Farming and Orchard – Page 15

What is going on and some updates

Wow that 2 weeks of intense work turned into a month. So here is what has been happening while I’ve been AFK.

This is my lettuce and onion bed. Kids were “helping”.

Lettuce Sprouting

Here it is finished with compost and planted.

I also have a sunken hugel bed for corn and peas. I have it surrounded by tires that are going to hold potatoes and tomatoes.

I’m filling the tires in this pic. The pea trellis is the crib mattress from our son. Cribs, I love everything about them!

I’ve been hard at work kratering. Here they are in the process of being terraced. Still have to put the topsoil back on.

Here are a few kraters that I have finished and begun planting. The little tree with no label is a black locust. I have one for each krater and they are between each tree in the swales from last year.

We had a bit of a surprise pond. It was supposed to be another krater but it filled up with water and…well it’s still full. I went over with the excavator and tried to dig through the water holding layer but wasn’t successful. I’ll try again when I have time. I don’t really want a pond right there.

Thought I’d share my technique for keeping the kids entertained while I work. It didn’t work for very long before they were out in the mud, but it did work.

This is our new peacock, the old one was eaten. He’s small but very pretty, not very intelligent though.

Husband is making biochar here.

Flowers that have arrived on their own.

There is a lot more but I’ll have to update again later.

I am away

My day job is so demanding right now that I just can’t post to the blog. I’ll be out for 2 weeks, from May 4-May 15. Will talk to you when I’m back!

Experimentation on the farm

We are always experimenting to see what works best for our area. Last year it was swales and berms, which have been fairly successful. This year it will be different earth works and a deeper look into our personal food systems. Below is a list of our current experiments:

Corn- The best way to grow it. Sunken hugel bed and corn planted in the bottom of crater gardens for wind protection. Which will do best? I suspect the wind protection will be a big boon to growing corn here, though the soil at the bottom of the craters is quite hard, so may not allow the corn to grow sufficient roots. We shall see.
Potatoes- I bought 4 different varieties of potatoes and I am going to plant them in 3 different ways to see what does the best. Some will be planted in our raised bed, some in the berms and some in a tire tower.
Bio char is going to be added to a wide variety of plantings to see if it helps.
We are going to be testing the viability of Sainfoin as a dry land forage/hay.
I am going to be setting up the silvapasture but have not decided what the best planting method will be yet. Do I plant in holes for water and wind protection, but risking animal legs, or do I do swales? I don’t know. See what we come up with and how it goes.
Ginseng experimentation. Can it grow here? What is the proper soil/sun conditions in our area. We will be spreading 250 ginseng seeds through various rows of trees in our tree line and seeing what does best.
Best earth work for our environment. Now, I enjoy our swales and berms and still believe in them. However, the bush experiment from last year has me thinking basins and mini craters are going to be the absolute best way to grow things here. This years earth works will be building basins and mini craters and testing them against last years systems.

It is an exciting time for us here on the farm. Establishment has been stressful, expensive and exciting. I can’t wait to see how our plants succeed here.

New purchases and Updates on growth

We recently purchased some grape vines from a hobbyist in Colorado, 5 dormant frontenac grapes and 2 Tramenier grape vines . We also received our Gurney’s grape order of 5 Reliant grape vines. They arrived bare root and dormant and so I took the risk of putting them outdoors, heavily mulched.

Furry butt here is the reason the grapes are caged. Don’t want him getting bored and chewing them up.

The pistachio tree is doing quite well.

The apple seeds I’ve been growing are hit and miss, but mostly doing well.

The lone locust tree seedling I have is growing slowly, but growing.

My tomato seedlings look…unchanged. I’m doing something wrong, obviously, but I do not know what.

I’ve had bug issues. The bamboo brought them into the house. The grapes cuttings I’m trying to root were the worst hit. I’ve since put diatomaceous earth on all of my indoor plants. We shall see if what they say is true, and the bugs die.

Everything else is not noticeably different but doing well.

I have planted out the hill I built for the kids slide, mulched it and tried my best to keep the mulch in place. I’m hoping in a few weeks I will be able to remove the fencing.

The birds enjoyed making it into the yard, usually heavily guarded by dogs. The ducks took the most advantage, though a few chickens came in. We had to escort everyone out before dinner, so the dogs could go back out. This gave the kids an opportunity to pet a chicken.

Yesterday we also brought home a new peacock, to replace the one that was killed by the dogs. He’s an india blue black shoulder. He had some broken feathers in transit but is still looking mighty fine. The kids took the opportunity, while the pea decided whether to come out of the cage or not, to pet his long tail and peak in on him.

We hope he adjusts well and that we can open the door to the barn again soon. They’ll all be locked in there until we are sure the new pea won’t fly away.

Here are a few extra, gratuitous pictures.

Inhabit- A Permaculture Perspective and a new camera

I am very excited to share this new documentary with everyone. I have pre-ordered my copy and plan on showing it at the first meeting of the Laramie County Homesteading/Permaculture Group (which I just started). The trailer looks amazing and I really admire a lot of the speakers in the film already. I’m excited to see what Mark Shephard has to say!

On to the camera. I got a Cannon Rebel and I’m EXCITED! The pictures are such better quality! The kids and husband were happy to model the night I got the camera. This is our telephone pole pile and some of our spools. 🙂

Cold Hardy Pistachio Experiment

After finding this post on Permies.com I had to try to grow pistachio on the farm. So I went to Ebay and purchased some seeds from someone in Turkey. They took a few weeks to arrive but arrive they did.

Ok. Great. They arrived and I didn’t research them at all. Quick Google of planting pistachio from seed. I see that a potassium nitrate mixture is said to help with germination rates. So I IM my husband to find out what household chemicals we can use to make potassium nitrate. I give him no context, just: “What household stuff can we mix to make potassium nitrate?” He replies with an explanation that includes a toxic gas byproduct. In typical fashion I ponder this for a few moments before asking him if soaking a banana peel in water won’t do the trick. I am sure that his brow furrowed as he saw that piece of brilliance pop up on his computer. I admit, bananas are the only thing I’m aware of with potassium. Sad, I know. At this point he requests information on WHY I want potassium nitrate. I think he saw that conversation going no where really fast. Anyway, I ended up soaking the seeds without the mixture added, as I am far too impatient to start to wait for an order to arrive in the mail.

I soaked them in simple well water overnight. Some of the seeds floated and some did not. I assume the floating seeds will not germinate but I planted them out anyway.

Sending good thoughts to this seed. Grow baby grow!

After soaking I planted the seeds out in one of my favorite containers, a plastic egg carton. They make eggcelent mini greenhouses. I also like how they allow me to see how things are developing.

And now, we wait.