vetch – Peacock Orchard

Seed Collection on the Farm

Our plans for future orchard expansion now include pre-planting of Kraters far in advance of tree arrival. For this we need seeds, lots of seeds. Luckily I’ve been purchasing and tossing out seeds for ages. Collecting specimens for the new Kraters is a breeze. All you need is a bucket, some willing hands and guard dogs in case you should come upon…..well nothing, they’re useless.

So far collected specimens include: Sainfoin, sweet clover, alfalfa, asparagus, various grasses, bachelors button, vetch, various other clover varieties and odd plants I find along the way and simply throw into the bucket. Those plants include flowers, herbs and vegetable seeds. We’ll see what happens to grow from this cacophony of seeds. I’m hoping everything.

I’m feeling pretty good about this move. As I’ve said in a previous post, things aren’t working quite right as they are now. I think a big step is preparing the kraters ahead of planting. I have every hope it will make a big difference. Only time shall tell.

Beauty Abounds

Our property is in bloom. So many blooms I can’t even fit them all in one post. We have the usual alfalfa and sweet clover. The blooming weeds, erm, wildflowers. The beauty is everywhere but for me, it’s acutely in the plants I’ve planted myself. The acres of sainfoin blooming in all their pink glory. The cider orchard full of vetch, poppies, clover and more.

Enough talk, enjoy the beauty with me.

The sainfoin is such an object of fascination for us.

Let’s not forget the beauty in our animals either. Unfortunately only one of them would stand still long enough to get a good picture.

My glorious Prince the blackshoulder peacock.

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!

A complete yard reboot

We have never paid much attention to the state of our front and back yard. The front has been mostly unused and the back is where the dogs are kept when we aren’t home. Simple as that. At least it used to be. Now we have kids and our space has taken on new meaning. I have been excited to create a playground for our children. It has been going quite well and I’m happy with the results of my labor. Unfortunately the grass and weeds have been a large problem in accessing this playground equipment. We have a mower but it attaches to our tractor and is quite large. Keeping the grass and weeds short around the toys is difficult at best. So we took drastic action.

We rented a tiller, took a day off and tilled the front and back yard. As you can tell, our back yard is humongous. We did make it for the dogs and we figured we might as well go all the way to the barn with the fence. Most of this space is underutilized, except by said dogs. So we decided to cut a part of the back of this yard off and put the cider orchard there. So on top of tilling we also did a small swale in the back section.

I ordered a large variety of seeds. I picked subterranean clover for around the toys and where we walk the most. This clover grows thick and short, we should never have to mow it. Then I ordered multiple species of clover: persian, rose, arrowleaf and ladino are what I remember off the top of my head. This went in the less traveled areas and in the cider orchard. The third bucket is full of wild flowers and vetch. This I sprinkled all along the fence line and in the very back of the cider orchard area. We do have trees in the area already, planted before we moved here. Since they will be too large to put a fruit tree near I have no problem spreading lots of flowers and tall vetch around them. It should be a beautiful location when everything grows!

Of course I was racing to get this done. There was a storm coming and I wanted that rain on my newly seeded yard areas. I made it just in time.

And boy did it rain a ton!