Around the Farm

I haven’t posted much about the goings on around the farm for several weeks now. It has rained so much that there was nothing that could be done except making sure the cattle had plenty of hay. The two photo’s below were taken off of my back porch. There are two waterfalls that should be in the pictures, but the creek was swollen so much that they disappeared. Note that the trees that are in the water actually sit on the creek bank when it is flowing normally.

I was fortunate enough to get my first set of trees in the ground before the heavens opened and so in a couple of years they will begin to produce. I’ve put in apple, plum, pear and peach. I still need 3 more apple trees (2 Granny Smith and an additional Fuji). I wish I had known how to prune fruit trees before I bought them as that may have helped me select trees that didn’t need to be cut back so severely. FYI, the diagrams below show how it should be done. The first is ‘Open Vase’ for the peach and plum, the second is ‘Central Leader’ for the apple and pear.



I planted 6 blueberry bushes (three varieties) , they will produce this year. Also put some garlic in the ground and it is coming up well. As a test I planted some ‘California Soft Neck’ garlic I purchased at a nursery along with two types I purchased in the food section of the local Walmart. The organic garlic from Wally’s came up perfectly while the regular garlic did not come up at all.

I won’t be able to get the boat back on the water for at least a couple of weeks, the runoff from the flooding rains has pushed the rivers well out of their banks and they now have ’embedded’ tree trunks a foot or below the surface. The rivers are running so rapidly that there is no way to hold position.

Anyway, that’s the way things are in my neck of the woods.

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