This was Saturday, May 30th, the last day before Daddy left for National Guard orders. Getting to the thistles was a top priority, as they were starting to put on buds. But first: Cannellini beans! Dozens of little beanlets! And we took a few minutes to weed out another section of row 5 and seed… Continue reading Thistle Massacre
Category: Our Orchard
Slow Garden this Year
It has been a difficult spring. Frosts all the way into early May, but also hot, dry weather during the day without our usual level of spring rain. Still, we are making do as best we can. Finally got the garlic excavated. This is entirely by pulling a wheelbarrow load of weeds first thing in… Continue reading Slow Garden this Year
Food Forest Irrigation, Part 3 (really it should be part 4).
Because I forgot we already installed all the drip line around the trees. Saturday, the 9th was a busy day. It started with a trip in to town to get some chicken feed. Seppi is getting bigger and stronger every day, it seems. I don't have to climb on and off the truck anymore. He… Continue reading Food Forest Irrigation, Part 3 (really it should be part 4).
Food Forest Irrigation, Part 2
Evie actually likes weeding. So here she is weeding row five in preparation for putting in more brassicas. The weeds themselves will be fed to the cows and sheep as a tasty treat. I think this was Tuesday of last week. I had hoped to get the water line finished, but we ran into a… Continue reading Food Forest Irrigation, Part 2
Food Forest Irrigation, Part 1
The Garden Fence on the yard side has ceased to be a fence. Originally it was an 8 foot tall "deer net." Note to self, and anyone else who might be listening, never build a fence out of deer netting. The first snowfall will rip it to shreds. The first dog will rip through it… Continue reading Food Forest Irrigation, Part 1
Irrigation, Seed Starting, and Comfrey
Busy Friday at the Farm. We are running so far behind schedule in the garden this year, it isn't even funny. Actually, it's probably a little funny, from the correct perspective. However, we can't really get to the garden because other projects keep popping up that take precedence. For instance, all the trees that we… Continue reading Irrigation, Seed Starting, and Comfrey
Three Week Update Post
I have so many pictures backed up, waiting for get put into a blog. I have given up on a detailed update on all of it, but as this blog is our primary record keeping mechanism (for big picture stuff, anyway) they still need to get updated. Good Friday (April 3rd) planted two new apple… Continue reading Three Week Update Post
Spring Buds
Everything is homeschool. Even a muddy former driveway that the pigs rooted through for a couple of months. This becomes a vehicle for talking about healthy and unhealthy soil with the kids. Think of it as a "before" picture. The "after" picture won't be for a couple of years, but ideally that same former driveway… Continue reading Spring Buds
Pruning 2026: Part 1
It is that time of year again. Spring is intermittently springing. It is February. Time to prune our trees for Summer. We started with Raspberries. Those should have been pruned in the fall, before the leaves dropped, when we could still have figured out which canes had fruited and which had not. We did the… Continue reading Pruning 2026: Part 1
Protecting the Orchard Plants… more.
Earlier this year we put plant protectors around a bunch of our orchard shrubs and pasture trees. This was in order to facilitate letting the sheep and cows pulse through the orchard to mow the grass down for us, without letting them browse all the leaves off the figs, mulberries and currants (I'm looking at… Continue reading Protecting the Orchard Plants… more.