Continuing with the edible landscaping

I've made most of the front an edible landscape with raised beds, but I hope to make all the fence line be more of an edible hedge/barrier.

Pathway into the house. From the gate to the door: Lamb's ear, oregano, winter savory, chard, sage, comfrey, mint, horseradish, and some more chard. Ultra dwarf lemons and limes in pots.

One of our raised beds: Softneck garlic with lettuce and an heirloom tomato in the center. Yes, we were watering it because we hadn't received enough rain. =) Luckily, it's rained the last couple of days.

Fence line along the driveway, Along the fence: Mint, grapes, lemon balm, rosemary, grapes, thyme, feverfew, rue, grapes, pomegranate. Sharon's strawberry bed right in front of that. It's no longer a bed as we've let them spread out and are letting them grow as ground cover along that whole side of the yard.

Looking at nothing

I sometimes find myself amused at what Jed might think I actually do when I get my "garden" time; I seem to walk around and look at the ground, plants, trees, grasses, seeds, and sometimes I just seem to be looking at nothing. I was thinking about this yesterday as I walked around the homestead. I was lucky enough at my work to be stationed really close to home and thus there are some nights that I actually arrive home fairly early (around 5:15pm) and so I get to play while there is sunlight.

Yesterday I was able to check on all the trees to see how they are all doing. I find that one of the female pistachios has a ton of potential nuts while the other (closest to the coop) is just barely waking up. Pistachios have a tendency to fruit biannually and so I'm checking to see if my calculations for the previous years will show that we have fruit from the trees on alternating years so that we have pistachios every year rather than a huge harvest one year and none on the next. I check to make sure none of the birds have gotten into any of the new trees and that there aren't any nests in the new plants. I touch the ground to see how much moisture it has, how warm it is, if there are active worms in there, if the seeds are germinating, if I need to add additional mulch, and many other things.

Yesterday I walked around with a turkey egg in my hand while looking at the trees. The feel let me know that they had enough calcium and maybe just a little extra. The shell was hard with extra little calcium deposits on it. The coloring is nice and the shape is fair. It tells me that I might need to provide a little more water for the birds to drink. It also tells me that the turkeys are laying a little later than previous years, which makes me want to add a tom to our flock as soon as possible.

I look out at the grasses to see where bacteria is active the most (around the trees) and where I need to let the sheep roam. It tells me where we have a tendency to walk and where I could use a little bit more help with the soil.

I stare out at nothing to get the feel of the whole place, to see the cows and sheep interacting and how the place will look in another 5 years when the trees are all in production. How the sheep and cows will move around the trees and what I can do to keep the animals from devistating the orchard while enjoying its benefits. I imagine the tall canopies of the trees and the grape vines all along the borded, the berry bushes covering some trouble spots and the stream just a little bit deeper, the strawberries flourishing in the back and the fruit production all around. I guess I look into my perception of the future of the homestead as well as the present and compare it with the past. All those images amaze me and fill me with joy to think of what the future holds.

The mist that we call rain

California has had one of its driest years in record and so it seems that we have no respite from the drought. We've had a couple of showers in Feb that did bring in a couple of inches of rain, but that accounts for all the rain we've received since July of 2013. I just took a walk around the block during my work lunch break and there is water outside. The sky is gracing us with a steady mist that we Californians like to call "rain." I'm hoping that the rain continues as we planted the corn (Wapsi Valley) a week ago. All the trees are blooming and leafing out, which makes me happy. I'm hoping that if we do end up getting an El Nino summer that the rain will allow all my trees to grow well this year and hopefully we'll have a good harvest next year. So far it looks like if we'll have an all right harvest of apples, peaches, and almonds. The pistachios are letting me know that I do not have a say on whether they provide nuts or not, so we'll see how this year goes for our pistachio production. We're adding another type of potatoes (Purple Vikings) as we've grown those before and they worked well for us. This year I was able to propagate a bunch more grapes and managed to plant about a dozen two nights ago, just in time for our rain. I'm hoping they do well. The types that propagated well were the flame and the Red Globe, both would be used for home eating, jam, juice, and raisin production so it's not like if they will go to waste. The chickens will also have dandy time jumping and eating those. I think they greatly enjoy it when they are able to feast on the elderberries throughout the summer. A couple of new grape additions to the house were the concord, champagne, black manuka, and crimson. The champagne and crimson are not looking so good, we'll see if they leaf out at all. The rest of the grapes are happy and thriving. So far all of the grapes out front seem to be growing well. The different types that we now have on the farm include: Red Globe, thompson, perlette, flame, crimson, concord, black manuka, champagne, and crimson. We seem to have the full range of colors going on, but we'll see what this year brings with quantity and quality. If it turns in to a not so hot year we might end up with a poor quality harvest, but the plants might grow very well. As I always end up having left over propagated grapes (a couple dozen went up north yesterday with Jen and John - Thank you guys!!) I was playing around with the idea of offering the grape plants for a dollar on craigslist next year just in case if people were interested. I'll have to think about it a bit more before then, but it's an idea. Raspberries were added to the mix again this winter. I found a brandywine purple raspberry to add to the fall golds, indian summer, heritage, and cumberland. We'll see how this summer treats them but if they all survive and thrive then we'll also have the full range of colors for our raspberry selection. We're hoping to have raspberries for fresh eating as well as jams as they seem to disappear just as quickly as they appear. I have another small order of strawberries coming in to help with the Ivan quota of strawberries. If all goes well I'll also get to add yellow and white strawberries this year (at latest late fall 2014 or early spring 2015) so that we can mix up the variety of strawberries on the farm. Boysenberries continue to thrive and grow. I pulled up another 31 runners from one plant this year and was able to hand off some to my classmates. This is another plant I'm thinking about selling next winter if all goes well. I was able to plant many along the north border and they are still driving so hopefully we'll have a couple of good growing years and then the third will allow for production. Blackberries continue to drive and we have many growing in the front yard along the northern border. I'll have to be very vigilant with these so that they do not take over the whole northern part of the property. The currants have turned out to be very vigorous and hardy, which is exactly what we need on the property. The gooseberries seem to be coming back stronger and the blueberries are waking up. The asparagus is growing and I have a few more to add to our mix so that the whole family can have tons of asparagus to eat every year. We're hoping to add a few more different types of perennials so that we won't ever have a (hopefully) bad year; if one thing fails we'll still have many other veg/fruit varieties to fall back on. I'm also leaning more towards the perennials because I find them easier to take care of. The pineapple guavas are growing well and I'm thinking about adding a few more to the property. Our Patterson apricot seems to have died due to borrers. I cleaned, painted, and protected, but I don't think it was enough. I'll have to be that much more vigilant with our trees. I was able to protect the Ranger peach and another one of the small apples, but that one just didn't make it. We did get a few more apricots to the property this year, so hopefully that will help us with the apricot productions. The sad part was that they would have been in production this year as the tree was of adequate height and growth. As you can tell, I (Rosie) tend to focus a lot on the vegetative part of the homestead. There is something so peaceful, relaxing, and productive about working with the plants that I have a tendency to focus on them. I'll leave it here for now, but I'll keep updating the plant list as the year progresses.