Catching Up After Vacation

We thought a long weekend over Easter would be ideal for leaving the garden and yard to fend for itself - after all, it was rather cool yet, all cold weather crops had been planted, and nothing much should get out of hand.  We were only gone for one week and left PA in cold, foggy, drizzly weather.
We did enjoy a wonderful week in Hilton Head Island - lots of swimming (yes, the pool and ocean were warm enough), biking and running on the beach.  It was glorious. 
But during this one week, the weather in PA decided to skip spring, and went from cold to hot - with lots of rain.  When we returned everything had gotten overgrown - literally.  We got home early Wednesday morning and by that afternoon, we were running both lawn mowers and the bush-hog, trying to find the yard...
Luckily, the days are getting significantly longer, and each evening since then was spent weeding another flower bed or garden section.
Today Jeff ran the disc through the yet unplanted garden to knock down the weeds, and we planted carrots, red beets and about 1/4 row of dill.  Also used the rest of the lettuce and spinach seeds for a second batch (the early batch has been growing in the kitchen garden).  Jeff also ran the disc through the grapevines - very slowly and carefully, as is barely fits.  Did not loose a single plant, the grape patch looks much better with all the weeds knocked down.

Chambourcin Grape Patch

Our long awaited plants finally arrived this week - all 200 chambourcin grapes.  We started planting the same evening, using the small rototiller to loosen up the soil in the already dug holes, we managed to plant about 25 vines each evening.  The final 100 vines were planted on Saturday - not much to see yet, just "sticks" poking out of the ground.  Hoping this will work!

Fence Posts and Grape Vine Holes



Lars and Jeff making holes for grape vines

Spent time this weekend marking off the grape patch for the soon to arrive chambourcin vines and drilling holes (used the biggest auger we have for the tractor)...this is a rather slow process, but it will be worthwhile having the large holes for easier planting. We are making the holes 6 feet apart, and the rows are 10 feet wide.  (5 rows of 40 grapes)

Earlier this week, one of Jeff's friends had gotten a guy with a portable sawmill to come to his farm to cut up locust trees into fence posts.  Jeff helped them most of the week during his free time, and we got about 75 posts plus all the "scrap" boards.  Jeff has been spending time "sharpening" the bottom of the posts with a chain saw - for easier pounding.  He then drills smaller holes with a hand-held auger, "drops" in the sharpened post, and uses the bucket of the tractor (which he fills with heavy rocks), to pound the post in.  Jeff's been working on this a few hours each day, here is the first finished row of trellis posts in the blackberry patch:

 

Our First Winery Trade Show!

Went to Richmond this week to attend the "Wineries Unlimited" trade show for a day.  Jens came along and we took his truck.  Left Carlisle around 5:30 am and got to the convention Center by 10:00 am. That gave us a whole day to check out the exhibits - and we needed every minute of it.  We saw so much equipment for processing and bottling, some for planting/cultivating and trellising, as well as lots of bottles, corks, labels and tasting room stuff.  Everyone was so friendly and helpful - we talked to lots of different people and learned much.  We did buy a wine transfer pump (got a "end of show" deal, plus no shipping costs) - also got many samples (including close to 100 different wine labels).  Definitely worth the trip - we had a blast!

Pea Planting

Jeff and Lars planting peas

We planted 50 lbs of garden peas in the field that is supposed to grow grapes next year.  Since peas are nitrogen fixing plants, we figured we can't go wrong sowing them.   Hopefully they will grow and we have time to pick some of them - we did find someone with a mechanical pea sheller...We'll see if they grow first.  Jeff adjusted the gears on our corn planter and used a different seed plate for the peas.  We had actually bought 100 lbs (not knowing exactly what we needed) - luckily the peas came in 50 lbs bags, so we are returning the one unused bag.



very long rows of peas!

It was a bright sunny day, but not very warm - mid 40's...also spent a lot of time hoeing and rototilling the blackberry patch, we are almost done - less than half a row to go!!!  Also cleaned up the asparagus patch, dug the first 37 holes for the grape vines, which should arrive next week, and started cleaning up the herb garden.



Plowing and Planting in March

Jeff has been busy plowing and disking our various "plots" during the last two weeks: 

• the vegetable garden (which he "squared up" -  meaning he made it even larger)
• the field below the barn, where we will plant our first 200 grape vines in April
• half the field above the pond, which we will plant in peas (about 100 lbs) and sweet corn this year, then cover crop it to get it ready for more grapes next year



Last weekend, with unseasonable warm weather, we started planting the garden:  

• 50 lbs of Kenebec potatoes
• 25 lbs of Red Pontiac potatoes
• 300 "Candy" onion plants
• 1 lbs of red onion sets
• 5 bulbs of California garlic
• 3 seed packets of Hollow Crown parsnips



Kept on hoeing the blackberry plants from last year, working on about 25 at a time each evening after work - as of today, we have 362 finished (=138 to go).  The ground is perfect right now, weeds are coming out easy and the weather has been holding up just fine - though we are supposed to get rain and sleet tonight :(



garden patch





Chambourcin patch



pea & corn patch



500 More Blackberries!

We learned a lot from last year's planting and had a much more efficient system going this year, when we planted our second "batch" of blackberries. We knew the plants were to arrive sometime last week, so we spent every evening setting end posts for the trellis system and marking out the rows.  Our rows are 10 feet apart (marked those with string), and the plants are set 4 feet apart - used orange spray paint to mark each spot.  So when the 500 Triple Crown plants arrived late on Wednesday afternoon we were set to go.  We only had enough daylight left that evening to set 50 plants, but Thursday and Friday evening, after work, we got another 100 plants into the ground - Jeff and Lars used the rototiller to dig holes, Tina followed and planted. 

We finished the rest of the planting on Saturday - which was good, because on Sunday we got one heck of a storm.  Heavy rain and blustering wind quickly turned to ice and snow. We lost power late in the evening and by Monday morning, 7 of our largest pine trees had been knocked down :( 

It was an extreme temperature change, we went from seeing the first crocus on Saturday to having ice and snow the next evening.  But we did order our first set of grape vines:  200 Chambourcin should be shipped in early April.