There was only one update from May 2016 until now. Last years drought was tough. We did have pretty good blackberry crop in the spring. After that the rain stopped. We had 3 measurable rain events from June through August. Each was only a few 10ths of an inch. Most of the fruit trees dropped their fruit. The ones that didn't had small pest infested fruit. This was the first year we didn't have rain. Our luck continued to get worse as the year went on. We do not have utilities at the farm, no water or power. We decided to dig a well. We had just enough money to dig a well and put in a pump, a tank and some pipe. Unfortunately we didn't hit water in the first place we drilled. We drilled in a second spot and hit water but low flow rate. We didn't have enough money to purchase the pump, pipe and holding tank. We do have a hole with water in it but it didn't do any good for watering the trees. The local ponds went dry and the creek stopped flowing. My bees had no place to get water. There were very few flowers that bloomed late season not even the weeds. I placed a feeder station about 200 yards away from my hives and the bees fed all summer there but I lost my hives this winter. They were robbed or robbed each other late summer and had very little honey in the brood boxes. Of course I tried to feed them but it was too late. I should have put out water and start the fed station earlier but being new I didn't catch the fact they were burning through their honey until it was too late. One week it was there the next it was half gone.
On a positive note, we only lost 6 trees. All the mulch around the trees and the fact they had such a good start kept most of them alive. Most of the blackberries lived and they are looking good. I will post some pictures in next weeks post. After a long year I will share how everything looks. Overall the Orchard looks great. I have ordered replacement trees. They should be in next week or so. I am out of wood chips. I will be calling the power company next week. Hope they have some free chips soon.
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The blackberries are starting to turn. This weekend we will start picking. Unfortunately we haven't had any significant rain fall for the past 4 weeks and we don't have water on the farm yet, so some of the newer still green berries are smaller than these. I was excited about getting peaches and nectarines this year but no rain for 4 weeks has stopped them from growing. Most are small and look like they are starting to ripen. I think it may be too late for the peaches but the new berries may get bigger if we get some rain. I have a few ideas for water but it will be later this year or next year. Once I get the barn build I will be catching the rain water from its roof to water the berries and possible the trees. Eventually I will get a well dug to water the fruit trees. I wasn't expecting to get fruit for a few years but the peaches and nectarines have surprised me. I will have to get some water by next year. I expect to be selling fresh picked no chemicals applied fruit this time next year.The blackberries are loaded. I will take some pictures of the new shoots coming up. They grow so fast I have a hard time getting them through the wire that I am trellising them on. The goji really took off also. All of the cuttings I took from this plant earlier this year have rooted. I will transplant them into their own containers this weekend. I will get some pictures of that also. Check out this peach tree. I thinned them out earlier. For every peach you see I picked at least one to two off. It appears I will have enough peaches to sell a few this year also. Five other peach trees are loaded like this one.
Started some asparagus in this raised bed. I made this one 4 foot by 16 foot. I plan on making another one the same size starting from about where I am standing when I took this picture. I think it will be my garlic bed. Look back at my sunchoke blog to see how I build them. It makes a good non-compacted bed. Planted some melon seeds, okra seeds, sunflower seeds and a few more squash seeds. We need rain. Unfortunately I don't have any running water to help the veggies. I will next year but I am going to have to rely on rain this year. I also chopped and dropped my weeds in my fruit tree rows. I am already behind on keep up with the weeds. I am going to have to spend next weekend pulling and cutting. Can you spot the honeybee. My black locust are in full bloom. The whole farm smells sweet.
The blackberries are starting to fill out good. I cant believe they are only one year old. The picture below was taken from the same spot this day last year. Those post are 5 feet tall and the mulch was over 3 feet wide. See below. I was not expecting them to take off so fast. From all that I have read they take 2 years to get to picking size. I am not ready to start my u-pick but it looks the blackberries might be ready. Not sure what to do now. Friends, neighbors and co-workers and their friends might get some prime picking this year. I need to see if I can get some signs or something. I had planned to buy/build a tent or some sort of covered area to place a table and chair under. A place to sit out of the sun while people picked their blackberries. Then have a scale to weigh the berries and some baskets for people to put berries in as they pick and some bags for them to take their berries home in. But I thought I had a year to get this done. The bees are loving the blackberry blooms. As you walk between the rows you hear them buzzing. This one is packing in the pollen but I have watched others digging in deep in the flower they appear to be getting nectar. I placed four 9' 4x4's on the swale above the blackberries. I am going to trellis grapes here. They are evenly spaced 16' apart and I will plant 3 grape vines in the middle of each post. I planted my first vine in the very middle. It is a vine from my mom's bronze muscadine grape. I will plant a black muscadine and a table grape on either side. The wire is just hanging for now. I left my bolts at the house but wanted to get a picture. Once they are bolted on I can tighten them up. If you look close, to the right, you can see were I am clearing out some brush to make room for more blackberry rows. It needs to be cleared out so I can get to the fence to make repairs also.
I placed this bed which is about 4 'x 8' at the end of the last row of fruit trees I just put in. I wonder how many sunchokes it will make? We have some old railroad ties and I thought this would be a good place to use a few of them. I have heard that the sunchokes were very invasive and hard to control. The ties are a little over 8 feet long. I cut one of them in half and placed them so that one end was butted up to another tie while the other end was out. I like placing them like this so if in the future I want to make the bed taller I can overlap the ties so that the next layer would have the be over the joints of the first. Because the ground is pretty compacted on this end of the row I dug down a little over a shovel spade deep. I broke up the hard dirt and put it in the front end loader so I would have room to keep digging. After digging the dirt out and breaking it up good I dumped the dirt back in the hole I had made. A good amount of the wood chips have composted. I got a front end load of composted wood chips and dumped on top. I also added a few shovels of compost from our compost pile. I did this to add some organic matter and loosen up the soil. I want those tubers to be able to expand. After that I placed the sunchokes in about 5 inches deep. You can see in the picture the spacing I used. After the first rain the dirt will settle a little and I will top dress this bed with straw.
You can see how I set up a new hive. I placed 4 center blocks under each hive. I have used landscape timbers through the top two center blocks on each side. Landscape timbers have a flat areas that you can set hive bodies or frames. It helps when you have to take a few supers off to go through the hive. The center blocks are not level they are set so the hive leans toward the front. If sideways rain comes it will drain out the front this way. I placed feeders on each of the hives and will continue to feed them until they stop taking it. The top picture was taken 10 days earlier than the bottom one. Typically it would not be time to add the top supers on a new hive with foundation only but the bottom frames had drawn comb already and they are filling it up with sugar water, nectar and pollen. So I am putting some frames with foundation on the top hoping they will start drawing out some comb. Notice on the top picture I made a little bridge for the bees that were still in the box to climb to the hive entrance. I didn't have time to stay and watch them climb in but I was told it would help so I did it. Next year I will make sure I have time to observe this myself. You will also notice I have a frame of foundation sitting by the hives. This was put in the hive 3 days later after the queen was freed from her cage. The cage takes up a frame of space when you have drawn comb. Last year When I only had frames of foundation for my new hives I fit the queen cage in with all 10 frames inserted. This is my pollination for my orchard and farm. I am planning on expanding this over the next few years adding 4 hives a year until I get enough to start selling a little honey.
This was a lot of work but it will pay off over the years. I now have no till garden beds. Yes, I tilled to get them started. All the beds are have now been mulched around with wood chips. The broad fork was used to break up the hard pan that the tiller left behind. It pulled up a two to three inch layer of compacted dirt. I will put some straw in the rows on top of the wood chips as an added layer of mulch. Once the this is planted and the plants get up a few inches I will place straw on the beds for mulch also. This year we will log what was planted where so that next year we can rotate our crops.
I weeded and tilled and weeded again. Set the rows out but didn't get the sub-soil boardfork completed. I had other task and a tired back from setting up the rows. I dug 8 blackberry shoots up and potted them. Also potted up some goji cuttings to try and root them. Mulched around all the nut trees. I will get a picture of them once they start putting on some leaves. I will get the garden beds sub-soiled next week. I will have a picture of the completed rows next week. Planning on mulching those walkways with wood chips and covering that with straw.
My last year to use this lane as a garden. Next year a row of trees will do here like the terrace below.I tilled it. I would like to get some permanent garden beds that I can switch to no till. Maybe I can get them installed and prepared this year. I have a lot of grass growing so I tilled and pulled it out. I will go back and pull it out again later this week and give it another till and pull grass some more next week. After that I will lay out my rows and take a broad fork and break up the sub soil. That gets pretty compacted from tilling. The fork gets down there and breaks it up but its a lot of work. I will regret not having put in no till beds last year after running that broad fork. I will post some updates next weekend. Putting in 4 new hives in April and the blackberries should be blooming then also. I will get some pictures of that for sure.
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Kevin HarrisI'm building a working homestead with the intent that it will provide health food for my family and yours. This will be a place for you to come pick your food and connect with where it was grown. Archives
February 2017
CategoriesComing Soon
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