July 2023

 Harvest season begins with raspberries. It's a fast, almost overwhelming time where I pick every other day for about two weeks. This year I made about 24 quarts and 10 or so pints of raspberry jam. My grandkids have been eating raspberry jam for most of their lives, and I try to make enough so that all of the kids, grandkids, and great grandchildren have jam all year long.

While I could extend the season for another week or so, I'm concentrating now on getting the vines ready for next year.

The old canes that produced berries this year are easy to identify now as they are gray/black, and the new canes for next year's berries are green. I leave the new canes long for now to deter the deer from eating them. They still trim the bottom leaves, but the cane just keeps growing at the top and when all the leaves die off, I'll trellis the canes to the wire. You can see the piles of old canes beside the row.

On to blackberries and blueberries - Both are just beginning to produce! 

The Hugelkultur mound has Kohlrabi, cucumbers, tomatoes, beets and pumpkin growing nicely. I made my first jar of dill pickles today.

Inside the greenhouse things are lush! The tobacco plant in front of Ron has flourished inside. The plants I planted in the main garden are less than a foot tall. Still hoping for a flower! Ron was inside figuring out where to put the electric line.

My hero - digging the trench to bring power and water to the greenhouse. I do have water in the garden, but it's kind of a mess - underground for most of the way, but connected with a hose at the house, which involved turning on the spigot about 200 yards from where we use the water. He resisted a bit bringing water into the greenhouse, but we will lay the waterline today! 

My daughter in law, Tina, and I thinned the apple trees this past weekend, and the deer are enjoying not having to reach for apples. If only they would just eat the apples on the ground....if only they didn't love strawberry and raspberry and blackberry leaves so much....if only they hadn't discovered the green beans....So much of their habitat has gone away in recent years, that we are pretty tolerant of them hanging out in our little oasis.

 

New Year Project

 

When we put in this fence line last year, it was intended to give the deer a sense of boundary. To make life easier for both the deer and me, I planted raspberry starts all along the fence line. This attempt to bribe the deer to eat from "their" raspberries and leave mine alone didn't work at all.  Since this line got overrun with weeds, they preferred the nicely trimmed main raspberry patch, and I ended up picking the berries buried in the weeds.  So, this is what it looked like after a year of neglect. Opportunistic weeds like grass, Alder trees, comfrey, foxglove, creeping buttercup, and many more had developed a very hard sod/weed base all along the fence.  The only wire I had put on the fence was a single line of wire to kind of trellis the raspberries.  I really can't stand weeds, so I began clearing the weeds off this fence line and creating a new area adjacent to the main garden for another Hugelkultur mound. We are going to put a more serious fence outside the mound. This side of the garden is the main entry point for deer, raccoons, rabbits, etc. and I'm hoping a better fence will solve some of the problems of critters in the garden.

I began working on clearing the weeds about a month ago. Weather only allowed me to work on it periodically. I realized quickly that I would need a lot more mulch to complete the project, so I ordered another 15 yards of mulch.

I should finish the fence line weeding today, and then I can start on the fun project of installing the actual fence line on the other side of the new garden area.  I'm trying to transition the garden into more of a raspberry thing - I know raspberries do well no matter the weather so why fight to grow more exotic plants that may only do well in a "tomato" year? I may have to open a U-Pick for raspberries. 

I'm also trying to transition to more of a mulch covered food forest and less of a row crop tilled garden.

My Iris Garden

The iris might be my favorite flower!  I just love the time of year when most of them bloom.  I still have a few that haven't burst into bloom, but there are quite a few in full bloom.

They are easy to grow, send out new tubers every year, and some are even fragrant!

This one is not just delicate and beautiful, but also fragrant!

This dark purple has multiple blooms per stalk.

When I originally selected these, they all had names - unfortunately, I didn't keep track of the names.

These are from my Mom's original iris garden.

This one is tiny - about half the size of most iris.

Not open yet - but nearly black and huge - one of my favorites!

Projects, Projects, Projects all day long....

My little orchard is really starting to thrive, but when you have six mature apple trees, there is a lot of thinning involved in the spring!

My dear departed friend, Steve Smith, who was an expert on all things apple tree, told me that I should thin the apples to no more than ONE every five inches.  Yikes, I have a big job ahead of me, as that involves removing about 95% of all the blossoms. 

I found the perfect tool for removing blossoms/baby apples - the tiniest Fiskar scissors are perfect for the task.  They are very sharp and I can work with precision.  I used to pinch them off, and my thumbs would be sore for days.  I have about 10 hours into my thinning program and am pretty much done - once again, hoping that I have thinned them too severely.  I worry about that every year, but always have a huge apple crop, so it's getting easier.

Ron helped me pressure wash all the decks, which were a combination of green and brown after a very wet winter.

When we built the house, we tight-lined the gutters under the front slab and into a French drain.  However, we left way too many trees so the tree debris plugged up the drain, and our gutters were overflowing every time it rained no matter how many times Ron cleaned them.  So he decided to make an open ditch from the porch down the hill away from the house.  That looked so awful that we decided to tight-line it and cover it.

So both drain pipes are tight-lined, the yard is a muddy mess, but the problem with overflowing gutters should be solved.

In the meantime, my greenhouse is flourishing - I have really nice looking tomato plants, pumpkin and squash that are ready to go into the main garden, and all kinds of flowers growing.  In spite of another wet month, the corn, beans, onions, carrots, kohlrabi, peas, and potatoes are all up and growing in the main garden area. 

The foundation is done!

When we woke up to perfectly blue skies and sunshine, we decided to work on the greenhouse.  We finished the cement block walls the other day in a driving rainstorm, so we were happy to see that the rain didn't disturb the last tier of blocks that went in while it was pouring. We put lag bolts in at intervals around the perimeter so that we could put a sill plate on top.

Ron drilled holes in the 2x6 treated boards that we used for sill plate, and I tightened all the bolts while he got each new plate piece ready.

Next step:  squaring the metal for the beginning of the greenhouse onto the sill plate.  Fortunately, the foundation was level all the way around, so we didn't need to make any adjustments to that.

Ron left to tend his mowing, and I used the tractor and shovel and rake to fill around the foundation so that the greenhouse will start at ground level.  I still need to bring gravel all around the perimeter, but the foundation is done.  Now the fun begins as we put together the Chinese puzzle that will become the greenhouse.

Signs of Spring in January!

Spring has always been my favorite season.  Watching plants slowly emerge from the cold ground and seeing the first blooms is one of life's joys for me.  Today it's 55 degrees - still cloudy and rainy, but definitely warming up!

Fruit trees at Costco and the Co-op are one of the signs - and who am I to resist.  Plus I had a nice half hour discussion with a fellow gardener about pruning and pollinating fruit trees.
I can always find a place for another fruit tree.  Ron helped me take out a totally useless plum tree in the fall, so a three type cherry takes its place now.

I worried a couple of weeks ago that I hadn't planted tulips and daffodils deep enough as they were already popping up.  So I covered them with about a foot of mulch.....and here they are again!

Aha!  Buds on the raspberry bushes!

What is this plant?  It was a gift from my daughter and son-in-law and it is definitely a keeper!  It started blooming in November, got frozen when we had a week of very cold weather, but has started to bloom again!