wyoming – Peacock Orchard

Greenhouse is nearly done

I have been busy during quarantine preparing the greenhouse for spring planting. I have bags and bags of leaves from my work to use as mulch. My son’s old bed frame as a nice trellis area and a drive to get it done.

First I had to dig a trench under the wood frame for the greenhouse and fill it with rocks. I got to thinking that having planting beds against the frame would really speed up rotting of the greenhouse. After brainstorming several solutions with the people at permies.com I decided the easiest, and probably most effective, would be trenching and filling with rock, making a french drain of sorts under the greenhouse frame.

Then I broad forked the in ground greenhouse beds. Our ground is hard clay and this wasn’t easy! Then the kids assisted me in spreading mulch.

Then I put out the giant pots. I intend to use these to plant things the ground squirrels can’t resist eating. These are not filled yet but I have started the process by putting a bunch of dead branches in the bottom of the pots. I will fill them with compost as soon as I can get some.

I hung some pots up around the walls for storage and because I love the look. Added solar lights, which aren’t super bright at night but work well enough and I do enjoy the look of the lights.

I intend to make a potting bench on the right side of the back wall. I have water barrels coming and am going to wait for them before I build the bench. All in all I am excited to start planting!

Window Greenhouse- structurally complete

To view my previous greenhouse post look here.

I finally installed all of the windows and was ready to start sheet metaling the rest of the structure. It was slow going as I could not work in the wind and yet again, I was pregnant.

On a nice day I recruited my child slave labor to clean the windows. It was a messy job, cleaning the kids up afterward was just as much work.

Still. my children did a good job cleaning all the years of grime off of those windows and the greenhouse looks very nice clean.

Now is the tricky part, sheet metal. Wyoming is WINDY. I was only able to do this in bits and pieces as I waited for periods without wind. I felt like it took forever, but in reality it was probably just a few weeks.

Fully enclosed in metal I only had the finish work to do. I debated the molding portion of this project for awhile before deciding I would use fence pickets. They were the perfect size, required no cutting width wise, just length.

I should probably stain/paint or somehow otherwise seal the wood pickets to prevent damage. I may get around to that eventually, or I may not and regret it years later. Who knows.

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?

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.

Plum out of luck?

The plum trees are blooming. For Wyoming, it’s early. Too early.

The 5 acre orchard in front of the house is a learning experience for us. Everything we do here is ground breaking in our area. The plum tree currently in bloom is planted in one of our swale berms. Another plum tree close to bloom is planted on the side of a swale. The trees in the Kraters are not yet old enough to bloom, so the verdict is out on the success of that. Knowing that there are various ways you can plant trees to get desired results. I believe the plum trees, being early bloomers, should be planted in the bottom of the Kraters, to keep them dormant long enough for our late Wyoming storms to be over.

Wyoming often has storms up until, and sometimes through, the end of May. I was excited to see the plum blossoms, our first fruit, but nervous as well. When I heard the news, an expected foot of snow, I was even more nervous about the possibility of getting fruit. I kept tabs on the trees during and after the storm. It was not as bad as expected, a few inches of snow at most. Lots of wind and ice though.

The blooms seemed to be fine in spite of the ice.

There was a lot of ice as well.

After the storm the blooms that had not opened were fine, but those that had been open during the storm had shriveled and died.

Lots of blooms left, lots of time left for more snow and ice. Time will tell.

Springtime in Wyoming

Spring is in the air. A constant state of confusion lays heavy over the land. Will it be warm? Will it be freezing? It could be both, all in the same day. Summer clothes have already been donned this year. Now we’re back to snow suits and gloves. Back to animals too smart to leave the protection of the barn and me hauling water to them all.

Thankfully the barn is large and I’m healthy enough to be carting the necessary liquids. Solids too, since the pigs kept breaking into the food bins and I had to move them to the garage. Since we are currently in possession of an attack turkey the kids prefer to occupy themselves out of the barn while I’m feeding.

I’m particularly glad that weather has never stopped the kids from venturing outside. We are a tough lot, the kind willing to live in howling winds and unpredictable weather. A versatile lot as well. The wagon has been retired for now, in order to accommodate the snow. Strolls around the property have to be maintained, after all. Pictures must be taken! Trees checked.