Catch up post!
As I mentioned previously, its been a busy spring season here at the homestead with any windows of time always being focused on getting cold hardy crops in the ground, nursing perennials, mulching beds, spreading & flipping compost, starting seeds, prepping tubers, checking in on bees, inoculating fungi and garden planning!
I figured now being on the cusp of our last frost date, that it was a good time to get caught up on a couple of our new additions as well as update the progress of all those fall bulbs we got planted.
If you recall from a previous post, we got some fruit trees! After repotting our grafts from last year and playing in the compost and woodchip piles, a dinner time conversation lead to a trip to our local nursery where the entire family came to a consensus on 2 apple trees and 2 pear trees to start our orchard journey with!
After debating the best placement for a week we caught a window to start digging after a week of steady rain with another week of steady rain predicted. Perfect planting weather!
Tree planting mixture of leaf mold, decomposing wood chips and rich compost!
Digging the holes was tough going as our location is on a granite shelf which results in many boulders to unearth as well as a good bit of tree root structure left behind from our fallen maple
from a few years ago.
Luckily I had quite the crew of determined ladies to prep a nice crater for each tree!
Hazel enjoyed making the most of the new space and channeled her inner chipmunk as she repurposed rock piles into rock and fossil piles.
Each tree got a mixture of a few wheelbarrows of the compost/woodchip mix along with a few scoops of organic tree-tone (6-3-2) that will slow release over the first growing season to help the trees acclimate to life on the homestead.
Fruit Trees Planted!
Apples- (Roxbury Russet & Macoun)
Pears- (Red Bartlett & Shinseiki)
As we finished up the fruit trees our first tulips started opening....
Everyday for a week or two it seemed something new opened up to invite us to explore the garden and observe its beauty!
Flowers have been a hot topic at the dinner table as of late and we have lots of fun new varieties starting in the cellar and we are also taking a leap into the world of ranunculus and dahlias with several trays of tubers and corms currently sprouting on our windowsill and a whole bed set aside for them this year that we have been slowly dressing with compost and monitoring the temp of the soil in anticipation of getting them in the ground as soon as possible.
I have really been enjoying the tulip variations popping up and we talked about next year going all in with tulip bulbs and using the newly dedicated flower bed in rotation with the tulips before dahlias.
Along with upping our tulip game, I am also enjoying the array of daffodils popping up here and there and look forward to incorporating more varieties spread throughout the homestead. High on the list is the pheasant eye daffys! Love the way they contrast with the mountain flox by the stone wall too!
Always excited to see the garden beauty sneaking its way onto our dinner plates and into the homescape too!
Early morning fungus eruption.
Some cold hardy veggies are making their way into the beds. Here we have our peas emerging with our first round of lettuce, some fennel and just out of the picture is a bit of bok choy.
Our garlic in the background seems to be swelling with optimism for this growing season!
Macoun Apple Blossom
Tripartite Sweat Bees, an overlooked native pollinator that has been hard at work in our shinseiki tree!
Till next time.
No comments:
Post a Comment