Long time no post!

Lots of activity on the Bell Family Farm over the past few weeks, but most of it has involved the removal of weeds and some unruly ivy --- gallons and gallons of weeds over the past three weekends.  And unfortunately, there are at least twice as many weeds left on the property.  We'll probably have to pull out the old weed whacker before we're done!


While we've been busily removing weeds, the rest of the garden, thankfully, has been taking care of itself! It looks like we'll have a great blackberry crop this summer -- lots of the berries have already set and sections of the rows that have rarely produced are loaded with potential.

The backyard apple tree is in full bloom and, if it's not overshadowed by the surrounding oaks, we should have a good crop.  The frontyard tree, that I severely pruned last year and this spring looks like it's taking the year off!  We had only a few blossoms and already it's suffering from the mildew that it gets every year.

 Last week, the walnut tree was loaded with blossoms, more than any other year.  Hopefully we'll see something as a result of it's hard work.  But when I checked this week, all the flowers had fallen off... oh well.
The cherry tree has done well and there are easily 4-5 dozen cherries already set.  I imagine that the birds will get them the day before we decide to pick!

The rock roses that we planted about 6 years ago have really been beautiful this year ... thriving on neglect!  And the little seeds that I planted f ew weeks ago are sprouting.  I even had to tie up my little tomatoes today.







It all goes to show that gardening is cyclical.  You fertilize, mulch, plant and set the automatic sprinklers and the plants you want take care of themselves.  In the meantime, you pull and prune the plants you don't want while the fruit and veggies grow.  By the time you're done with all the weeding and pruning, it's time to harvest, preserve and enjoy!
Twenty minutes later, you prepare the beds for the next season!

Spring Veggies are planted!

With confidence, we installed two substantial tomato trellises in the front veggie bed.  Constructed from 8 foot lodge poles they should be able to support the cherry and roma tomatoes that I planted this afternoon.  We intend to put in two more plants at the south end of the bed and are toying with the idea of planting a couple more plants in hanging baskets suspended between the two towers.

Last year we noticed that gophers had gotten into our topmost veggie bed... the one that was full of potatoes.  We had underwired the bed, but evidently the gophers were persistent enough to chew through the aviary wire we had used.  I dug out about half of the soil and spread it out among the other beds.  I'll replace the wire and order more topsoil soon.

 In the process, I found lots of volunteer potatoes from last summer.  They've been transplanted into the center bin along with some garlic and are doing quite well.  Looks like another good year for potatoes.

It was a great sunny day, so I also sowed seeds of edamame, brussel sprouts, cabbage, basil, lettuce, carrots and beets today.  The asparagus and rhubarb continue to produce well.   With all the rain we've had this year, we should have bumper crops!

 We have a new addition to the farm -- this little fig tree -- that was a gift from our neighbors Russ and Marian.  We need to find a home for it -- probably near the apricot tree in the back, but I need more "gopher deterrents" before I plant it!

The plum tree is still loaded with blossoms, even after the snow and rain of the past few weeks.  In fact yesterday, the honeybees were busily pollinating the flowers.  If all holds, this should be a good year for the plums -- and much appreciated after last years dismal crop.

A close-up of plum blossoms and one of the first peach blossoms of the year.  While the plum blossoms set all along the length of the old and new wood, it looks like peach blossoms only form on new wood.  I'll be looking at the distribution of fruit on the tree closely this year to see if I can do a better job of pruning next year.

The camellias are always productive, but this year is more amazing than ever.  What you see here is a pile of blossoms on the ground waiting to be added to the compost pile. 

The cherry and apricot trees are beginning to awaken.  It doesn't look like we'll have any cots this year, but the tree is only a year old.  

The berries, on the other hand look good.  And judging by the size of the buds, I'll probably be spraying the berries again in the next couple of weeks to try to get rid of the berry mites.  

Because it rained last night, today was the perfect day to fertilize -- and that I did!
2 cups for each of the citrus trees
3 cups for the apple, peach and plum trees
2 cups for the apricot, walnut and cherry trees
about 1/3 cup for each of the berry canes
and about 1/4 cup for each of the roses, geraniums and other flowering plants in the backyard -- even the potted plants on the deck.
I also fertilized the peas, lettuce, artichokes -- and asparagus, which was the only thing I originally planned to fertilize.
Hopefully the good plants will benefit from the fertilizer more than the weeds!

Wildflowers and Oak trees

Much of what makes the Bell Family Farm such a wonderful setting has nothing to do with the Bell Family or with farming!  The oak trees are beginning their annual growth cycle, setting flowers and preparing for the spring.  The wildflowers, tricked by a few warm and sunny days and a good amount of rain are opening in expectation of warmer days in the near future.

The weather that coaxes the oaks and wildflowers also encourages the weeds -- an eternal battle here.  Most of Saturday this weekend was devoted to the systematic removal of
prolific and pesky weeds.  But, the
chore of weed-pulling is as good an excuse as any to get outside and appreciate the natural beauty of the environment.  And I suppose if the flowers on the weeds were more appealing and they didn't overwhelm everything else, I'd consider them a gift of the hill as well.

SNOW!

SNOW!
Last Saturday, after great anticipation, snow actually fell on our little farm.  There wasn't much and it didn't last past about 10AM, but it was enough to keep us inside and bundled up.

There didn't seem to be any impact on the garden.  Even the rhubarb handled the cold.

February 13

What do you do with hundreds of pounds of plums?

Here's what the kitchen looks like halfway through capping this year's plum wine and then again after the capping task is finished.  

The plum wine includes juice from our 2007, 2008 and 2009 plums.  We freeze the plums as they are picked and then Lew crushes them once the whole crop is in.  We made plum jam the first few years we lived here, but we switched to wine about five years ago.  

Lew's planning to enter some in the county fair this year.  

 

The plum blossoms are just starting to open.  We're expecting rain later this week.  Hopefully the blossoms will be OK and we'll have a good crop.  Last year we had very few plums.  I think it was because all the rain hit when they were in full bloom.  The flower buds on the peach tree are just starting to show a hint of pink. 

The first spear of asparagus is about 6 inches tall.  It was a surprise to see, but will be a great addition to tonight's dinner!  The parsnips that we planted in September look like they may be ready to harvest too.  

And the first of the sugar snap peas are ready to be picked.  We planted these in early October, after pulling the peppers and pumpkins that had been there before.  We still have 5 pumpkins left.  The lettuce looks great -- and hopefully will continue to grow throughout the season.  We've had trouble with it over the past few rotations.  I think it's white mold Sclerotinia spp. which, according to Pests in the Garden and Small Farms is spread easily by wet soil surfaces.  I'm going to cut back on the water this year and see if that helps.  Otherwise, we'll probably have to move the lettuce out of this bed for a couple of years. 

I sprayed the berries and backyard apple tree last week with the lime-sulfur, starting out with a hose-end sprayer and then switching over to a tank sprayer about halfway through.  Neither method was too successful.  I had used the hose-end applicator with the copper solution a few weeks earlier and it worked like a charm, but the dilution for that application was quite a bit higher than called for with the lime-sulfur -- which was supposed to be 8 ounces per gallon.  The spray was erratic, coming out yellow sometimes and clear other times.  So I dumped the rest of the solution in the tank sprayer and diluted it accordingly, but the sprayer didn't operate very well.  I must not have cleaned it out well enough the last time I used it and some of the solutions crystalized on the pump and in the wand.  It's clean now and ready for the next application - as soon as the berry blossoms open!

Saturday got me out to pull more weeds -- but luckily the soil was pretty wet, so I had to give up.  With this week's expected rain, maybe I'll get a couple of weeks off of weed duty. 

I'm off to look at seeds and decide when and where to plant the vegetables this year.  

Starting in January

This blog will serve as documentation of our gardening efforts this year.  It will help us monitor annual tasks, like pruning, planting and fertilizing and see how those efforts impact our family-sized crops and landscape.

It's our first blogging effort and really is designed to help us remember what we do in the garden and the results of our work.  But suggestions from other gardeners are welcome.

January 2011
1/15/11

Pruned the apple, peach and plum trees

I always get anxious about pruning the fruit trees and am probably don't prune as aggressively as I should.  I'm trying to open up the center of the plum tree so that there's plenty of room for air and sunlight to reach the inside limbs.  But I'm afraid I don't cut the tips of the long branches off far enough.  As a result, I usually have lots of fruit at the ends of the branches.  But all that weight puts a lot of strain on the branches.  We have to prop them up as the fruit matures.  Sometimes that's not good enough, and the branch breaks.  This year, I've taken pictures of the pruned trees before they leaf out and will look at where the fruit develops.  Hopefully that will help with pruning decisions for 2012.


I removed some very large limbs on the apple tree in 2010.  As a result there were lots of small new branches this year.  I cut almost all of them off, especially those that were growing off the main branches.  The tree is shaded by a large oak tree and we also get lots of aphids and a dusty mold (?) on the leaves, so I want to make sure that air can circulate through the branches.

After many years of very few peaches and a tree that didn't ever seem to get any larger, I delved into some of my gardening books to see what was wrong.  I found out that I was supposed to prune 1/3 of the new growth back to the old wood; 1/3 was supposed to get pruned back halfway to the old wood and the last third of the new wood was to be left alone.  The first season after I did that, we got a great crop, for a little tree.  So I keep trying to do the same.  This year, I may have pruned a little too early because there wasn't much new growth.

1/22/11
I spent most of the weekend cleaning up an overgrown coffeeberry bush that "volunteered" in the garden a few years ago and then sprayed the fruit trees, berries and roses with Liqui-Cop.  In the past I've used lime-sulfur fungicides in the spring.  It will be interesting to see if the copper based solution gives us different results.  We usually get a lot of peach leaf curl in the beginning of the season.

We've also had trouble with what I think is the redberry mite on our blackberries.  We get a beautiful crop, but at some point, they stop ripening.  I don't know if the copper solution will help or not.

1/29
A great rain and wonderful visit from Rob were excellent excuses to stay inside for the weekend