Fall care of blueberries

Blueberries require a very acidic soil--much more acidic than normally found in the average landowner's soil.  When we planted the blueberries this past spring, we used a combination of natural soil, sand, compost, and sulfur around the plants.  I have not done a formal soil test, but I know the soil will require further amendment.

This fall I sprinkled an additional layer of sulfite around the plants and then dressed with oak sawdust, which tends to be acidic.  The sawdust should also protect the plants, which have shallow roots, from harsh winter temperatures and the stress of freezing and thawing that comes in late winter and early spring.

Winter food storage

This fall we increased our efforts to store produce from our garden.  Last year we attempted to use an abandoned water cistern to store potatoes and carrots, but found out the hard way that the cistern leaks and fills with a couple feet of water every time it rains or we get a snowmelt.  We lost our crop of carrots last year and some of our potatoes due to a late October rainstorm a day after we filled the cellar.

This year, we used cement blocks and pallets to elevate the potatoes and carrot bins, and added a heavy layer of sawdust on top of and around the cistern to insulate the cistern.  I also purchased a submersible pump to pump out water when we get rain or a snowmelt.  So far the cistern has stayed around 50 degrees, but fairly moist because of a warm December.  I've had to pump the cellar out a number of times.

In addition, we experimented with leaving some carrots in the garden by covering with a heavy layer of sawdust.  I have yet to go out in the garden to see how the carrots are doing.  The carrots that go in storage are dug and the tops are trimmed to about 1/2" and packed in moist sand in a barrel in the cellar.  So far we've been using a lot of carrots and they are coming out of the cellar very crisp and flavorful.

Homesteading takes time and money

Our homesteading life invariably comes up in conversation, both because people find it curious and it's an easy conversation topic for people with whom you might otherwise have little in common.

A common question or comment I hear is  something to the effect that we must save so much money by homesteading.  The truth is yes and no, but mostly no.  

Homesteading, particularly when you start from scratch with bare land, is very expensive and incredibly time consuming.  For me, it means that Saturdays and evening are spent doing chores, cutting or hauling wood, working in the garden, servicing equipment, etc., instead of, for example, spending more time practicing law.  Given the nature of my profession and what I'm capable of earning in the office, in many ways it would be more cost effective for me to live in a modest house in the city, buying organic meat and vegetables, and spending more time in my trade.

For me, though, homesteading is a way of life, not simply a money saving trick, and I do it for two key reasons.  First, my children benefit spending evening hours and weekends with me doing all the thing mentioned above.  Second, I'm helping, in our small way, to advance the ball down the field on the way to widespread social acceptance of the homesteading virtues of frugality and self reliance.  In essence, I hope I'm contributing to my grandchildren's future.

 

Potato; hay; grass hay; dump rake; hay stack;

Busy

We've been so busy here on our homestead that I haven't found time to post.  For now, here are some pictures of the gardens, etc.

Asparagus and strawberries

It's been too long since my last post, back when we were still burning lots of wood and their were still piles of snow.  It's been a very busy month, making it hard to keep up with blogging.

It's year three since we planted asparagus, which means it's the first year we can finally start harvesting it, and boy have we been harvesting it.  We have it almost every day and I don't grow tired of it.  We will pick it for a couple more weeks and then let it go to seed.

Strawberries are looking amazing, enjoying the heat and weed protection of the plastic mulch.  They are full of flowers and lost are sporting half developed strawberries.  I can hardly wait to start feasting on what should be very nice sized strawberries, now that the beds are well established.

This past weekend we planted most of the sweet corn and potatoes.  We also planted some of the beans for fresh eating and things like carrots, onions, and salad materials.  I plan to plant the bulk of the carrots and beans in the coming couple of weeks, with hopes of having them bearing the most of their fruit toward the end of the summer when the weather is somewhat more bearable for canning and freezing.

We planted two more pear (the two we planted a few years ago died), two more peach, some more plums, and 40+ blueberries.  

I did not test our soil, but know for certain it won't be nearly acidic enough for blueberries, so each plant was planted in a hole consisting of 1 part native soil, a scout of sand. 1 part compost, and one part peat moss.  Each hole also received a hand full of sulfur mixed in.  So far the plants have acclimated well and most seem to have lived.  I am plucking the flowers on the few zealous plants to give them a chance to put all their first year energy in to establishing themselves.

Spring pruning

As a novice to fruit trees and berries, I sometimes feel overwhelmed by the prospect of pruning.  Reading books and articles online only seem to confuse me more than clarify things.  I've come to the conclusion that pruning is much more an art than a science, which means it can only really be learned through seeing and doing.

According to my great grandpa, the best time to prune apple trees is "anytime you have a pocket knife". In other words, it's more important THAT you prune than that you do it at exactly the right time or just the right way.  This reminds me of the trepidation I felt before I tried asparagus.  The books talked about prepping your bed at least a year in advance, working in compost and eliminating all the weeds.  Then you had to dig this deep, perfect trench where you carefully lay the root, spread out the fibers, and then slowly fill dirt over the coming weeks as the roots start to grow.  A neighbor that raises asparagus commercially told me to ignore all that, did a trench, drop the roots in the bottom, and then cover them up with dirt.  So that's what we did and wouldn't you know it, almost every one came up and they look beautiful.  I've come to the conclusion that with gardening, it's easy to over analyze things.

With that said, I pruned the orchard, grape vines, and blackberries.  This was my first time pruning the trees and vibes since I planted them 3 years ago.  The biggest lesson I got from YouTube clips was to prune anything that looked diseased, clip any lateral branches that are at a bad angle (ideally, you want your laterals to come out from the main trunk at 90 degree angle), and to clip limbs that are going to invade another branche's space.  The goal is to have an evenly balanced tree where each branch gets air and sunlight.

The grapes seem a little more self explanatory.  I trim everything back to 2 to 3 main stalks.  My goal is to be very aggressive with the grapes since they get such prolific growth during the summer.  Grapes need ventilation, so you don't want them to become a mob of tangled branches year after year because then it will be nearly impossible to prune.

With raspberries, I cut them right off at the ground.  It does mean you won't get berries until later on th summer, but it also means you have very nice growth each year.  I did leave a few raspberries long and just trimmed the ends so as to have a few plants producing early snack berries.

The thornless blackberries were pruned much like the grapes, with me pruning back to only one main stalk.  Some of the laterals can get very large and branch out very near the base, so it's important to get down on the hands and knees and trim them off.  The only mistake I might have made was not leaving some of the upper laterals a few inches long rather than trimming them flush with the main branch.  I guess we'll see how the plant does this summer.  I was pleased, regardless, that the thornless berries , which are traditionally not as cold hearty, seemed to have survived the bitterly long and cold winter well.  

The thorny blackberries are a different story.  You are supposed to trim out all canes that were two years old last bearing season.  These berries are designed to bear on second year canes. The problem is that many of my first year canes also put berries on late in the first year, but not early enough to ripen before fall/winter sets in.  As a result, most if my canes have berries on them and it's difficult to determine which are 1st year and which are 2nd year canes.  I decided to take out the larges canes and anything that looked diseased or dead.  I think you can tell the second year canes by the large laterals that have developed off the main cane.  This fall I think I'm going to have to mark te second year canes after bearing or just trim them off right away so I know which is which.

We are supposed to be getting 45 blueberry plants this spring.  Like asparagus, all the books say you need to get your planting beds ready a year in advance so you can get that ph set right.  I've decided to just take my chances.  I'll work up the ground, incorporate peat moss and sulfur and compost around each plant, and then keep them watered and weeded.  Blueberries have shallow roots, which means you have to be careful when disturbing the soil around them.  It also means you can too dress the roots with sulfur in the fall to also help get the ph to the desired level.  We'll see if we're as successful with the blueberries as we were with asparagus.

Speaking of asparagus, we chopped off all the dried out stalks this week and piled them in the compost pile.  This is the third year for the asparagus, which means we finally get to start harvesting and eating it.  We're very excited, and also interested to see how far 270 roots will go.

Grapes before pruning

Grapes after pruning

Asparagus

Asparagus after clearing tops

Raspberries before pruning

Raspberries after pruning--note I pull the mulch to the outside to encourage new shoots in the inner half of the row

I left a few raspberries longer to have a few earlier berries

Ground underneath mulch in raspberry patch

Trim those canes off right at the ground

Thorny blackberries before pruning--what a mess

Thorny blackberries after pruning

Thornless blackberries after pruning

I'm limiting the thornless blackberries to three canes

I put our compost piles in the center of the garden.  The one closest is last year's pile that we top dressed with leaves.  The one in the back is the new compost pile.  I started with the asparagus tops and then added sweetcorn stalks, which I pulled out by the roots to hold the asparagus tops down and to add rich microbes through the soil left on the roots.