Category: this week

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Planting Fruit Trees and Having Fun

We had a good time as a family on the farm planting fruit and nut bearing trees. We planted fruit and nut bearing trees and bushes.

We were able to plant 41 trees and 15 bushes including

Trees (Fruit)
Apricot
Mulberry
Nectarine
PawPaw
Peach
Asian Pear
Kieffer Pear
Pecan
Plum
Plumcot

Trees (Nut)
Black Walnut
Chestnut

Bushes (Fruit)
Blueberry
Elderberry
Goji Berry

Medicinal
Comfrey

The comfrey is planted with trees and bushes as a living mulch and as a medicinal.

It was so nice that it was a family effort with Connie and JonnyLee.

Thanks

Rob K for the walnut trees and the use of his autocross car a few weeks ago (that was fun and we didn’t die)
Rabbit Ridge in Coats, NC for the fruit trees.
Permapastures Farm in WNC for the comfrey

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Getting Ready to Plant Trees

This week we have been working to get everything ready to plant trees next week. First step was a trip to Rabbit Ridge Berry Farm in Coats, NC to pick up trees and bushes.

Fred and Amily are great to do business with. We have been buying trees and bushes from them for more than 2 years and it is a wonderful experience.

We filled up the truck and trailer and headed to the farm. One of the trees we purchased was a pecan that was more then 8 feet tall. It was longer than the 8 foot trailer!

The next step was to take measurements and put flags showing the future location of the trees. The fields are starting to get wet so we transferred the trees to a smaller trailer and towed the trailer (with the tractor) to areas close to the intended locations. You can see me with the lines that we used to measure out the 20 foot grid.

Weather permitting, the plan is to plant 47 trees and bushes next week including:

  • pear
  • plum
  • plumcots
  • nectarine
  • peach
  • black walnut
  • mulberry
  • chestnut
  • goji berry
  • blueberry
  • PawPaw

Next week should be a busy week.

Garlic and Wolly Worms

The garlic is coming up. We had tried something new with the garlic this year. We planted the garlic then rolled out hay from a round bale (instead of manually spreading it). Once we started unrolling the hay we were concerned that the hay would be too thick. However the garlic is growing through the hay so hopefully this approach will work.

We are still seeing wolly worms. We saw a really big one yesterday

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Farm and Forest – Digital Detox at Its Finest

Starting a farm has been quite an experience.

Jack Spirko often contends on his podcast that answers can be found in the forest. I’m thinking that most answers can be found in the forest and farm because we already know the answer most of the time. We just need to face to up the answer we already know and looking at the beauty around us help us to face those answers. Or sometimes we just need to something to help us focus so we can put the pieces together and arrive at an answer. Other times there is inspiration that we can find in the beauty and grand design of nature around us.

Crinum lily in bloom

Many times I find that while I’m working on something on the farm, I’m learning about how to be a better farmer but also gaining a deeper understanding of life and myself. Hard work is good way to push out the some of the mental clutter. Getting that mental clutter out of the way helps me to think through any challenges or questions. Often I find that I get to the end of the day and the work is done and I’ve figured out answers to challenges that have nothing to do with the farm.

During the day at work and home, there are a lot of things competing for our attention. Getting outside and working filters out that digital noise and info, giving a very important digital detox. The act of labor and the concentration on the task at hand helps deepen the effects of the digital detox. These moments of digital detox peel away the layers of mental clutter and leaves me prepared to enjoy life and remember what is truly important.

I hope you have a great week!

Our camping site in the back field is coming along nicely
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Pumpkins Are Coming, Maybe

We tried something new this year. We planted pumpkins in withour sorghum / sudan grass and buckwheat cover crop. The plan:

  • plant the pumpkins and cover crop in the area where we had just dug potatoes. The row was already covered with straw that we used around the potato plants
  • let the cover crop and pumpkins grow – the buckwheat grew first and was succeeded by the pumpkins and sorghum / sudan grass
  • weed around the pumpkins
  • let the pumpkins grown out into the grassy rows beyond the cover crop area
  • [future] hopefully harvest pumpkins

Doing this allows us to add organic matter to the soil when we terminate the sorghum / sudan grass and it composts over the winter. The sorghum / sudan grass also acts a a mulch for the winter cover crop. Hopefully we get a good harvest of pumpkins. Innovating in small ways means trying new things.

I’m looking foward to pumpkins!

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Mowing Grass and Enjoying the Crinum Lillies

Motherwort is Growing

Motherwort is a medicinal plant with studies that show it has benefits for the ciculatory system. There are also anti-inflammatory and antioxidant effects. Extracts from this plant may also help stimulate the uterus and fight bacteria. This is our first time growing motherwort and it is doing well.

The black walnut trees are doing better as we remove brush from around them and cut back grapevines that are growing in the trees

Where to Find Me? Find Me Under this Old Hat!

Somtimes it is good to take a few minutes and just sit at the picnic table and enjoy being outside, especially after working hard on the farm.

As Sawyer Brown says, “you never need to wonder where I’m at, you can find me hanging out under this old hat”

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Fresh from the Farm this Week

One of our goals has been to send out emails as we have items available from the farm. This is the first edition of that notice. Currently we have available:

  • elderberries
  • garlic (very limited supply)
  • raw honey from the farm in Bennett (yes, it is back – we sold out last year’s supply)
  • raw honey from Troublesome Gap
  • comfrey

You can place your order our store. You can go to the store directly at https://www.simplyusfarm.com/shop/ or click on the store icon (circled in red below). Any of the produce will need to be picked up locally. We do porch pickups in Sanford.

Freeze Drying Comfrey

We freeze dried our first batch of comfrey and stored the test batch in a vacuum sealed canning jar with an oxygen absorber. The freeze dried comfrey was easy to turn into a sorta powdery consistency after the freeze drying completed. The comfrey freeze dried fairly quickly. The entire run fit in a single wide mouth mason jar after we crunched up the leaves and stem. I’ll call it a success.

Next step is to make a salve.

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Growing, growing, growing

The fig trees are recovering nicely from the warm snap in February. We even have a few trees that are producing figs. Can’t wait to try them.

The goji berry plants are climbing the trellis and reaching for the sun. No signs of berries yet but we are optimistic

The comfrey we planted this year is loving the hot weather. We hope to use it around many of the trees and bushes as a living mulch and suppress weeds.

The mulberry trees are growing nicely.