Tag: orchard

PawPaws round 3, 4? Too many attempts

The weather here has been crazy! I thought for sure that storm would hit us but it missed us, thank goodness. Still lost power for about 30 minutes.

I have been determined to grow pawpaws. So determined that I think this might be my 4th attempt in a new location. I’ve had some success in the kraters but they get eaten back every year and eventually die. Near the pond was nice but they were squished and eaten by farm animals.

So, onward to location 4. The newly transformed orchard garden. The barn shades a portion of the area for quite a bit of the day. That is where i planted these pawpaws.

I had some troubles with this order. The delivery was a rough on a couple of the trees. Branch breaking rough. I planted them anyway but thought they would die. At the very least they look pathetic. Enjoy my children holding the damaged trees for documentation.

I received my trees from One Green World. I generally love all the things I order from them. In fact most of the living orchard trees are from them. I ordered the pawpaw tree bundle which was a sale of 4 different trees. I should have written down what the tags say because at the computer right now I can’t remember what they are to save my life. I know they didn’t have 2 of the varieties in the bundle and I told them to just send me whatever they had.

I have really long grass in this area as I haven’t planted anything else here because of the shade. The grass has been fantastic actually. It insulates the pawpaws from the mornings scorching sun and has kept them all looking well. There is some insect damage, more on some than others, but they’re looking good so far.

Vegetation in general is very tall this year. Can you see my daughters head walking back to the house?

The trees that survived this year

I had little hope for any tree survival this year. Ground squirrels had pretty much killed my oldest apple tree last year. I planted daffodils around it and hoped. This spring the ground squirrels are around my oldest plum tree. It apparently didn’t have enough daffodils or we are breeding super squirrels. Either way, I was worried.

The wind is also up around here and by up I mean I’ve been concerned about the house breaking up several times already. I’ve begun thinking to myself, why do we live here? We should move. Yet, here we remain.

The specialty trees were in our fenced yard. I figured it was guaranteed to be bunny proof with our massive bunny chasing dogs in it. What I didn’t count on was a giant sized puppy deciding to go out and chew the top off of EVERY SINGLE TREE. Forget the bunnies, I need puppy protection.

So the specialty trees were dug up and moved to a fenced off portion and I simply hoped that not all of them were dead. I’m happy to report that more than half survived, including my biggest almond tree.

Almond tree

They look rough but leaves are shooting out of their perfect little trunks and I’m happy, happy, happy!

So we have a medlar, 3 plum and an almond tree that survived puppygedon.

Adapting plans and what I have been up to

I have not given up on having a permaculture orchard here in Wyoming. I planted several experimental trees this year I have much hope for. I have not planted as much as usual though. Part of that is I really need to adapt my strategy to fit my reality.

A percentage of my trees do survive through the first rough year after being planted. I have been happy with this survival rate as it is better than what most people would expect from this area anyway. However, the growth rate is as low as the water they receive and they are so susceptible to animal death. My favorite and oldest apple tree was attacked by ground animals this year. I did go plant a ring of daffodils around it and it is not completely dead. Still, To see years of growth abolished so quickly is quite depressing. I believe with minor irrigation in the starting years I can really change the growth and survivability of my trees.

Now, I have limits on what I can water with my well. As such watering is going to be a scientific endeavor. We will be drip irrigating only the newest trees and only for the first few years. As such I will have time to execute and cover crop my earthworks while I wait for irrigation to become available to a new line of trees. We plan to start this in the spring and I will keep you updated on whether it makes a noticeable difference or not.

I have planted some experimental trees this year. We have 3 paw paw trees planted in the pig run next to the pond. I planted 2 almond trees, 2 hazelnut and 2 medlar trees in the yard. Those I have been watering. I’ve had some almond problems. Mostly that our dog appears to be convinced he is required to dig one of them up. We shall see if that tree survives to the spring.

As far as animals go this year we killed nearly everything in the fall. We no longer have any chickens or ducks. The simple reason being that I wasn’t getting any eggs anyway. The ducks were laying all of theirs directly into the pond and the chickens were eating theirs. The turkey, of course, went to Thanksgiving heaven. All we currently have is the two pigs and two peacocks (male and female). Hopefully we will have babies soon, from both.

I do intend to get more chickens in the spring but I am going to keep things under control now. No more babies, no more roosters. Just six sex-linked hens that will be replaced every other year. It was getting a bit ridiculous the other way. Who needs 25 chickens anyway?

Things are slowly marching on here. Spring should be interesting for me, discovering what has made it and what has not.

Farm Scenes

Sometimes there are no words. Pictures are all that I have. There is so much I have not accomplished. So many things yet to be done. In these times of chaos it waters my soul to settle for a minute and photograph what has been done. The beauty that surrounds me but that I don’t notice in my busyness.

Cherry Blossoms

Plum Blossoms

Medlar Blossoms

Radishes

Sparta confused about what I’m doing.

Chicken Adventures

Ducks, Ducks, Ducks! The reason we never have clean water anywhere.

Turkey poults tasting some grass for the first time.

Piggie pics

Jiki found some fresh coyote poop near the barn to roll in. Yay…

Sparta running to catch up to us. Me thinks he’s gotten fat.

Pretty as a peacock.

Sparta peeking around the corner at the bacon bits.

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Installing Bees- 2017

We built two top barrel beehives many years ago. I’ve been trying to attract a swarm of bees ever since.

https://peacockorchard.com/2015/07/16/top-bar-bee-hive-construction/

I have finally called it quits and bought a package of bees. Whooo, nerve wracking.

I picked the bees up in their lovely little box. I believed myself fully prepared to install the hive. I’m great at being delusional! You should have been there. It was hysterical in a not so hysterical at the time way.

So I get my opening cover ready and remove the feed, immediately placing a block over it to prevent the bees from escaping. I turn around, place the feed down and bam, package tips over spilling a mass of bees out.

So I quick as lightening get the queen and insert the candy, hanging her on my bars. My husband flees the onslaught of angry insects but not before receiving a few battle wounds. I persevere in my protective gear. I dump some more of the bees out. The tarp is attached to the hive so they can walk right up. I drum on the back a little. I read somewhere they’d march right up if I did that. Bloody liars. So I decide I’ll just wait until after lunch and see what they are doing.

Well, miracle of miracles it did work. They walked themselves up and into the hive, mostly.

I had some hang on on the outside and I had to brush them off and put them in the hive.

Through some slats you can see the mass of bees around the queen. Amazing!

My bee feeder was found. Glory bee! It’s a chick waterer with glass stones and chicken wire tent to keep the birds off.

I nervously checked the next morning and they were ALIVE! I removed the tarp, and that board, which had been supporting the tarp. All is right with the world. Or at least it was until I decided I really should have insulated the hive BEFORE I put the bees in it. No worries, I can staple some insulation on. No worries. What do I do that is no worries. /sigh So I pull the insulation tight and thwack, all the boards fall off releasing hordes of angry bees, again. I manage to get them all back on, miracle of miracles, and finish stapling the insulation on. They all calmed down and went back in. What a relief!

It took them no time at all to release the queen. Now to wait and see what my bees can do!

Testing Almonds

Despite what California farmers would have you think almonds are extremely drought tolerant. What they aren’t is particularly cold tolerant. At least that was what I believed. I have a few Russian Almond bushes flourishing but I really wished I could grow a few sweet almonds. Thanks to One Green World I think I might be able to. I am going to be testing two of their almond varieties out this year.

https://onegreenworld.com/product/all-in-one-almond-tree/

https://onegreenworld.com/product/halls-hardy-almond/

Planted inside the protection of the fenced yard with the dogs to protect them from rabbit predation. If these trees successfully survive winter in Wyoming I will be deliriously happy and graft out as many as possible.

So stay tuned to see if I can get anything else crazy to grow around these parts.