The Country Garden Showcase #41 Special Edition

Happy Monday!

It's been another crazy weekend... If you've read recent posts you know that we just started escrow on our dream homestead.  It's a fixer-upper on the Kaweah River with about 7 acres to farm and graze.  Things have been moving along so well, we cannot help but feel as if our heavenly father has been helping us.  

Well, Friday we called the local real estate agent that sold our current home to us, back in 1995.  She came by to look at the place at about 10am.  She came back with clients she thought "might" like our home just a few hours later, and by 5:30pm we were signing the contract for the sale.  It's SOLD!!!! Whew!  Thank you Linda Costelloe-Clough, you are the best agent EVER!

Things have been moving at the speed of light around here lately, and my head is swirling just trying to keep up.  I keep thinking I must be dreaming.  Things can't really be falling into place so perfectly like this, can they?  

Well, since we start escrow here on this place today and we will have to be out in 45 days... this will likely be my last chance to share pictures from my garden here because everything is staying.  The buyers liked everything, and even made the sale contingent on the coop, arbor, and three of our sweet laying hens.  Don't you just love that?  I did.  I am going to miss my greenhouse and raised garden beds, but we can build more later on.  I am so grateful to this nice couple.  I was really worried about  having to remove the raised garden beds and the coop if the buyer did not want them.

Here are a few pictures from my gardens from the last year or so...

Thank you for reading and for supporting me with your own blogs and ideas as I have taken my gardening and homesteading journey.  I look forward to sharing my next garden journey with you.

Okay, if you have a garden post you'd like to share... please get right to it!

The Country Garden Showcase- Week 6

A garden is a grand teacher. It teaches patience and careful watchfulness; it teaches industry and thrift; above all it teaches entire trust.
Gertrude Jekyll

Happy February Gardeners!  

I hope today finds you warm and cozy and your garden work progressing well.   I know many of you have been unable to work in your gardens due to continued inclement weather.  If that's the case, you have my sympathy.  I will look forward to future posts about your beautiful garden and awesome bounty.  The weather hasn't been very cooperative here either, lately.

A few weeks ago, I posted my January Garden Plan (re-posted below) and I have finally completed it, a week behind schedule, but it's done.   Here is what I did in the garden since January 1st.

January Garden Plan: 

pruned fruit trees & grapes  

fertilized with bone meal, iron, and organic compost
layed in pelleted gypsum to help leach salt from my clay soil

sprayed copper fungicide on certain fruit trees

removed litter from base of fruit trees to prevent overwintering of coddling moth

checked and tested raised bed watering system
Hubby completed fruit tree watering system
chipped Christmas tree, fruit tree prunings, and leaves into compost pile

Made two new compost containers- 3' x 3' square-
and layered/aerated the new compost piles

improved soil in raised beds with straw mulch, organic compost, and till

made veggie garden plot diagram using a 3 year crop rotation schedule

planted winter veggies ie; carrots, beets, lettuce and mescluns, peas, radish, and bok choy
I created two new in ground garden beds for more veggies

Here's my plan for FEBRUARY-

February Garden Plan: 
mix up compost for in ground garden beds, lay it into beds
finish compost mix in the last raised beds
sow a row per/crop each week of winter veggies
put up hoop house over the winter veggie bed, once seeded
start seedlings for a few veggies indoors

The BIG job this month...  moving the greenhouse from the hill to the back patio so I can add electricity.  Our weather has been so cold at night, I dare not start anything up on the hill without heat in the greenhouse.  We will have to take the greenhouse apart, piece by piece and reassemble on site. Wish me luck.

Now you know what's going on in my garden.  Please LINK UP below and SHARE what's been going on at YOUR place.  Be creative.  We'd all like to see posts about your garden, farm. yard, barnyard, coop, beehive, fresh produce inspired recipes, garden crafts and flowers, decorations, garden how-to advice, ANYTHING garden related.  Have a GREAT week!

When & How to Prune Fruit Trees

UPDATED- January 3, 2012 

I am re-posting this useful information now because this is an optimal time to prune fruit trees in most North American regions.

     Some of you may be aware that I have been going to school for some time, studying plant biology and crop science.  I am not going to try to reinvent the wheel, but I want to share some important information that's available for free to all of us from the University of California (UC) Cooperative Extension, California Backyard Orchard website page about pruning and training fruit trees. (Link below)  It's very helpful for backyard orchards even if you only have one fruit tree.  California's unique topography includes almost every USDA hardiness zone, so knowing yours, you can glean exactly what you need from the site, no matter what state you're in.
     A good friend recently asked me when she should prune her fruit trees.  Not now, I cautioned, it's too soon.  January is the best time to prune most fruit trees according to the University of California Master Gardener Program.  We must wait until the trees have pulled the nutrients from leaves, branches, and stems into the roots for winter and are dormant. (December to February for most regions).   Follow the link below to learn everything you need to know to prune and shape your fruit trees for optimal harvests.

http://homeorchard.ucdavis.edu/The_Big_Picture/Pruning_&_Training/

    The excerpt below is a great example of just how practical UC website information is, and it's just a small snippet taken from the Backyard Orchard Pruning & Training page linked above:

Ten Basics of When and How to Prune Fruit Trees
Prune fruit trees when the leaves are off (dormant). It’s easier to see what you are doing and removal of dormant buds (growing points) invigorates the remaining buds. Summer pruning removes leaves (food manufacture), will slow fruit ripening, and exposes fruit to sunburn. Summer pruning can be beneficial, however, when used to slow down overly vigorous trees or trees that are too large. It is usually done just after harvest. 

Right after planting a new tree, cut if off to short stick 24 to 30 inches high and cut any side shoots, remaining below that, to one bud. This encourages low branching and equalizes the top and root system. Paint the tree with white latex paint to protect it from sunburn and borer attack. 

Young trees should be pruned fairly heavily and encouraged to grow rapidly for the first 3 years without any fruit. Leave most of the small horizontal branches untouched for later fruiting. 

When deciding which branch to cut and where to cut it, remember that topping a vertical branch encourages vegetative growth necessary for development of the tree and opens the tree to more sunlight. Topping horizontal branches is done to renew fruiting wood and to thin off excessive fruit. Horizontal branches left uncut will bear earlier and heavier crops. 

Upright branches generally remain vegetative and vigorous. Horizontal branches generally are more fruitful. A good combination of the two is necessary, for fruiting now and in future years. Remove suckers, water sprouts and most competing branches growing straight up into the tree. Downward bending branches eventually lose vigor and produce only a few small fruit; cut off the part hanging down. 

New growth occurs right where you make the cut; that is the influence of the cut only affects the buds within 1 to 8 inches of the cut surface not 3 to 4 feet down into the tree. The more buds cut off the more vigorous the new shoots will be. 

Do most of the pruning in the top of the tree so that the lower branches are exposed to sunlight. Sun exposed wood remains fruitful and produces the largest fruit. Shaded branches eventually stop fruiting and will never produce without drastic topping and renewal of the entire tree. 

Make clean cuts (within ¼") of bud; don’t leave stubs. 

Use spreaders or tie downs to get 45° angles branches of upright vigorous growing trees. 

Peach and Nectarine remove 50% of last years growth. Fig, Apple, Pear, Plum and Apricot remove about 20% of last years growth. Cherries only summer prune the first 5 years.

Agriculture & Natural Resources, University of California. http://homeorchard.ucdavis.edu/The_Big_Picture/Pruning_&_Training/. November 10 2011.

The UC web system is huge and full of great, crop specific production information for both the home gardener and the commercial grower. Another wonderful UC resource for fruit and nut tree growers is the UC Fruit & Nut Research and Information Center website:

http://fruitsandnuts.ucdavis.edu/

I hope your fruit trees grow well and produce a bounty.

This morning in pictures...

After the rain...

So far so good, they survived heavy rain, strong wind, and a short freeze overnight.

I can see blue beyond those clouds...

Everything greens up so fast after a good rain.

Canvas off of the wagon for the winter...

Still some thunder and lightning in the Sierra-Nevadas 

Lima bean blossoms are so pretty.

So are Lima Bean leaves...

and sweet peas...

didn't fall off yet???

So much water everywhere

I really need to build a rainwater containment system

Can you tell that these unripe Romas froze last night. Clue: color change, they're turning sorta white...

if you look really hard you may see an immature ladybug larvae on the leaf in the middle

Yuck. I hate flies, but had to shoot this.  

He was so cold that even after I shook this leaf, he never left, just crawled around slowly...

Fave bean blossoms...

Clay mud, it could almost swallow you up whole...

The sun has peeked out a few times, but it's dark again now.  Only 3 days without sunshine and I am already suffering from Seasonal Affective Disorder, go figure.