spring – Peacock Orchard

Early planting, many hopes!

Sometimes you just can’t pick when your trees arrive. You know that in spite of your zone planting before Memorial day is plant suicide. Unfortunately your zone tells everyone else that you can plant early April. I hope for late shippings but we got a box already. Six trees have arrived. These are replacements for trees that died last year. I am fairly certain they suffered root death during transport as they were poorly wrapped and bone dry when I got to them. They nicely replaced the trees and so, after two days in a bucket debating, we planted.

Now I’m debating if it’s even worth it to go mulch them. It’s still horribly windy. Mulch sure does love to blow. I’ll debate it some more as I watch the weather and hope, oh hope!

Some of my hopes have been answered though. Every time I go out to survey the orchard I find things I thought were dead quite alive. Many bushes coming up from the root. Some trees doing so as well. I’ll re-graft them.

I have many seedlings growing away indoors waiting for Memorial day. That magic time when suddenly it’s not quite so risky to venture out of doors. I suspect we will get a few more good snows. Hopefully no freezes though.

I have a special lot of trees shipping. Trees I will plant close and baby. Trees I’m really excited to get fruit from. I sure do hope they will do their best to ship late, as I requested. Please, please ship late!

Now I know this should have been an egg cooking post but I think trees are far more exciting than chocolate souffle. Even though my souffle is amazing!

Indoor seed starting once again.

This years seed starting is a bit different form last years. For one it’s more low key than last years flurry of excessive seed planting. My set up is a bit different too.

Last year I planted in egg cartons, then moved to toilet paper tubes and then to plastic cups. This year I planted the big things right into the plastic cups and saved the toilet paper rolls for the thinner plants, like the leeks.

This year I’m starting in the fish tank as well. Last year the plants ended up there as I ran out of window space. Now that I know it’s a great space to start seedlings I’ve set them up straight away in it. The tank is also in the basement now, as the wall it used to sit against is now gone.

Fancy set up. Ancient fish tank, fluorescent lights, card table. Whoo boy! Works though.

Few pics of the planting session:

I suspect there is more dirt on the floor than in the cups, but they had fun.

I can’t remember if I shared my seed saving method last year. Well here it is. Coffee filters with pen. That pen didn’t stay very well. For the most part I’m guessing. This one is clearly “drought tolerant tomato”. These seeds are from the tomato I never watered. It made great sauce and I’m growing it again to see if it’s just as successful.

Lovely cups all labeled and nestled in their home.

Nothing germinated yet. Frankly I’m rather interested to see if any of the seeds I saved will germinate. It’s my first real attempt at it after all.

Stay tuned!

2016 Winter planning and a year in review

Winter is a slow outdoor season for obvious reasons. I’ve had to do some pest proofing of various trees and bushes but for the most part we just wait for snow and then marvel at the resulting white. December I begin spring planning. Last years planning involved a lot of tree purchasing and mapping out of various earthworks. Dreams of our greenhouse, pergola and water harvesting mechanisms were also included.

We accomplished some of those tasks this year along with a lot of tasks that weren’t pre-planned. This year we managed the following:

The mini-Kraters were built and planted.
Water harvesting from our driveway was increased.
Experimental seeds were planted. (sainfoin and a lot of other cover crop seeds)
The sunken hugel was built and planted.
Kitchen gardens were expanded.
The yards were tilled and planted with low growing clover.
Cider orchard was built and planted
We got pigs
We had a ton of hatchlings
We lost a ton of hatchlings (all but 1 baby peacock died this year).
We did the back porch project that included re-flooring, painting and wiring the sun room for lights.

Gosh, I’m getting tired thinking about the things we did this year. Still a lot to accomplish though. The major projects I had wanted to get done this year were not done. Now that I am not working these will be at the top of my project list. The pergola, the greenhouse and starting all fruit trees from seed. Because of the loss of my income I’m going to make a real push at growing my own from seed and growing root stocks to graft from the successful experimental trees.

Also on the list is improved food production in the kitchen garden and we are planning to butcher the pigs at home . I am trying not to set us too many tasks as house maintenance often surprises us. I know we need to repaint the house and probably caulk the windows ASAP.

One major project I want to take on is building a natural swimming pond that is also going to collect roof water. I admit, that will probably be #1 on my list. Stay tuned for that. I have a habit of over doing ponds. Hopefully this one will be sealed better than the last one I dug.

Other than that I’m preparing the basement now for the kids and for seedling growing. I’m also managing our permaculture group. Whoo. I’m glad I quit my job now. I’m going to be BUSY!