, but it will definitely include food storage and probably more books. I'll keep you posted. 

So that's me. What did you do in September and what do you have lined up for October? 

My summer reading list and plans for the future

In between accidents and trips to the hospital, I've been busy reading and making plans for our homestead. Can you guess what we're planning based on my selection of library books?

My reading material

Of course, when I say "we're" planning, what I really mean is that I'm planning and Hubby Dear is tolerating, albeit with sighs and massive amounts of eye-rolling.

We're going to begin with two or three pecan trees this fall and add in several apple trees in the spring. We want to plant lots of other types of fruit trees, but I know better than to try and do too much at once. We I decided to start with apples and pecans because both are nutritious foods that have the potential to store well. Pecans, in particular, take a few years to start producing, so they got bumped up to the top of the project list. Since we have such rotten soil, we're going to have to take particular care to prepare the planting sites.

We're also going to expand our square food garden and fence it in preparation for the spring's big project: a chicken coop, chicken moat, and, yes, chickens.

A chicken moat plan from Mother Earth News

The above diagram is not exactly what our chicken moat will look like, but you get the picture. The idea of a chicken moat is that you surround your garden with a chicken run, which reduces weed and bug problems. Plus, you raise your own meat and eggs and get a rich source of compost for the garden. We need to start setting up the fencing around the garden area now because we are going to be swamped with garden work in the spring. I'd rather get the chickens now, but first things first. :)

Summer's not even over, but I just can't resist planning for next year. Are you planning a major addition to your yard, garden, or preps in the year to come? Do you have any advice for my ventures? I'd love to hear from you!

Fall canning fun

Our family stopped by a local fruit farm last weekend and I bought a bushel of apples. I have been canning for three years, but up until now I've only used the produce from our garden or that of my parents.

Since this was my first time canning apples, I naturally thought I needed one of these:

A Food Mill. This makes perfectly smooth applesauce. I had been eyeing one of these for some time to use in canning tomato sauce.

I also wanted one of these apple peeler/slicer/corers.

When you have a bushel of apples to process, you need all the help you can get.

Although I ordered both of these some time before our trip to the orchard, they have not arrived yet. Amazon's Super Saver shipping may be free, but quick it ain't.

What else was I to do but find recipes that did not require either of those two useful gizmos?

I broke out my favorite canning book, Blue Ribbon Preserves by Linda J. Amendt, and made a batch of Apple Preserves. Holy glycemic index, Batman! There are 5 cups of sugar in this recipe.

They are very tasty, though I would reduce the amount of nutmeg the next time I make it.

The other recipe I made was Chunky Family-Style Applesauce. Since you are aiming for a chunky texture, it doesn't matter if you lack a food mill.

When I tried it, it tasted like biting into a perfectly ripe, tart apple. Delish! I used fresh apple cider in both of these recipes which I think enhanced the end result.

I have 7 half-pints of Apple Preserves and 7 quarts and a pint of Chunky Applesauce to show for my efforts. I have enough apples left for one more batch of something. I'm thinking about making Apple Butter.

Wherever you live, I encourage you to preserve fall's bounty so that you can enjoy it this winter. I'm going to make another trip to the apple orchard soon, so I'm going to be busy for a while.

THE RECIPES

Apple Preserves

Makes about 6 half-pint jars (Emily's note: It made 7 for me.)

7 c. cored, peeled and sliced 1/4 inch thick tart apples
1 c. apple juice (I used cider.)
2 T. strained fresh lemon juice
1/2 t. unsalted butter
5 c. sugar
1-3 oz. pouch liquid pectin
1 t. nutmeg
1/4 t. ground cinnamon (I am going to add less nutmeg and more cinnamon next time.)

In an 8-qt pan, combine the apples, apple juice, lemon juice and butter. Over medium heat, bring the apple mixture to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer, covered, until the apples are tender, about 8 to 10 minutes.

Remove the cover and add the sugar, 1 cup at a time, stirring gently between each addition. Heat, stirring constantly, until the sugar is completely dissolved. Increase the heat to medium-high and bring the mixture to a full rolling boil, stirring constantly. Stir in the entire contents of the pectin pouch. Return to a full rolling boil, stirring constantly. Boil, stirring constantly, 1 minute. Remove the pan from the heat. Skim off any foam. Gently stir in the spices.

To prevent floating fruit, allow the preserves to cool 5 minutes before filling jars. Gently stir the preserves to distribute the fruit then fill the jars, leaving 1/4" headspace. Process half-pints in a 200 degree water bath for 10 minutes, pint jars for 15 minutes.


Chunky Family-Style Applesauce

Makes about 4 pint jars or 2 quart jars (It made 2 quarts and nearly a pint for me.)

7 lb unblemished firm apples
2 c apple juice or water (I used cider.)
1 1/2 to 2 cups sugar
2 T strained fresh lemon juice

Core, peel, and chop the apples.

In an 8-qt pan, combine the apple juice or water and 1 c. of the sugar. Over medium-low heat, stirring constantly, heat the mixture until the sugar is completely dissolved. Add the apples.

Over medium-high heat, bring the fruit micture to a boil. Reduce the heat, cover and boil gently until the apples are soft and translucent, about 20 minutes. Stir occasionally to prevent sticking. Remove the pan from the heat.

Using a potato masher or the back of a large spoon, gently crush the apples to the desired texture. Stir in the remaining sugar to taste and add the lemon juice.

Over medium-low heat, stirring constantly, heat the mixture until the sugar is completely dissolved. Increase the heat to medium and bring the mixture to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer, stirring frequently, until the sauce thickens, about 10 minutes. Remove the pan from the heat.

Ladle the sauce into hot jars, filling the jars about 1/3 full. Using a plastic spoon, press out any trapped air bubbles. Fill jars 2/3 full and repeat. Fill the jars, leaving about 1/2 inch headspace. Using a plastic knife or bubble freer, remove any remaining trapped air bubbles. Process both pint and quart jars in a 200 degree water bath for 20 minutes.