Finnie- Finally A Journal

[murphysranch]

I LOVE Violets and orchids too!

 

[Finnie]

I LOVE Violets and orchids too!

I like orchids, but I can’t seem to keep them alive.

 

[Finnie]

This is some kind of record for me. I got all the plants I bought yesterday planted today!

Corner of garage

Corner where the walk turns to the door

Mailbox

DH is home. He had a layover in Boston and flight got in to Indy at 2:30. Ordered pizza for dinner. Was very good!

Now we are watching a Scottish show on Brit Box called “This Farming Life”. I’m amazed at how much I have learned about sheep and cattle from reading BYH for the last 6 years. Well, that and watching Dr. Pol. I can predict almost every thing they’re going to do next on this show. It’s fun to see the Scottish countryside around the 5 different farms they follow.

 

[SageHill]

I’ll have to check that show out.
Orchids - another weakness!! At least I can buy them cheap at the side of the road - lots of orchid greenhouses here folks sell them for ~$5-10. I’ve actually managed to get them to bloom again.

 

[Baymule]

The flowers are so bright and cheerful. You did outstanding, already planted! I love pansies and marigolds. One fall I had lots of volunteer marigolds and the yard filled with butterflies.

 

[Finnie]

I’ll have to check that show out.
Orchids - another weakness!! At least I can buy them cheap at the side of the road - lots of orchid greenhouses here folks sell them for ~$5-10. I’ve actually managed to get them to bloom again.

That’s cheap! Around here they are $20 minimum. So I was buying clearance ones (read dying) for half off, but setting myself up for failure. Even the ones I bought that looked good just finished out their bloom cycle and died.

The flowers are so bright and cheerful. You did outstanding, already planted! I love pansies and marigolds. One fall I had lots of volunteer marigolds and the yard filled with butterflies.

Thanks! I saw a lot of marigold seeds fall out of the seed heads as I was putting the pansies in. Hopefully I will get some volunteers next year. I should probably collect some of the seed too.

 

[Finnie]

So last spring I found peach trees for sale at Kroger, of all places, and they were only about $25 each. I picked out an early producing one and a later producing one. Then unfortunately I spent all summer watering them in their pots and never planting them. Lately with all the plants I’ve been buying, I had a goal to get everything into the ground by October 1st, so they would have time to settle in and get established before they had to go dormant. Well, I did it!

We have a trip planned to go visit our (oldest) daughter and her family in Oregon for Halloween. I have a TON of stuff I have to get done before then so that I can leave the dogs and chickens in the hands of a sitter. And a lot on my plate with our second oldest daughter and her two kids coming for a 10 day visit followed by my MIL coming for a 7 day visit. (She turns 80 tomorrow!) And then we leave the day after she does.

So my husband comes in the room Sunday afternoon (the 1st) while I was looking at internet stuff on my phone (plants ) And he tells me he doesn’t think that I will ever get around to planting my two peach trees. It’s too much work and I have more important things to do, and what am I doing looking at more plants on line?! He said I need to just throw those two trees away and move on to the next thing.

He left the room and I thought to myself “I can so still plant those trees! I’m gonna do it right now!” This was probably around 3:00 in the afternoon. First I had to gather all my tools and supplies into my wagon, including kitty litter pails and 5 gallon buckets for my watering system, plus the drill and the right size bit for making the little holes in the bottoms of 4 of the buckets. Plus shovel, other gardening supplies, the trees, etc. Then I had to go dig up two buckets worth of chicken litter compost for back filling around the trees.

Boy I’m so glad I did that! The dirt in the orchard where I wanted to put these 2 trees was not the best. But all I had to do was dig the sod out of the way and make a hole, put the root balls in and then back fill with my black gold. I just left the sod and dirt piles in a ring around the trees. That ought to help keep water from running off.

Back to the bucket system. My orchard is probably 300-400 feet away from the house. I know I own that much hose, but it’s in use elsewhere, and I don’t want to be dragging it back and forth. So with the bucket system, each tree gets two buckets, and then I just have to fill my wagon up with about 6-8 more buckets half full of water and pull that heavy thing out there. (The reason for half full is because it’s so hard to lift a full bucket out the wagon.)

Unfortunately, having spent the summer in their pots, I think these two trees are stressed, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they don’t survive the winter. But at least I didn’t throw them away. There is some hope they will live. I should probably put some wire around them to protect them from the deer and rabbits.

Oh, and before I started all that, I also filled up my 3 gallon sprayer with Round Up for poison ivy, because I was sure that the orchard was full of the stuff, and even though I was wearing tall rubber boots, I wanted to be able to zap any PI as I ran across it. (There didn’t end up being as much as I thought. I think it’s starting to go dormant.)

So yeah. Very very full wagon and a few trips back and forth what with hauling compost and water. But actually getting the trees in was easier than I expected, and then while I was out there I went around spraying more poison ivy, and I harvested my apple trees while I was at it! I got done around 6:30 pm.

I actually missed most of the apples. I knew they were getting ripe in August, but I just never seemed to have the time to get to it. About 3 trees the apples were completely gone from. Disintegrated. As if they were never there. 2 trees had old mushy apples that weren’t worth picking. But 3 trees had some nice decent apples.

So that was Sunday. Monday was a busy day, and then today was even more busy. Had to be in line at 6:45 am at the Low Cost Clinic to drop two of my dogs off for their teeth cleaning appointments. They open at 7, but you have to get in line early, or else you have a really long wait. As it was I probably waited half an hour. Then I had to go pick up my new glasses around 10:30. Then I processed apples the rest of the day, except for when I had to go back and pick up the dogs. Got back around 3:15 and started boiling my apple butter. Boiled it for 3 hours before I felt it was thick enough. Then I canned it.But it only made 6 half pints, and I had 6 more half pints to fill, so I got out my apple-peeler-corer-slicer and processed about a dozen more apples. Blanched them in some sugar water and filled the other 6 jars with apple slices.

Got done with all that around 8:00.

I still have a lot of apples to use, but the rest of them are in decent shape, so they should last a while in the fridge drawer before I have to do anything with them. I think tomorrow I better turn my attention to the chicken pens.

 

[SageHill]

So last spring I found peach trees for sale at Kroger, of all places, and they were only about $25 each. I picked out an early producing one and a later producing one. Then unfortunately I spent all summer watering them in their pots and never planting them. Lately with all the plants I’ve been buying, I had a goal to get everything into the ground by October 1st, so they would have time to settle in and get established before they had to go dormant. Well, I did it!

We have a trip planned to go visit our (oldest) daughter and her family in Oregon for Halloween. I have a TON of stuff I have to get done before then so that I can leave the dogs and chickens in the hands of a sitter. And a lot on my plate with our second oldest daughter and her two kids coming for a 10 day visit followed by my MIL coming for a 7 day visit. (She turns 80 tomorrow!) And then we leave the day after she does.

So my husband comes in the room Sunday afternoon (the 1st) while I was looking at internet stuff on my phone. And he says it doesn’t look like I will be getting around to planting those two trees. It’s too much work and I have more important things to do, and what am I doing looking at more plants on line?! He said I need to just throw those two trees away and move on to the next thing.

He left the room and I thought to myself “I can so still plant those trees! I’m gonna do it right now!” This was probably around 3:00 in the afternoon. First I had to gather all my tools and supplies into my wagon, including kitty litter pails and 5 gallon buckets for my watering system, plus the drill and the right size bit for making the little holes in the bottoms of 4 of the buckets. Plus shovel, other gardening supplies, the trees, etc. Then I had to go dig up two buckets worth of chicken litter compost for back filling around the trees.

Boy I’m so glad I did that! The dirt in the orchard where I wanted to put these 2 trees was not the best. But all I had to do was dig the sod out of the way and make a hole, put the root balls in and then back fill with my black gold. I just left the sod and dirt piles in a ring around the trees. That ought to help keep water from running off.

Back to the bucket system. My orchard is probably 300-400 feet away from the house. I know I own that much hose, but it’s in use elsewhere, and I don’t want to be dragging it back and forth. So with the bucket system, each tree gets two buckets, and then I just have to fill my wagon up with about 6-8 more buckets half full of water and pull that heavy thing out there. (The reason for half full is because it’s so hard to lift a full bucket out the wagon.)

View attachment 102167View attachment 102168View attachment 102169

Unfortunately, having spent the summer in their pots, I think these two trees are stressed, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they don’t survive the winter. But at least I didn’t throw them away. There is some hope they will live. I should probably put some wire around them to protect them from the deer and rabbits.

Oh, and before I started all that, I also filled up my 3 gallon sprayer with Round Up for poison ivy, because I was sure that the orchard was full of the stuff, and even though I was wearing tall rubber boots, I wanted to be able to zap any PI as I ran across it. (There didn’t end up being as much as I thought. I think it’s starting to go dormant.)

So yeah. Very very full wagon and a few trips back and forth what with hauling compost and water. But actually getting the trees in was easier than I expected, and then while I was out there I went around spraying more poison ivy, and I harvested my apple trees while I was at it! I got done around 6:30 pm.

I actually missed most of the apples. I knew they were getting ripe in August, but I just never seemed to have the time to get to it. About 3 trees the apples were completely gone from. Disintegrated. As if they were never there. 2 trees had old mushy apples that weren’t worth picking. But 3 trees had some nice decent apples.
View attachment 102170View attachment 102171

So that was Sunday. Monday was a busy day, and then today was even more busy. Had to be in line at 6:45 am at the Low Cost Clinic to drop two of my dogs off for their teeth cleaning appointments. They open at 7, but you have to get in line early, or else you have a really long wait. As it was I probably waited half an hour. Then I had to go pick up my new glasses around 10:30. Then I processed apples the rest of the day, except for when I had to go back and pick up the dogs. Got back around 3:15 and started boiling my apple butter. Boiled it for 3 hours before I felt it was thick enough. Then I canned it.But it only made 6 half pints, and I had 6 more half pints to fill, so I got out my apple-peeler-corer-slicer and processed about a dozen more apples. Blanched them in some sugar water and filled the other 6 jars with apple slices.

Got done with all that around 8:00.
View attachment 102166

I still have a lot of apples to use, but the rest of them are in decent shape, so they should last a while in the fridge drawer before I have to do anything with them. I think tomorrow I better turn my attention to the chicken pens.

Now that’s what you call gettin’ it done x2!

 

[Baymule]

@Ridgetop makes apple butter in the oven. She says it’s easier than stirring a pot on the stove. I’ve never made it, seems to be a scarcity of apple trees in Texas.
A friend gave me some once, she used cinnamon Red Hots candy in it, delicious!

 

[Finnie]

@Ridgetop makes apple butter in the oven. She says it’s easier than stirring a pot on the stove. I’ve never made it, seems to be a scarcity of apple trees in Texas.
A friend gave me some once, she used cinnamon Red Hots candy in it, delicious!

Those are two good ideas I’ll have to try some time. I have made it in a crock pot before, and that’s a nice set it and forget it method too.