Category: self-reliance

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Our Family Has Vines and Bushes to be Trimmed

The love of farming and gardening often spans generations. This is true for our family. We have 3 generations that that currently grow fruit bearing vines, bushes and trees. Our family has 4 properties with fruit bearing bushes, vines and trees to prune and trim. During the month of February we have trimmed:

  • blueberry bushes
  • grape vines
  • fig trees
  • various fruit trees

There were a few years where some of my mom’s grapevines and blueberry bushes didn’t get the attention they needed to we have been working to get them in better condition.

It was a great way to spend time with family. Thanks to my family for letting us enjoy that time together.

They are getting in better shape every year
These vines produce so many grapes every year
The neighbor’s puppies wanted to help
One of the projects for next year is to look at replacing the posts that support the trellises
The puppies were definitely distracting my wife
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Pruning Blueberries and Blackberries

February is shaping to be a month of blueberries. We took a class in pruning blueberry bushes last weekend. Seems like there is a always something new to learn. This weekend, on a gloriously nice Saturday (mid 70s), we are pruned our blueberries at the farm. Next up is blueberries at my bonus child’s house (he has a bunch), then doing the grapevines and blueberry bushes at my parents house. Finally doing the blueberries at our home.

Blueberry bushes need to be pruned in the winter. February is the last opportunity until next Fall. Blueberries are a native plant but do much better (from a production standpoint) when they are properly pruned. A properly pruned blueberry bush will produce bigger and tastier berries than one that isn’t well maintained. The blueberry bushes at the farm were planted last spring, so it will be a year or two before we have a crop of blueberries from them.

We’ve pruned the blackberries at the farm. Next step with the blackberries is to prune them at the house.

If you want your own domesticated blackberry plants, we will have thrornless blackberrry plants in mid March. These will be ready to plant. Contact us if you want plants or want to learn how to prune your blackberries.

Another bit of good news is that at least one of our olive trees looks like it made it through the winter.

The elderberries have started to bud out. The diakon cover crop went through a winter kill with the cold weather. The clover cover crop is growing very slowly but should really take off as the weather warms up in March. It won’t be long before it is time to plant onions, potatoes and rotate cover crops.

The bees were very active today. Spring will be here soon.

Blueberry bush after pruning
Blueberries on the farm are planted on a Hugel Kultur mound with the goji berries
Blackberries after pruning
Olive tree made it through the winter, next step mulch
The bees are active today
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Upcoming Class – Learn to Plant and Grow Potatoes

Learn to Plant and Grow Potatoes

Come join us for a fun and educational event where you can learn all about planting potatoes! Whether you’re a seasoned gardener or a beginner, this in-person event in Bennett, NC, USA is perfect for anyone interested in growing their own potatoes.

During this hands-on workshop, our farmer will guide you through the potato planting process. From cutting up seed potatoes, preparing the soil and planting potatoes, you’ll gain valuable knowledge and practical skills to grow a bountiful potato harvest. You’ll actually get to work in the soil to get potatoes in the ground and ready to go.

This class starts out by planting potatoes. Following class sessions allow you to learn by doing and helping maintain the potatoes you helped plant. There will be 5 sessions between the inital date and harvest. If you come to 3 of 5 sessions (including the intial day), then you are invited to join us for the harvest day (late May / early Jun).

Discover how to plant and care for your own potatoes. Don’t miss out on this exciting opportunity to dig into the world of potato gardening!

Important note: if weather causes a delay, we will reschedule the next weekend (weather permitting)

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Daikon Working While the Farmer Rests

Daikon (sometimes call field radish or mooli) is a large radish of Japanese origin. We use it as a cover crop on the farm. The daikon helps in 3 ways:

  1. keeps roots and plant life active in the soil over the fall and winter months. This helps keep the soil biologically active. A good farmer first grows soil. If you have good soil then you can grow great plants that are full of nutrients
  2. the tuber sinks down into the ground and helps keep the soil from compacting while expanding the soil at the location where the tuber is growing
  3. acts as a bioaccumulator that takes into nitrogen from the process of photosynthesis and stores it in the tuber

This spring we will terminate the cover crop, leaving the tuber in place to compost over the summer returning the nutrients to the soil. We avoid the use of synthetic fertilizer and cover crops are a big part of making that possible.

Thanks for checking in with what is happening at the farm.

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Farm is Sleeping, Spring is Peeking

This time of year, I tell myself that we have put the farm to bed for the winter. I think saying that belies the actuality that some of the plants keep growing, albeit slowly. Also, it makes it easier to take a break from working on the farm. The downtime is valuable for us farmers.

The garlic is doing well . In the picture below you can see places where weeks are starting to poke through the hay. The next step with the garlic is to put down more hay to help supress weeds. I like growing garlic. It is easy to grow and low maintenance since most of the growing occurs in the winter when most of the weeks have died back.

I hope that you can use to winter months to rest, refit and recharge. Spring will be here before we know it.

Garlic is growing, even on chilly days
You can identify the elephant garlic by the wider leaves
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Our Love Affair with Elderberries

Elderberry plants are robust and easy to grow in most of NC. The umbrals are easy to harvest. The flowers and the berries have many healthy uses. We have found that many people don’t realize the healthy benefits from elderberries growing in the ditch that they drive by every day on the commute to and from work. However, a surprising number of people take a teaspoon of elderberry syrup every day during the fall and winter to help fight off colds.

Elderberry is a plant of contrasts. Join us and walk through some of these contrasts. Let us share what we have learned by growing this amazing plant.

Elderberry flowers
Elderberries almost ready to harvest

Elderberries grow wild in NC, usually on a ditch bank or in wet soil. They are everywhere, but many of the wild plants are in locations that are hard to reach at the time of harvest. If you enjoy foraging, then consider adding elderberries to your summer foraging retinue. The berries you harvest will be worth it.

Elderberry plants spread along the ground and a row of elderberry plants tends to be come a hedge. If you plan ahead, it is easy enough to manage the hedge by mowing and just have to prune once a year when the plants are dormant. If you were to plant your elderberries in the middle of an area where you can’t mow around them to control spread then you might have a difficult time managing them. They can be invasive, but if you plan ahead before you plant them it really isn’t a problem.

Elderberry plants growing in a row

Harvesting elderberry umbrals is straight forward. Removing the berries from the stems can be a challenge. Some of the ways to remove berries from the umbral are easier than others. At some point in the future, it would be great to add a destemmer to the equipment we use on the farm.

This year we have making different elderberry products including:

  • elderberry syrup
  • infused elderberry honey
  • elderberry oxymel
  • liquid of elderberry
  • dehydrated elderberries
  • freeze dried liquid of elderberry
  • freeze dried elderberries

It is really cool seeing the dark, dark and luxurious purple liquid that comes from the elderberries. Especially knowing all the health benefits in the liquid.

Growing and processing elderberries has been a wonderful learning experience. We’ve enjoyed teaching how to grow elderberries in hands on classes. Thanks for letting us share with you.

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Putting the Farm to Bed for the Winter

Everything has a season. The cover crops are planted. The hay is put down. The last of the trees and bushes planted. In the last 2 weeks, we have planted paw paw, elderberry and figs.

The cover crop is a mixture of austrian peas, daikon radish and clover. We’ve also planted clover in areas where we cleared brush and limbs. If all goes well there should be plenty of clover for the bees next year.

The first deep frost has come and gone. The fig tree leaves and the elephant ears show the passage of the frost. Many of the young trees we planted have dropped their leaves. It was good year and its nice to be able to take a break.

It takes a lot of help and input and learning to make a farm work. I thank everyone who helped make this year a success!

Pecan tree in the ground and ready to grow roots this fall and winter
Last of the figs before the frost
Connie spotted this grasshopper
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Sunrise on the Farm

This week we had a large brush pile to burn. Camping out on the farm to made it easy monitor the burning brush pile and have a relaxing evening. Thursday morning I got an early start on preparing the rows in the back field for planting elderberries, figs and persimmon. It was nice watching the sun rise as I worked.

We were able to turn the rows that the figs, elderberry and persimmon were planted in. The first picture shows the steam coming off the freshly turned soil. We try to minimize tillage. The approach here is to turn the soil once, then run the harrow and finally the disc through it. Then a cover crop was planted. The fall cover crop consists of daikon radish, austrian peas and clover. The trees and bushes were then planted in the same area as the cover crop. This approach helps prepare the soil over the winter for the trees and bushes when they bud out in the spring. Doing this while monitoring the burning brush pile helped make effective use of time on the farm.

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Great Day Teaching How to Prune and Plant Elderberries

It is always wonderful when we get the opportunity to teach a skill from the farm. We had a great time and tried our best to answer some really thoughtful questions.

How We Plant Elderberries

Step 1 – Cuttings

We start off by trimming away branches from the elderberry plant that either:

– get in the way of the lawnmower by sticking out in the grass row
– grow inward and won’t receive enough light because of the vertical branches

Keep in mind that you can very aggressively prune elderberries so there isn’t a wrong approach

Each cutting should have at least 4 nodes. A node is the joint where roots (underground) or branches (above ground) will grow from. 2 nodes to plant under the ground and 2 nodes above the ground. The distance between the bottom nodes determines how deep you have to plant the cutting, so keep that mind when you select cuttings to plant.

The cutting should be at least the size of a pencil. Larger cuttings are ok, but the distance between the nodes will increase and the hole for planting will need to increase as well. The length of the cutting can be anywhere from 2 to 4 feet long. Longer cuttings are nice because they are easier to see as the grass around them grows and you are less likely to mow them over in the spring. This is the voice of experience speaking.

You also want to wait until the plant is no longer actively growing to make your cuttings.

Step 2 – Preparation

Dig a hole for each plant or use a piece of rebar and a hammer to form a hole that you can drop the woody cutting into. We place the holes 2 feet part. The distance between the holes i driven by how dense you want the elderberry plants as they grow. We’ve seen suggestions that varied from 2 to 6 feet between plants. We’ve had good success planting potted elderberries at 6 feet apart. Since we are planting cuttings this time, we are reducing the distance to 2 feet.

Step 3 – Companion Plants

One of our goals for the perennials on the farm it to do companion planting and create guilds. This is very much a permaculture principle. This year we are experimenting with planting comfrey at the same time as the elderberries. The planting pattern is:

– elderberry
– 2 foot spacing
– elderberry
– 1 foot spacing
– comfrey
– 1 foot spacing
– repeat

We have also sewn the following cover crop on either side of the elderberry row:

– winter peas
– daikon
– clover

We’ll terminate the cover crop later. The cover crop will help prepare the root bed for the elderberries. We’ll continue to see clover as a companion crop. The comfrey should spread over time and fill in and around the elderberry and also suppress weeds and grass around the elderberries.

We planted comfrey cuttings from Perma Pastures Farm https://permapasturesfarm.com/ . They have a wonderful Youtube channel and provide great customer service. We highly recommend them.

Step 4 – Planting

We used a shovel, rebar and hammer to plant the elderberries and comfrey, careful to insert the elderberry deep enough to have 2 nodes below grade. The comfrey root cutting needs to be placed in a horizontal orientation approximated 1 inch deep. Make sure everything is covered over.

The ground was wet and it was raining while we were planting so there wasn’t a big need to water the plantings.

Step 5 – Wait

The cover crop will grow this fall, but we don’t expect to see much activity from the elderberries or comfrey until spring.

Goij Berries

We ended the day by picking our fill of goji berries. Those berries are in the dehydrator now.

Elderberry Cuttings

We have elderberry cuttings available now if you want to start your own elderberry plants. Contact us here to order. The cuttings are seasonal and available from approximately October through early March.

Check back with us

We plan to post pictures in spring to show the progress. Joining our mailing list is a great way to keep in touch and follow along