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Well, since we finished scrubbing all the paint off the floors, we had to wait for delivery of the new products from thestampstore.com. We ordered:
Walnut Acid Stain 2500 Floor Sealer 3000 Floor Sealer Cherry Wax Cherry Wax Applicator – Wooster 12″ Lambswool.
They all finally arrived on Wednesday or so… We were already in the midst of the next project, though, so we continued on with the irrigation system.
Since last May we’ve had a temporary watering system set up for the four pecan, one peach and one nectarine tree that are all planted northeast of the workshop. The […]
Early on this spring (before all the night freezes), we had the most beautiful blooms on our Gravenstein apple tree:
Gravenstein apple blossoms
Gravenstein apple blossoms
The trees from Peaceful Valley (with the exception of the fig) are all doing nicely…
We had a cold front move through the area, with the coldest night being last night… since we’ve been watching the weather forecasts since the bare root trees arrived, we decided to wait until that really cold night was past before planting.
I had the trees soaking in water before planting today. I had to clean out the holes again in preparation for planting. It has been so windy, that the holes keep filling up with blowing dirt. Yesterday, I had prepared wells around the tree locations, so things were ready to go.
Peaceful Valley was running a special when […]
We spent a good half day putting in the irrigation system for the garden and orchard. Since we are not in the house, so cannot really use the automatic feature of the system until all the finish plumbing is completed, we will have to manually turn water on to each zone in the meantime. However, it will be nice to have the biggest part of it done early and it does give us a more efficient way of watering trees and garden raised beds until then.
We planned the lines so that each zone covers a particular part of either […]
I got email notice earlier this week that our fruit trees will be here on Saturday! So… preparation of the orchard, including irrigation system, hole-drilling, etc. had to be done. We mapped out where we want the garden beds to be and planned the irrigation system for them and the grape arbor all at the same time. Together, Oz and I measured out where everything would be and tried to design an efficient system of valves and lines. First, we had planned the tree location (photos earlier); now we planned the layout of the raised beds, marking them with stakes. […]
So… even though the house progress isn’t to the point that we can concentrate on the outside, based on the urgings of a very good friend, we decided to go ahead and start the orchard. Peaceful Valley has a special going on right now on their bare root fruit trees — 10 of them delivered for only $199. Here’s what we ordered:
1 Honey Crisp Apple Tree (Semi-dwarf) 1 Gala Apple Tree (Semi-dwarf) (the gala is a good pollinator for some of the other apple trees that are not self-fertile) 1 Cox`s Orange Pippin Apple Tree (Semi-dwarf) 1 Gravenstein Red […]
Saturday was canning day for dill pickles and pears. Altogether my Mom, our friend Priscilla and I canned up 14 quarts of pickles and 4 quarts of pears in light syrup. The pears were from the tree in my parents’ back yard. It has taken awhile for them to begin to get really ripe and delicious. You’ll notice the lovely pink color… we added 3 drops of red food coloring to each quart. My Grandma Pickett used to do that, so we carried on the tradition.
As for the pickles, they are from a recipe of my Grandma’s also… she […]
For any readers who remember how our pecan trees looked when they were first transplanted, here are a few photos of the progress of their growth after two months. The photos were taken July 12:
I’m also including a couple of photos of the nectarine and peach trees that are thriving… and a shot of a bird’s nest in one of the trees. We also planted some calendula under each pecan tree… we expect beautiful flowers soon.
Calendula
We have modified the watering schedule to three times/day for each tree. As […]
OK… to be fair, this isn’t exactly on the Homestead, but yesterday I helped pick 4 bushels of Bartlett Pears from my parents’ tree.
For the past few days, we have been trying the pears to see if they easily detach from the tree when moved sideways from the stem. Yesterday morning, after a quick trip to the (somewhat disappointing) local farmer’s market, the pears snapped right off the tree, showing us that it was time to harvest.
From an article sent to me by a very good friend, we learned that the pears should be ripened in a […]
Yesterday was a red letter day! We got two of our four pecan trees placed on the Homestead. While the process was going on, I was able to video them. See the progress here:
Preparing the Hole:
Planting the Tree (1st Tree):
Planting the Second Tree:
For more information about transplanting mature pecan trees, check out our previous posts on Mature Pecan Trees and Pecan Trees for the Homestead.
Now that the trees are planted, we know we need to be very diligent about watering them heavily until they are very well established. Initially, we plan to […]
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