July 2015 – Peacock Orchard

Why I don’t trellis my tomatoes

I see many tips and designs for tomato trellises out there. Some quite fancy, some nothing but string. I am not using any of them. My tomatoes are doing just fine growing wild and free.

WHY I don’t trellis can be credited back to Joseph Lofthouse on permies.com. He is a pioneer in landrace gardening. You can find him here. A few of the quotes that had an impact on me are:

Some people say that landraces arise only by natural means. My response is that landraces are always domesticated, and domestication only happens because farmers select among this year’s crop for the traits that they hope will show up in next year’s crop.

I noticed that plants from my saved seed grew differently… Because my vines tended to arch upwards to keep the tomatoes out of the dirt… Since I don’t stake tomatoes I only save seeds from tomatoes that are not touching the dirt and rotting. So I had inadvertently been selecting for genes that keep the tomatoes suspended in the air without staking.

Now, I’m a lazy farmer. I have a lot going on in my life. Lots to do. So trellising takes valuable time, energy and money. I don’t have any of those resources to spare for something like that. So I planted them and guess what, they’re doing what Joseph’s have done. They are supporting themselves, growing up, vining without support. It is AMAZING to see my tomato bushes. I love how easy it has been. I water every once in awhile but otherwise I’ve done nothing to my tomatoes. I believe we are going to have a bumper harvest this year and I’m a excited to get to eating/freezing and drying these wonderful tomatoes.

I will be saving my own seeds, of course.

Tomato plant in planter box.

Tomato plant in tire of kids sandbox. Lower stems are supporting this main stem in growing fairly upright.

My tomatoes sure are busy this year!

Cider Orchard Establishment

I am happy to announce that our cider orchard is almost done. Ok, let’s just say it’s officially started. We took a portion of the backyard and fenced it off. We tilled and planted clover and wildflowers as mentioned in this post. The clover and such are filling in nicely, so are the weeds.

We have a lovely cattle panel arch leading into the cider orchard. I have a kiwi planted near it but that kiwi has been hit and miss for some time so I don’t know that it will recover. If it doesn’t I’ll eventually move some grape cuttings into the area.

We have the swales running in a circle around the orchard. They have proven that they can collect water already, though it was more of an aesthetic and ease of watering thing for me.

The trees are newly grafted heirloom varieties. It took us quite some time to get the infrastructure of the orchard up and thus the trees were in tree pots for some time. These tree pots. They didn’t do all that well in them. It was really hot but I did water them daily. Even still it is my guess that they cooked in the pots. The ones on the outside of did poorly. Some died but the rootstock of some lived. I’m going to let it grow and re-graft later on.

Not all the plants in the cider orchard are cider apples. I have hidden rose apples planted in there because I want to have them close to the house for my personal enjoyment. I also have a black currant bush in there that can be used as a mix in for cider or just for personal enjoyment. Eventually I’ll have a few specialty plums thrown in as well.

The wild flowers and vetch seeds were thrown onto the berm of the swale and into the back of the cider orchard where it is too shady to grow trees and also already has established willow trees.

Where the barn is it is very shady a lot of the time. Thus I am planting a shade garden. I have some hostas, a golden bell flower and a few other things thrown in. The wildflower seeds are doing best in this area.

Eventually I hope to have a lovely table and chairs and picnic amidst the flowers and trees. I think it will be a lovely retreat for us!

DIY Playground update

I really like this picture. The tires that form the back wall of the tire sandbox are bursting with greens (tomatoes and weeds mostly), everything is shiny and bright and the kids are happy as clams. What’s not to love.

Things are growing exceptionally well in those tires. I put a tomato in each. Daughter helpfully weeded 2 of them out. I also have some green onions thrown in here and there and mint growing in a bottom tire.

So we finally moved the bucket pulley closer to the sandbox and added hooks to help with toy storage. Do the kids use them? Nope. Daughter is only trying to get the shovel off, she couldn’t btw. Brother had to help her. That clothes basket is what we have been using to hold all of their toys and still use to hold some of them. It is supposed to be hanging on the post but…..life.

I also completed the tether-ball, which is a favorite of visiting nieces and nephews.

I ruined the balance beam as well. I had to move the dirt filled tires so we could till for the clover planting. I need to refill the tires and just haven’t got around to it yet. Eventually!

The clover is coming up spectacularly though!

A walk around the house

Come take a look around with us. Turkeys approve this message, so long as it comes with snacks.

Yellow sweet clover? We’ve got 30 acres of that! It’s also freakishly tall.

I finally found rubber boots for the kids. They want to wear them everywhere now.

Prince is losing his train and Ella thinks it’s hilarious to try to tickle him with the feathers.

We saved a butterfly last week!

Taking a ride to feed the babies.

Hazelnuts are on the cusp of doing well and dying. how is that possible you ask? Well excessive rain and that sweet clover that grows taller than everything else. Ugh!

White oaks are doing alright though.

Ducks still think I’m Satan.

Paw Paws are doing well!

Vetch. Love it!

We have lots of flowers popping up.

Bindweed. Super depressing amounts of it!

The duck and Prince love each other.

Sugar snap peas. I haven’t cooked a single one. They get eaten right from the pod!

Grapes are struggling a bit

Gourds are doing alright. They’re even rooting along the vine. Crazy!

This is one of the Kraters. It’s doing well!

Jiki our pyr has to come out with me to protect me from the coyotes!

We have salad!

Top Bar Bee Hive Construction

I found this Instructable last winter and knew I had to make it myself. It seemed easy and fairly inexpensive. It took some time for me to get around to it but here it is, my beehive.

I started by cutting a plastic water barrel in half. I then washed it as well as possible.

Then I measured and made a frame for it from 2×4’s.

I put the barrel in the frame and nailed it into place, which resulted in some major thumb whacking and a band-aid applied by Son.

Don’t worry, Daughter has a toy hammer she’s “helping” with.

Then I screwed on the legs.

It turned out surprisingly tall which then required some bracing lower on the legs.

We caulked the gaps between the barrel and the frame with regular latex caulk.

Next I built the roofs out of 2×4’s and metal sheeting that we already had on hand.

I cut a small circle of hardware cloth and glued it over the entrance to the hive. I didn’t want anything bigger than a bug taking up residence in these things.

Then we cut the bars and ran a line of wax down the middle of each to guide the bees.

Lastly we coated the entire inside of the hives with beeswax and lemongrass oil. We hope the oil helps attract a swarm.

The original plan was to keep the hives inside our large lean-to. However, I now believe I am going to build an addition to the lean-to specifically for the hives. That will follow in a later post.

Wine Bottle Hot Box

We have been saving wine bottles for awhile. We have the benefit of other people’s bottles as well. Husband and I discussed various ways to make a hot box from wine bottles and the results are pretty nice if I do say so myself. We scavenged another wooden trough type structure from the local Kubota. Husband drilled holes in it and bam, hot box. We will be testing this as time goes on. Hot peppers are the current residents of the hot box.

A little bit about how this works and why you would want it:

The sun heats up the air inside of the wine bottles. The hot air then pushes through the neck of the bottle and into the soil, increasing soil temperature. This is a good way to increase your growing zone. We chose to put hot peppers in the hot box because of their love for hot soils. I hope to see them take off soon!