Larsen Poultry Ranch - homesteading journey

[Bruce]

The poplars are supposed to be for shade and firewood

Poplar is a poor wood for fires .... unless maybe you mean outside fire ring "wieners and marshmallow" fires.

 

[Baymule]

Last year I grew Giant Pink Banana squash. 3 plants put on a LOT of squash. I picked the young squash and machete chopped it for the sheep. They LOVED it! I picked mature squash and made pies. It impressed me with how much food those 3 plants produced.

 

[Larsen Poultry Ranch]

Fowler Nursery is selling their bare root fruit trees, so we went by on Saturday. We bought 10 trees, 5 for us and 5 for the inlaws. We had to replace several of the trees from last year that didn't make it. I think there's one more that died that needs replacement but since all the trees have lost their leaves it's hard to tell which is actually dead. I need to go scrape some bark and then write it down. Mom wants to replace a tree at their place and you get a discount for buying 10+ trees, so we are planning to go together next Saturday. There was miscommunication and the inlaws want more trees than the ones we got yesterday so we should be able to get 10 to get the discount; it roughly equals one tree off.

I made a chart of the orchard and wrote down all the tree info, then I put it into a spreadsheet and made a map tree map in excel. I got a bunch of the trees written down from the garden zone but not all. Need to update soon, once I rearrange the plants. The miners lettuce is taking over again now that we are in winter and getting rain every once in a while. Hubby and I walked the orchard zone and below it, and roughed out what is going where, so now we just need to write it down so we don't forget. Probably draw a map too.

I tried grafting this morning, not sure the grafts I did will take but it was worth a shot. A cherry, two peaches, and two loquats. I sliced my finger pretty good while grafting, thankfully not too deep but it made me wonder if the graft would do better or worse with blood on it. I tried keeping a bandaid on it but I'm washing my hands so often it makes life difficult. It stopped bleeding fairly quickly but it doesn't look pretty.

 

[Baymule]

You are going to have a awesome orchard! Grafting, you should take pictures. I admire your abilities. Maybe not the cut finger, that's something I would do. LOL

 

[Larsen Poultry Ranch]

The finger isn't that bad, but it may scar. I need to put some Neosporin on it overnight.

 

[farmerjan]

I think it was on SS (sister site) that one of the members was doing a bunch of root ball grafts???? Or something like that. They had very good success. Try searching in the forums and see.

 

[Bruce]

I sliced my finger pretty good while grafting,

Maybe you could have put a slip in the cut. Then you would have fruit at hand all the time in a couple of years

 

[Larsen Poultry Ranch]

Writing this here so I don't forget. Stupid weather app didn't warn me, or I have the settings wrong. Frost on Tuesday, windshield was iced up. Phone said 34 Wednesday but no frost on windshield. Dunno how it affected the plants. Haven't been able to do anything, been leaving at 7 ish in the morning and back well after dark. Hoping I can get back earlier tonight and pick up the house and property. We are supposed to have people over Thursday night and on Saturday. I'm tired of the place looking terrible.

 

[Larsen Poultry Ranch]

The apple seeds I started have sprouted, I'm excited to have some free trees. I dunno how long it'll take before they fruit, but I'm willing to wait to see how they turn out, plus I can try grafting them as well. I have loquat seeds and two tamarind seeds started as well, but they are still in the soaking stage. I also ordered more seeds, we'll see how many baby trees I can get started at once.

 

[Baymule]

I hope the frost didn’t hurt anything. I’ve done that dark to dark thing in the winter. It’s hard. It will get better, spring will come.

Enjoy your company. Take a break to just enjoy the visit.

One of these days you are going to have a fantastic orchard. Even with my move, I can’t have trees that are not freeze hardy.