Category Archives: Planting

Frosts

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The wild ramp season has past, and the greens are yellowing and dying back. We sold a few bunches, though. 🙂

The frost I was worried about before did hit us for 2 days in a row. One was a freeze, dipping to around 26-27. We protected our tomatoes with cardboard boxes mounded with dirt, or some were under plastic nursery pots lined with rowcover. We lost 4 plants completely, and 5 more experienced some damage. I removed and replaced 8 total, as though I probably could’ve saved a few of them, they would’ve needed some babying and production would’ve been set back. Better than I thought, though. With how cold it was I imagined losing them all.

Our corn stayed underground until the day or 2 after the frost passed, popping up safely.

Our young fruit trees lost their buds and will not fruit this year. Our adult ones, though, and our adult wild gooseberries, are peppered with fruit still. A couple of the young gooseberries have some spotty fruit, but it won’t be enough for any kind of sales – just for a sample.

We resumed planting, and almost everything is in the ground now.

Unfortunately, weather forecasters are calling for another round of low-to-mid 30s temperatures this weekend. This is a very late cold spell for our area. If the nights are calm, this could lead to more frost that would kill our corn and every other warm-weather crop we have planted.

We do not have anywhere near enough coverings for all of them, so we’re just going to have to take it as it comes. Hopefully it skirts us, because if it doesn’t it will be hundreds of dollars in losses and we might have to cut back or cancel many of our plans for the year.

We have started building a shed (out of an old machinery shipping crate) to sell out produce out of, if the weather allows us to have any produce this year.

Planting Time

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This year we are putting in a large plot of corn, similar to but not quite as big as the plots we used to put in decades ago, for mass quantities of roadside sales. I know people love grilling, steaming, and roasting fresh corn on the cob in the summer, and we will be able to provide for that or for the canners/freezers this year.

Our friend Claire Hanley sent us some blueberry and raspberry bushes and some rhubarb crowns. These plants came from Nourse Farms, which we had good luck with last year (gooseberries/currants, all survived and some are already flowering). We put the raspberries out in our row in our field, a couple replacing a few that did not make it over the winter (though almost all of them did and I’m thrilled to see that). The blueberries are potted up into larger pots to grow out a bit before being moved. This makes 33 brambles and 11 blueberry bushes for us. Rhubarb’s been put by one of our old compost sites – they also sent us an extra crown, so there’s 4 rather than 3. Here’s to their success and to offering more stuff in the future! We will not have any bramble fruits this year, as the plants are still establishing, but I do expect to have some gooseberry/currant fruits. They’ll probably only be in enough quantity for me to eat and hoard for myself though. 🙂 All things in their time.

All my ‘new’ fruit trees survived the winter, except for the 2 apples which were girdled by rodents. We replaced those 2 with trees of the same varieties, and also put in a second Golden Delicious. All of the trees from last year are flowering, too, as are the ‘baby’ peaches I started from seed approx. 5 years ago. I hope they come out anything like their mother… perhaps we will see. My serviceberries are so loaded with blossoms that you can’t even tell they have leaves.

We are also planting more varieties of vegetables than ever, as we have added a second garden plot around the same size as the first, attached over by the corn plot. We are adding things like unusual melons, ‘Wonderberries’, a third type of potato, 2 more types of onions, different greens (Bull’s Blood beet greens, Purslane, etc.), and an expansion of our planting of our peas and our sunflower landrace. The chickens oh-so-love the seedheads in the winter.

Speaking of chickens … when introducing the new birds to the old, we had a bad incident with the mature hens ripping one of the new ones open! Our Commercial Black, ‘Tux’, was the victim. I didn’t know if she would survive at first – the wound was huge and hideous. However, determined to try, I grabbed some regular old cotton thread and a sewing needle and stitched her up (it’s all we had). I used some flour to stop her bleeding. We kept her inside and applied Neosporin cream. Long story short, she took out her own stitches and now you can barely tell where the wound even was as feathers have coated the area again. I think she’ll have a slightly crooked tail for life, but that’s fine as long as she seems happy. We penned them up apart from the old birds for a while, and yesterday was their first time back ‘together’ again. The youngsters are significantly bigger now, and there were no incidents, so here’s to hoping for a harmonious coop.

We will be selling wild leeks/ramps for the next few weeks. $3 for a bunch of 8-10 plants. I realize this is on the costly side, but each plant patch has to be traveled to, and each plant harvested and cleaned by hand/individually, using selective methods to ensure sustainability… and that’s what we have put to consideration.

There is a good chance of frost for the weekend according to the weather guys, though there is disagreement as to how cold/how hard the frost will be. I am hoping that it somehow avoids us, because I really do not want to lose all the fruit the millions of blossoms herald, although we have lost all our fruit for the past 2 years so it wouldn’t be unheard of unfortunately. We will definitely be covering our tomato plants, and have suspended new planting until the weekend passes. 🙁

Garden 2012

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The garden for the 2012 season is fully planted, and most things are coming up well. The primary weed appears to be nutsedge again, which we are fine with because this plant is very easy to pull. Some tomatoes already have blossoms. This is despite the fact that most of my tomatoes got many of their outer leaves frozen off after an unexpected frost on their first night in the ground. The only ones that were untouched were the ones I got from Mellow Phone/Good City‘s porch party.

I have so many extra seed potatoes that I also planted them in a ring around the silo, and I have been selling them on Craigslist as well. I sold 16-17 pounds of reds to someone from Frewsburg. I listed them at .50 per pound, but changed $7 and threw in some extra, because this arrangement benefits everyone. They get to grow food, and I get a few dollars and don’t need to dump the potatoes into the compost.

I had to throw in some new sunflower seeds due to an unfortunate tiller accident. Thankfully I still had some heads saved from last year’s crop. I now grow my own variety of sunflowers, ones that grew wild in the place my barn fell after the fire of 2010, so it’s not as if I could go to the store to buy new ones. The Stillwater Valley sunflower is a medium-sized, yellow flowered, stout variety with small, very tasty/sweet seeds.

It looks like we might have to replace some beans, because for some reason we often have a hard time with fungi rotting or damaging the seeds during the initial growth process. Last year we also had a problem with one of the varieties of root rot in the first few weeks. I am giving some additional time for things to sprout before I resort to replacement, though. There are very few squash and cucumbers showing above the surface at this time, but I dug down below the soil before yesterday’s rain and found the seeds swollen but almost dry. That would explain it. Hopefully they start popping up now that the ground has had a good drink.

The hot (high 80s to 90s) days with no appreciable rain for a few weeks takes its toll. It was seriously stressing some of the trees and fruit plants I put in, as well. The currants and gooseberries seemed oblivious, but a couple of the trees needed almost daily watering, having started to abort leaves, and a couple of the rasberries seem to have died despite the babying.

My seedling apricot trees are doing well, having been repotted to 3-gallon containers. I anticipate that they will be ready to go into the ground this fall. I also picked up 5 blueberry bushes that were already producing. I couldn’t resist – at $4 apiece, it was a bargain. They’re potted up, mulched with pine needles and soil acidifier, until I can pick and amend a suitable place in the ground for them.

The radishes will be ready first, followed by things like herbs, lettuce, and kale, and then turnips, beets, and zucchini. The rest follow that – beans, cucumbers, etc. I hope to start selling a few things by the end of June, and maple syrup will also be offered at that time.

We might get to start the haying earlier this year if the weather continues like this. We are having two haywagons rebuilt, and we may rebuild a third on our own. The equipment is home, and is being prepared for work. I’ve ordered a used exhaust manifold for our 1950s Case DC, and that should arrive soon.

The chickens are getting bigger all the time. They are almost completely done feathering out, except for the males – two of them are cockerels, and are just starting to get their ‘roostery’ feathers. Our big red chicken is one of them, and we’ve named him Chanticleer. The other is a silver-laced Wyandotte. As long as the two of them don’t fight much, we’ll keep them both, but if they start to go after each other, Chanticleer is the keeper. His temperament is exceptional.

Orchard Happenings

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I purchased and planted 10 gooseberry + currant plants from Mike’s Nursery in Lakewood, NY. There are 2 Pixwell, 2 Poorman, 2 Red Lake, 2 Crandall, and a cross called the Jostaberry. I also mail-ordered bareroot Hinnomaki Red and Tixia gooseberries and Pink Champagne and Blanka currants from Nourse Farms in Massachusetts. This was done after a recommendation from Abers Acres, and also to fill out the row better because it looks pretty short compared to the tree and cane fruit rows. The new ones are supposed to be here within the next day or two and will be planted immediately, weather permitting.

All raspberries and blackberries have been planted (25). 1 appears to have died, but will be left and given a chance to regrow if it is in the cards. If not, it will be replaced at a later date. Another previously thought to have died has recovered since the rain came. The rest all seem vigorous and are sending out new growth. The ‘Jewel’ black raspberries are doing especially well.

I have obtained 6 more grape vines in a mixture of Himrod, Canadice, and Concord. I still have 2 vigorous Red Caco from the last batch, and most of the frosted-off ones (Fredonia and Concord) are also regrowing buds. They are waiting in pots until the time of their planting.

Trees I have put in so far include:
1 Golden Delicious apple (brutally attacked by deer the same night)
2 Empire apples
1 Macintosh apple
1 Jonathan apple
2 North Star tart cherries
2 Lapins sweet cherries

I have 2 italian plums and a 5-in-1 grafted pear that are waiting to go in. I will be getting more in the future, and probably at least a few more this year, but this is a good start. They are fenced with 4-foot chicken wire or welded-wire garden fencing which seems to strongly deter deer, even though the tops of the trees stick out much higher than 4 feet in all cases except the North Stars.

I also have 4 baby apricot trees that are 1 year old, and a new plum just sprouted. These will go into the ground once I raise them for a few more years. If they grow anything like the 4 peach trees I grew from pits, the 1-year-olds will be ready to go into the ground in another year or maybe 2. I have many other pits in the dirt and am waiting to see if any sprout.

The chickens have a wire run now, and they love it. I am waiting until they are closer to being full-sized before I let them out in the lawn proper, but the run gives them a good, safe alternative for now. I did the first full cleaning of their coop a few days ago, adding to my compost pile.

Sunbathing

The garden is disced up and will soon be ready for planting, once finishing touches are put on it and the weather dries up for a few days.