Spring Work Around the Homestead

I've been neglecting this journal. But I have been steadily working around the place with planting in the spring.

Planted another plum and apple in the food forest area east of the swale. Also, divided five or six comfrey plants in that area.

Broadcast seed for white and red clover, indian corn, amaranth, mixed greens, sorgham, watermelon and yellow squash all over east of the swale. Scattered finished compost across the surface as well.

Scattered amaranth and sorgham seed into the pig pen, which has been 70 percent rooted up by the AGH.

Planted some snap peas along fence of the garden in the early spring.

Planted three species of medicinal herbs

Dream Root (Silene undulata)

Hyssop (Agastache)

Elecampane (Inula helenium)

I ordered the three medicinal herbs from Horizon Herbs.  All need well drained soil and partial sun. I planted them around my elderberry bushes growing west of the goat pen. Hopefully, these plants will have a few weeks to put down some nice roots and will rebound next spring. 

Planted Black and Blue Cohash

Planted live roots. Two Black Cohash toward the southwestern side of the white mulberry. A Blue Cohash on the northern side.

Also planted two Black Cohash under the two white walnut trees.

Planted one Black Cohash adjacent to and shaded by north side of the elderberry plant west of the goat pens.

Mixed clay and compost in the hole and covered the roots with wood mulch. There was evidence of fungal activity in the wood chips. Looking loamy now.

Divided Comfrey

Divided two comfrey plants. Uprooted both plants south of pig pen.

Replanted first in 8 - 10 cuttings and crowns north of top pond and south of white oak tree.

Replanted second with similar number east of orchard swale, uphill. Trying to establish thicket of comfrey.

Bermuda grass roots were invading the comfrey root. A bermuda nodule was tightly in a crack of roots. Bermuda will choke roots of most plants out. Some comfrey seems to be stronger than bermuda when it has produced a thick set of leaves and overgrows the base.

Smallest cutting was four inches long and 1/4 inch in diameter.

Still more comfrey to divide.

I believe these cuttings were from Boching 14.

Fall Planting (continued)

Continued with fall planting. Minimal work. I took cuttings from my Rose of Sharon (hibiscus syriacus) and planted three cuttings into the southwestern side of the orchard swale.

Fall 2014 Planting

I divided my yarrow that was growing in the zone 1 garden and planted cuttings in several places across the homestead.

I planted into three areas. Two new plants by the beehives; one plant by the boggy area just south of the Oehler Greenhouse and before the clay berm; and seven plants across the orchard area below the goat pen and above the orchard swale.

Continued planting into swales and orchard

Planted two pounds of buckwheat into lower swale, finishing out the downhill (western side).

Planted chicory across the downhill side of the orchard swale. Also, planted about forty feet of garlic and onion on the northeastern side of the swale, and a couple onions at the edge of the orchard just west of our northern goat pen.

Fall planting and preparation of Swales, Beds

Zone 1 Garden

Starting with zone 1 garden: Cleaned up three beds by pulling grass. I used a fork to loosen the soil first. I was able to pull clumping grass, but the rhizominous Bermuda was breaking off sub soil. That usually means that a rhizome is ready to start growing a new plant sub soil. I prepped the two beds below the white mulberry tree thoroughly.

Then, I planted in the northern-most bed garlic and onion down the center. These will be harvested next spring. On the outside of the bed I planted mostly Kale, several varieties from Sow True Seed.

The same drill for the second mulberry bed. Also planted some lettuce in it, and more kale. Plan is to get some Kale and lettuce this fall.

I covered the entire bed with mulch obtained from cleaning out the goat pen house and paddock.  Used an entire golf cart load in the garden.

I weeded and mulched the U bed, and tossed some of the mulch onto the herb spiral. I only pulled grass from the northern part of the U bed. Probably need to get into the southern section. Still need work on the tomato beds. They look to be played out for the year.

Swales

Planted 2 lbs of buckwheat into the orchard swale.  No mulch yet. Need to spread some more straw though.

Planted the remaining 1 lb into the western pasture swale.  Got the eastern side done, but ran out of seed after about 1/2 way down the northwestern side. Still need to plant buckwheat into the southwestern section.

Orchard Perennials

I bought two $1 plants at Lowes. I planted an Aster bush and blue sage plants just below the goat pen. Hopefully they will grow. The Aster was root bound.

We received a nice rain last night so hopefully the seeds will germinate.

Coe's Comfrey

Over the past two weekends, I planted 100 root cuttings of Coe's Comfrey, Bocking #4 strain of Russian comfrey, Symphytum Peregrinum, "which is best for hardiness, highest yield, and the highest protein with high allantoin content; for fodder, compost, and all around general use."

The cuttings were planted in various locations around our homestead.

Upper Hillside Swale

About 50 went into the upper western hillside swale. Half of those were planted into the ditch at the lower edge of the mound. Another 25 (approximately) were planted on the downhill side of the mound.

The planting style I used was a combo weeding planting style. I dug up clumps of grass that had started growing along the swale. In the hole, I planted the comfrey cutting.

Keyline Pocket Pond

A few went into the downhill side of the pocket pond dam wall and a few more at the upper end of the pocket pond where the flooding probability is lower.

Lower Swale Western Pasture

I planted the rest into the swale berm of the western pasture.  Half went into the downhill side of the mound.  Half again went into the ditch at the edge of the mound, or a few feet up the mound. I alternated.

The western pasture swale filled up with water in our last heavy rain to about two feet and it didn't soak into the mound for a few days. I was concerned about whether comfrey can take that much of a flood state.

We have had about three or four inches of rain over the past two weeks. The ground is nice and moist now.  It rained last night, and the night before all of my planting efforts. It is supposed to rain again today.

Thinned out Tomatoes and Rigged Expanded Trellis System

Thinned out the tomato plants today. Also added a couple T-posts and hung some wire between posts. Shored up a middle post that was sagging pretty bad. The tomatoes now have more air and light. Hopefully, we will get a good harvest this summer.

Pumpkin and Watermelon

Planted watermelon and pumpkin seed east of and into the zone 2 swale.  This area is where we dump our goat manure and litter. It was covered in the spring with wood chip mulch. This is an area where we are growing fruit trees, and berry bushes, along with herbaceous plants. But there is still a lot of open area for space-loving plants like watermelon and pumpkin.

Watermelon take 80 days from seed to harvest.  The 20 percent probable frost date for our climate is around the middle of October.  Between now and then, that gives us 103 days until harvest, assuming we are not hit with an unusually early frost this year.

The pumpkin seeds, however, are another story. We planted Connecticut Field and Small Sugar heirloom pumpkin seeds. The former takes 110 days to harvest.  The latter 100.  This is cutting it pretty dang close.

red mulberry tree

More Spring Planting Update

I bought and planted Comfrey Blocking 4 roots on Friday.  These roots came from Nantahala Farm.  A note said that they sell Blocking 4 instead of Blocking 14 because the plant tastes better to their animals (not bitter).  I planted about 15 roots around the property as indicated on the list.

The comfrey we planted last fall still has not emerged.  It has been consistently cold, but maybe the next few nights will stay above freezing which will help the plants start their journey into spring.

We also planted two pears and two apple trees I bought at Stone Avenue Nursery.  The Pear trees were $20 each.  They came in ten gallon buckets.  One of them already has a few flowers.  One pear was an asian pear, and the other was a Barlette pear.

The apple trees ($15 each) were a Jonagold and another Winesap.  They were in 7 gallon buckets.

The images of the planting locations are shown below.

For the comfrey, I planted them about four to six inches deep.  I dug out a hole in the grass and tossed in some one year old horse manure compost.

For the fruit trees, I dug out a deep wide hole and mixed in compost, top soil, and a soil amendment we bought at 5th Season, I think greensand.

Planting Around Zone 1 on Sunday

Here is an update on my planting since the last post.  I bought blue berry bushes and fig trees from Big Frog nursery, and planted fig trees where indicated on the eastern side of the picture below. 

On Friday, we bought three more young apple trees from the Stone Avenue Nursery: two Pink Lady trees and one Wine Sap ($15 each).  Also bought two bushes from Michael (SAN), a Witch Hazel and a St. John's Wort bush.  Interspersed those bushes in the orchard area we are developing.

Finally, we received Paw Paw seedlings and Hazel Nut seedlings from the Kentucky Forestry Department.  The location of these is shown in both the top and bottom photographs.  The paw paw seedlings looked poor, but the Hazel Nut bushes looked pretty decent. 

flower planting

Planted nastutium, marigold, and chamomile seeds in a bed outside our annual vegitable garden. Seeds came from Sow True Seeds.

Sunday Planting

Today, I started off the morning by planting four blueberry bushes into our southeastern orchard. I bought the four plants in one gallon buckets from Big Frog Nursery.  These plants, unlike the Tractor Supply blueberry bushes, looked extremely healthy with plenty of healthy stems and rooting systems.  Jill, one of the owners helped us with the purchase.

The varieties were Duke, Pink Lemonade, and Blueray.  The quality was so high, we are going to return to Big Frog for more blueberry plants.

In the late morning, work on garden raised beds was undertaken.  A raised bed on the southern edge was started on Saturday.  Today, raised beds for three tomato trellis systems, and the northern edge was undertaken.

The tomato trellis systems were build using the humus from the winter composting project and the soil left over from raised beds.

The humus from the soil buidling effort we undertook this fall and winter looked pretty decent.  However, I noticed some substantial quantity of bermuda roots in the material.  Hopefully, that will not germinate.  The humus was dark, but it looked like a lot of the woody material was still intact.  Mixed with the clay, hopefully, the soil will be satisfactory to the vegitables.

Placed cardboard along the pathways of the garden.  Plan to mulch over those pathways with chicken coop shavings and mulch from Spartanburg landfill.

In the late afternoon, I planted my Jerusalem Artichokes (sunchokes).  These were ordered online from Safaa Alhashimi.

I followed the instructions of the NC Agriculture Extension for planting.

Earlier in the day, I disassembled one wall from my former compost bin.  I spread the compost out along the north edge of the garden, the base of my northern raised bed.  The compost was a beautiful dark. I have been putting food scraps into the compost area up until as recently as one week ago.

I shovelled the wood compost from the base of the garden into a pile mixed with the compost.  Planted the sunchokes into this bed.  It stretches about fifteen feet toward the western edge.  You can see the edge in the background of the picture above, just north of the visible cardboard.

Fruit Tree Planting

I bought some Patriot Blueberry plants, and three apple, pear, and self-pollinating plum tree seedlings.  All were very young plants.  I got these plants at tractor supply for a low price.  When I got home, I found out why.  Although the plants had some leaves, the plant did not appear to have much if any root structure on the plant.  There was no root ball, only a loosely wrapped mulch inside the plastic container.

I tried to plant these anyway.

I dug large yard square holes of sufficient depth. I mixed compost, mulch, and our red clay soil in the hole. Then, I dug a hole for the plant.  I then packed it down and built a mound to protect the plants.  I mulched it with about four inches of mulch.  Rain is expected tomorrow.

I updated my zone one garden plan diagram with the new plants.

Seedlings Report

I received my broccoli from Sow True Seed (Di Ciccio), and planted into four more cubes.

The cabbage and brussel sprouts cubes and a few of the cauliflower  seedlings are sprouting from their cubes now.

cg  bs cf  B
XX  X  X   XX
XX  X  X   X
XX  X  X   X

Cabbage and Cauliflower

Planted three cubes of Long Island improved brussel sprouts and Snowball Y cauliflower.  Both seeds packages came from Sow True Seed.

The seedlings are growing in the basement in a plastic tote underneath a grow light hanging above.

The cubes are on the last two rows nearest the wall.  There are six cubes of the previously planted cabbage, and three each of brussel sprouts and cauliflower.
cg    bs  cf
XX  X  X
XX  X  X
XX  X  X

Somehow brocolli was left off my table.  I need to check because I think those need to start this week also.

Mulching

Acquired another trailer of mulch.  Trying to mulch over any bare spots of red clay around the house with this load.