Yesterday was a busy day of planting! What’s the point of living in the country if you aren’t going to have lots and lots of fresh fruits and veggies? A few months ago I’d ordered some Patriot Blueberry bushes and grape vines (two Somersets and two Concords) and they FINALLY came this week. They’re small, bare-rooted plants right now but they should take off quickly. I planted the blueberry bushes along the west side of the potting shed, they’ll get good sunlight there. I was planning on putting in a flowerbed along that wall so I’ll add some ornamental plants around the blueberries.

I planted the grapes in what will someday be the side yard of the house. I already have two grape vines that I’d planted there last year (two Cayugas). I can’t wait for them all to start producing fruit. There is nothing better than fresh fruit.

I also added a couple plum trees to my fruit orchard. The apple trees we planted a couple months ago are doing well, they’ve all leafed out and have grown so much! They’re getting a bit of Cedar-Apple Rust on their leaves but we knew that would probably happen because there are a lot of cedar trees around the orchard that we still need to cut down. Cedar-Apple Rust is a fungal disease that effects apple trees (there are other types of Cedar Rust that impact other varieties of trees). The spores originate on juniper trees and form on large, orangey colored balls. The spores are spread through the air to other trees, when they infect an apple tree it’s called Cedar-Apple Rust. It causes brown spots on the leaves and can stress a tree or lower it’s productivity but rarely kills the apple tree. Fungicides can be sprayed on the apple trees but, if you’re trying to avoid chemical treatment, the best thing you can do is try to push cedars and other juniper trees back as far away from your apple trees as possible. Where I live I will probably always battle Cedar-Apple Rust because the hills are literally FULL of cedars. I could cut down every cedar on DaisyDoo Homestead but the spores could travel from any one of the other thousand cedars around. We’ll see how it goes though, my trees may just require a little extra care and attention.

We also planted some seeds in the garden. Dad has tilled the garden a couple times but it kept raining before we could get anything planted. Yesterday we got some seeds in! And then it rained last night so we’ll have to till the rest of the garden again before we can plant anything else. 🙂 I decided to grow some Birdhouse Gourds this year, I’ve never grown them before but thought I’d give them a try. They aren’t edible (well, they might be but most people don’t eat them) but they can be used to make birdhouses. After the gourds mature on the vine there’s a curing process that takes several months before they can be made into birdhouses, so this will be a rather long process. Hopefully at the end I’ll have a few birdhouses I can sell! I’ll keep you guys updated on how it all goes!

As Dad was tilling the garden yesterday he came across a few volunteer plants that were coming up from last year’s garden. We aren’t sure what they are but the best candidates are either cantaloupe or butternut squash. We had enough volunteers to make a whole row of these mystery plants, I’m excited to see what they turn out to be!

Here are a few pics of the garden:

It doesn’t look like much yet but along that string there are 35 birdhouse gourd seeds getting ready to sprout!

These are the seeds I planted, I’ve never used Johnny’s before but Birdhouse Gourd seeds ended up being a little difficult to find. Johnny’s had them at a good price and they’re service was great. I ordered a few other packets of seeds from them (pumpkins and other gourds).

I’ll keep you guys updated on the progress of the garden and orchard, it’s exciting and rewarding to watch everything grow!

I’ll leave you guys with a picture of the ducks, to much cuteness on the farm right now!

These little guys are too cute for words! It takes them a couple days to figure out their big, webbed feet but once they do they’re just scootin’ all over the place.

Happy Friday!

Cheers,

D