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Planting
Spring is here, and this year we don't have to wait for the rain to be able to plant, so we've been going crazy.We've planted trees, and already have quite a few young almonds, peaches, plums, and...
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Plants
Work has started on 3 more rows. They each have their rock retaining walls (so that each terrace can be leveled off somewhat). And we've put a bunch of branches and manure just uphill from the rock...
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Tree Nursery
In preparation for future orchard terraces, we have been starting some trees from seed. There are various techniques to help that process along, like nicking the seed cover or putting them in almost...
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Gardens
Things have been so crazy with us recently, and I feel like I am months behind in this blog. I'll try and catch up as much as I can, but there are a million small things we've been doing that will...
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Pumpkins
I don't normally like to cut up pumpkins, as it constitutes a fair amount of wasted food. But Abe wanted to do one for the boys, now that they're getting bigger and can appreciate it. It came out...
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Prickly Pear Swales
We eventually want to terraces our whole property, to eliminate run-off and encourage plant growth. The pigs did some of the work us, in the areas that they pastured, but it would be too many man-hours...
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Domestic Lambsquarters
Leo has always liked vegetables of almost every kind, whereas Nicky is far more particular. He loves a few of them, like broccoli, carrots, and corn, but for the most part he'll turn his nose up at...
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Orchard’s Security Tank
Last year, we had an accident with the orchard’s irrigation system. We were crazy busy, doing a hundred things at once, one of which was watering the forest garden. To do this, all you have to do is...
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Planting Season
We’ve filled up the wicking beds in the garden with (mostly) annual plants, like tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, squash, potatoes, beans, etc.We have also planted around the trees and grey water bed down...
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Peaches
We planted a few trees up against a wall at the town house last year, to test out the espalier technique (whereby branches span out flat instead of as a canopy). The results so far have been amazing,...
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Produce
Rain season has started and the place has exploded. We have an almost endless supply of beans, tomatoes, peppers, squash, purslane, greens, herbs, and onions. We can even start to dig up new potatoes...
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Air-layering
There are many ways to grow trees, depending on which type you’re talking about, and Abe has been trying them all.Planting from seed is slow, but effective, for the ones that come true (are like their...
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Jam and Jelly
We have one young plum tree that produces so heavily that we cannot keep up with eating the fresh fruit. We all do our part, especially the boys, who are constantly picking fruit and stuffing their...
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Papa’s Prickly Pear Paradise
Abe has been into prickly pears as a crop for a year or so, and his enthusiasm has now really caught on with the rest of us.The pads make a great vegetable, which the whole family really likes.They are...
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Inside Garden
The grey water from our shower and sinks goes into two 10 ft long wicking beds inside the house. The water passes through a drainage pipe which has holes in it, and seeps into a gravel bed. There is...
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Mulch
We recently cut a bunch of big weeds throughout the forest garden and around the place to make silage for the rabbits. With the weeds gone, the ground was somewhat exposed to the heat, and it has been...
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Prickly Pear Wine
To get the actual juice from the tunas, we went through the same steps as we listed in the prickly pear jelly recipe in the Papa’s prickly pear paradise post (before any sugar or pectin are added).From...
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Juice and Cider
Last week, we made our first batch of juice of the year. We cut up a crate and a half of apples, which produced 5 gallons of juice. Half of those we froze (or drank) as juice, the other half is...
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Air-layer results
I don't know if you remember, but a while back we did some air-layering on a couple of different tree limbs. One of the ones we tried it with was a mulberry tree, and it worked great!Abe opened up the...
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Nursery
As we continue to enlarge our forest garden and the swales around the property, our demand for trees has increased. Although we can grow a huge variety of plants in the orchard itself, where there is...
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