I provided my new trees some extra support by stringing fence wire between t-posts, then attaching a piece of PVC conduit between the two wires.
High Tension Wire Tree Support
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Tomatoes and Peppers – March 30 2018
The local Ace hardware store was selling plants for $2 each. They are a little smaller than what I’ve seen at the big box stores, but half the price. I picked up 3 tomatoes and 4 peppers and planted them.
The snap peas, carrots, turnips, radish, beets, and lettuce have all sprouted now too. Continue reading
Fruit Tree Pruning Guidelines
- Make a Chimney – trim every spur or small branch that is within 6 inches of the main trunk
- Keep only 12 to 14 main branches. Prune the following:
- Low branches that will touch the ground (less than 40″ from ground)
- Big branches – 50% of main trunk size or larger
- In the Line – growing with the line of trees or directly toward the path
- remaining branch trimming – trim smaller branches underneath main branch – maintain branches that look like a hand, with a fan on the end of the branch
- Trim a small kerf on underside of branch before cutting to avoid peeling off bark when branch is cut off.
- avoid branches growing directly above another branch in same direction
Beet, Carrot, Lettuce, Radish, Turnip – March 11 2018
I planted from seed: beet, carrot, lettuce, radish, and turnip. Scraped away all the leaf mulch first so the soil temperature will heat up with the sun. That metal trash can us full of partially composted leaves that have been decomposing for about an year. Good stuff!
The snap peas I planted a few weeks ago are up, but aren’t growing very fast. I don’t think any of the turnip seeds sprouted. (or if they did sprout, they were eaten by critters)
Big Rain Washed Out Trench
The big rain he had last week (4.5 inches in a day, over 9 inches for the 2 week period) washed out all the rock from a trench going to the back creek. This was 1.5 inch rock, so the water was flowing through there at a pretty good pace!
Cauliflower, Snap Pea, Turnip January 26 2018
Even though I’ve had terrible luck in the past with bugs in the spring attacking Brassica plants, I went ahead and planted 6 cauliflower transplants. The thought of fresh vegetables is too irresistible. I also put in 24 sugar snap pea seeds and 12 turnip seeds. It was good to see all the rich loose soil when I moved my leaf mulch back!
Peach, Apricot, and Plum Trees – Planted 1/23/2018
My order of bare root fruit trees came in today, and I immediately put them in the ground. I planted them in a pattern I learned about in a the film “The Permaculture Orchard“: 2 fruit trees, followed by a nitrogen fixing tree and prevent two fruit trees of the same type from being close to each other. The idea is the nitrogen fixing tree will provide for the fruit trees on each side of it, and if one tree gets attacked by pests or diseased, the problem doesn’t easily just jump next door and take out another tree. I planted at 12 foot intervals, and about half of the trees will be shaded for the first half of the day. The fruit trees and redbuds came from Womack Nursery in De Leon Texas and the 3 nitrogen fixer trees are on order from Cold Stream Farms in Freesoil, Michigan.
Key to above picture: Continue reading
16 Blackberrys Planted 11/11/2016
A few weeks ago, I planted 16 blackberry plants along the west side of the shop building. I got these from a group buy from some members of the North Texas Vegetable Gardeners facebook group. I had to drive to Denton to pick them up, but they only cost me $3 each. I have 4 each of the following varieties:
- Ouchita – Thornless
- Navaho – Thornless
- Apache – Thornless
- Triple Crown – Thornless
I’ll plant fruit trees right next to them later this winter.
Onions Planted
I put some onion transplants in the ground today, 1/6/2018.
3/4 inch of Rain 12/17/2017
We had almost 0.75″ of rain today.
We haven’t had much rain in the past 30 days.
