The Orchard Takes a Hit

You wouldn't know it to look at the garden, but the orchard is really having a hard spring.  

We had a very late, very cold, and prolonged, frost in April.  The orchard trees had all started to blossom, and some were even starting to set fruit.  The frost took care of that.  I lost all the fruit on my apples, pear, cherries, peaches and plums.  My persimmon tree just plain old looks dead; it had just started to leaf out.

Golden Noble apple tree with frost damage

And then, to add insult to injury, one of my baby apple trees developed apple scab and one of the pears is continuing its ongoing fight with fire blight.  Every year I cut out more and more infected areas.  The tree is shrinking instead of growing.

The rest of the garden looks great, thank goodness.  My perennials are blooming -- a bit late -- but blooming as if to say, "full steam ahead!"  

I was going to plant my veggie starts this weekend (Mothers Day is my marker) but there is a late spring storm coming through over the next few days.  We will get rain (good), maybe some snow (what??!!) and frost (NOOOOOOOO).  I'm hoping the frost periods are short, not lasting more than an hour or so in the early mornings.  By Wednesday, it should be safe to plant the veggies outside.

April Garden

 The garden is really coming to life.  Most of the perennials have broken their winter dormancy and the few laggards will follow soon.  The grass is green, the trees are leafing out, and the birds are busy building nests in the eaves on the porch, in the horse trailer hitch, in the barn rafters and the trees.  

Yellow iris are in full bloom.  I don’t know this variety’s name but it blooms twice, is healthy, and prolific.  The dwarf lilac in front is relatively new.  I planted three of them two years ago.  The dogs have kept two of them “well trimmed” by chewing on them and crashing through the planter.  But this one is doing very well.

Speaking of lilacs, I have more.  I just love these two varieties.  The first is called ‘Katherine Hanemeyer’ and is incredibly fragrant, in addition to being gorgeous.  The second is called ‘Sensation’ and has very unique and striking coloring with the burgundy petals outlined in white.  I only get a few blooms on this lilac but they make ‘em count.

I love violas.  I have different varieties, including Johnny Jump Ups and ‘Etain.’  They are very happy under the lilacs.

Earlier this month, my newest peony rewarded me with beautiful yellow fragrant blooms.  I found this plant when Brett and I were in Sonoma for my birthday, poking around a Ace Hardware nursery in Healdsburg.  The plant was pricey but, hey, it was my birthday.

Strawberries are starting to ripen.

Two of my new water trough planters have been planted.  This first one has chard, lettuce, beets, shallots and parsley.

The second one has sugar snap peas, more lettuce and chard.  There are also a couple zinnia plants at the front to encourage pollinators.  I tuck zinnias in all over the place: in my vegetable beds, in the flower beds and in the perennial planter.

My rhubarb from Skoog Farm is going crazy.  I’ve already made two cobblers with it — strawberry rhubarb and cherry rhubarb.  When I have more strawberries, I’ll make strawberry rhubarb jam.

In another week or so, I will plant my tomatoes, peppers and eggplant.  The nights are still too cold in April for them — they go out around Mothers Day.  The tomato bed is currently planted with a cover crop of fava beans and red clover.  ...and volunteer poppies which I just can’t bear to pull out.

Fish Emulsion Mistake

 When I start seeds, I add a bit of fertilizer as an ingredient in my seed starting mix so I don’t worry about feeding the baby plants when they first sprout.  There is also a bit of fertilizer, some compost and worm castings that are added to my potting mix when I move the seedlings up to 4” pots.  Some of these plants will go to the Master Gardener spring plant sale (our big fund raiser for the year) and some will go in my garden.  Regardless of where they end up, I want them strong and healthy with a mass of white roots filling the pot.  So, after the plants have been in their pots for a month or so, I give them a little drink of fish emulsion.  

This morning was the day.  I fertilize on the 15th of the month — I have to pick an easy to remember day otherwise I forget.  Tomorrow, the 15th, we are expecting snow so I did it today.  I put a couple tablespoons of fish emulsion in my watering can and filled it with water.  The lovely smell of fish emulsion filled the greenhouse.  Think tuna.  Both Sage and Acorn appeared at my feet, noses twitching as they tried to locate the fish.  When I watered the little pots, both dogs stood under the bench and licked up the fishy water that leaked through.  

I still had some of the mix in my watering can so I took it out to the garden bed where I have parsley, turnips and bok choy growing.  The dogs were eyeing the planter bed with interest so I made sure they came with me when I left the garden, closing the back gate behind me.  

A few minutes later, I was busy mucking one of the pastures when I realized that Acorn was no longer with me.  I looked over at the garden and there he was — standing in the raised bed, digging like mad, trying to find that fish.  He had gone around to the front gate which was closed, but not latched, and let himself in.  One of the turnips was half-way out and the other plus the bok choy were flung to the side.  I stuck them back in the ground but I don’t have high hopes for their survival.  I think he chomped the roots.  Dang dog.  And stupid me for not latching the front garden gate.

Time to Start Tomato Seeds

 Tomatoes are one of the summer vegetables that can be started from seed in the weeks before spring.  I love tomatoes.  I mean, I really really love tomatoes.  Not the ones from the market, especially in winter.  Not those tasteless mealy things.  (I swear Brett thinks he doesn’t like tomatoes because he never had them fresh from the garden until I came along).

I plant ten or eleven tomato plants in my garden.  This year there will be 8 different varieties.  I like a mix of reliable slicers and sweet cherry tomatoes.  There are some varieties that show up again and again, year-after-year — for me that would be Arkansas Traveler, Black Krim and Sun Gold (cherry tomato).  Sun Gold tomatoes are the ones that convinced Brett that tomatoes are actually pretty dang good.  Very few of the Sun Golds make it into the kitchen, I snack on them while I’m working in the garden.  They are a bright orange color and incredibly sweet.  I’m trying four new varieties this year.  Two of them looked too interesting to pass up. 

I lugged my propagation stuff from the tool shed shelf into the greenhouse and got it all set up.  I unrolled my heat mats, and my thermostat, and dug out my block making tool.  I am kind of over-the-top when it comes to seed starting.  You don’t need all the paraphernalia that I have, but it does ensure a high percentage of germination.  I make my own seed starting mix (peat, vermiculite, sifted compost, fertilizer and a touch of lime), get it wet, and form it into blocks.  I plant one or two seeds in each block.  I planted eight blocks of each tomato variety.  The extras will be donated to the Master Gardener spring plant sale that is the main fund raiser for our demonstration gardens.  

Once the seedlings are big enough that I can see their roots on the side of the block, I transplant the whole block into a 4” pot.  This way I can start a lot of seeds in a relatively small space and I don’t have to worry about traumatizing them when I move them to a larger pot.  It works well for me.  

So, now I sit and wait.  I will mist the soil daily and keep the domes on the flats until the seedlings are up. In a few weeks, I’ll be starting more seeds.  Whee!

If you want to give seed starting a go without all the fuss of doing it this way, check out this article I wrote for a local publication on how easy it is to do.  Honest.  

Hugelkultur

 Since I retired a bit more than a year ago, I have been a gardening fiend.  I planted a few more fruit trees a few years ago, outside of the garden since there was no more room inside.  Then, last summer, I didn't have enough raised beds for all the veggies I wanted to plant.  Brett suggested moving the deer fence back, between the newer fruit trees and the stream.  There would be room for some more raised beds in the new area as well as including the fruit trees in the protected orchard.  How could I say no?  Normally, this is the kind of project that we would do with the help of Wwoofers, but since there aren't any due to COVID, and since Brett goes stir crazy without a project, he moved the fence back by himself.

We picked up some large water troughs to use as raised beds.  He drilled some holes in the bottom and put them in place.  I looked at them and thought, "It's going to cost me a small fortune in raised bed potting soil to fill those things."  

Then I had a flash of inspiration.  Hugelkultur.  I learned a little bit about this in my Master Gardener class, the demonstration gardens have one, and a fellow Master Gardener friend successfully used it for her raised beds last year.  I did some review, asked a few questions, and got to work.

Hugelkultur is method of creating a hill ("hugel") that mimics the decomposition that occurs on a forest floor.  The activity at the bottom of the pile creates nutrients as it breaks down, and it holds moisture really well.  The hills are most often free standing, but sides can be put in place.  And, what is a raised bed, really, other than a hill with sides?

First, I gathered downed twigs and small (less than 3 inch in diameter) limbs from around the ranch.  Brett took his tractor out to the back of the property and gathered there, while I picked up in the pastures.  We have had a fair amount of windy weather so there was a lot to choose from.  Pine is better than oak so I made those a priority although we have more oaks than pines on the ranch.  

I put a layer of twigs in the bottom of the troughs and stomped on them to break them up and provide a nice even base.  

Next came the limbs and then a layer of straw.  I stomped on it again and watered it well.  The straw snugged into the crevices between the limbs.  

The next layer was compost.  Brett brought it over with the tractor and dumped it.  While I was spreading, stomping and watering, he went and got the next load.  

At this point, the troughs were between 2/3 and 3/4 full.  The top layer will be potting soil.  The new raised beds will sit and mellow and settle for a few months until they are planted in the spring.  I’ll report back on how it goes.

Garden Chronology

As I looked at the garden, from the kitchen window, this morning I thought about how far it has come.  When we moved onto the ranch, six and a half years ago, the “garden” looked like this:

And this morning it looked like this:

Needless to say, its been a lot of work.  I thought it would be fun to show a chronology of how we got from there to here, in photos.  Ready?

2013

Brett built me a raised planter box

And I started clearing all the weeds; by hand, with a hoe.  It took forever.

2014

Brett put in water lines; lots and lots of water lines

He also put in the chicken run and chicken shed — which he painted red.  I think chickens should have a red shed; its so farmyard.  I started planting fruit trees and Brett pulled out all the cement blocks and brick which were scattered around the garden.  He created a planting bed with large rocks and small boulders, in the middle of the garden. 

My first garden shed was a rabbit hutch that we brought with us from Aspen Meadows for some reason.  We didn’t bring any rabbits with us; just this hutch.

The fence was still t-posts and wire, but Brett made me a beautiful garden gate for my birthday.

2015

My mom died in 2014, which was devastating.  We had this sculpture of a pelican drinking champagne (two of her favorite things) commissioned for the garden.

Brett created another garden bed with stone, and I planted it with flowers my mother loved.  I sat in that red chair, thinking about her, a lot.

2016

Brett finished replacing the t-post fencing with a wood and hog wire, creating a strong and beautiful deer fence.

We spread bark around the front part of the garden, leaving the orchard portion in grass (weeds).

Brett built me a second raised planter box, at the back of the garden, next to the chicken run.

2017

The nectarine tree succumbed to canker and died.  In its place, I created another round bed.  I planted this one with a mix of natives and plants that attract birds and butterflies.  I moved those flags around until I had a design that I liked.

2018

2018 was the year Brett built my greenhouse, with some help from his buddy Richard.

And some help from me, too.  Brett is deathly afraid of heights so that’s me working on the roof.

2019

Brett built a cover for one of my raised beds.  For the first time, I got to eat my vegetables instead of just feeding the squirrels.  That’s the bird and butterfly garden in the foreground and the first round bed which is planted in flowers and herbs in the middle.

2020
There are lots of projects still in the hopper.  Currently, I’m removing all the mint growing around my fruit trees (there are close to 20 of them).  I reconfigured their drip lines and am now replacing the mint with mulch.  My goal is to have the entire garden and orchard covered in mulch.  This year, Brett is going to build me a support for my tomatoes which will have their own area.  I love my garden — its been a lot of work, and it never would have happened without Brett.  That man can build anything.

March Garden

My garden is starting to come to life.  My asparagus and rhubarb are up.  I should be able to make my first rhubarb pie soon.  The asparagus are still young — maybe next year I’ll be able to harvest some for our table.

Rhubarb

My peach, plum and cherry trees bloomed and my pear started to release their buds.

Peach blossoms

Pear blossoms

I’ve been very busy with the fruit trees this month.  I’m completely re-doing their irrigation and replacing the mint ground cover with compost and mulch.  I can get one tree done in a day, a bit quicker when Brett helps bring over cart-fulls of compost and shredded bark.  The orchard has always looked a bit unkempt and I’m really happy with how clean it looks now.  The trees should be happier too.  I’ve learned a lot about orchard care in my classes and am busy practicing what they taught us.

Before — a tangle of weeds and mint (still dormant) under the trees

Ground-cover gone and replaced with a layer of compost topped with shredded bark mulch.

Flowers are making the garden bright and cheerful.  There are still daffodils, poppies and pansies.  This month they were joined by Japanese quince and violas.

Violas

Japanese quince

Poppies and pansies

Despite the usual days of rain and the snow, which we desperately need, we have had a few days of sunshine between storms.  Those are the days I wear holes in my gardening gloves and cover my pants in dirt.  Those are my favorite days.