Spring Garden Update

Green, green, everywhere green.  Ahhhh, the color of spring.  I’m always amazed at how quickly our trees in the orchard transition from winter to spring.  In just a matter of a few months, our orchard woke up from its winter slumber, blossoms burst onto the scene then partnered with our new honey bees and blue orchard bees to create this season’s fruit set, then exploded into lush green.  The process is just so incredible if you think about it.

This past month, Hubby and I have been busy trying to keep up with our orchard’s comings and goings, it’s been challenging to find time to sit down at the computer and write. To be honest, this is the first chance I’ve had to tell you about all of this wonderful goodness. We are truly blessed.

In May, when the harvest season begins, our “busy-ness” (hmm) will be amped up to another level as we enter into a race with the birds to see who gets to what fruit first.  There’s a new plan of attack we’ve devised this year, so may the best man, woman, or (uh hum) bird win!

I may have mentioned in a previous post that I will be doing my best to preserve some of our fruit bounty this fruit season.  There appears to be more than enough fruit for our own consumption and storage that I’m certain I will be sending visitors home with a basketful of organic goodies

Summer Veggies Seedlings

In addition to our orchard tasks, Hubby and I are gearing up to grow an assortment of summer veggies and herbs this year.  Our selected veggies and herbs are:

• Basil (Lemon, Emily)
• Borage
• Eggplant (Listada di Gandia, Rosa Bianca)
• Onion, scallion type (Evergreen Bunching, Red of Florence)
  
• Squash, Summer (Zucchini-Fordhook, Yellow Straightneck, Scallop-Benning’s Green)
• Squash, Winter (Acorn – Table Queen, Butternut – Waltham)
• Tomatoes, cherry/grape (Juliet, Green Grape, Yellow Pear)
• Tomato (Stupice)
• Tomatillo (Verde)

We will also be experimenting with a few greens and micro-greens ( the desert heat is not kind to greens, so most will be grown indoors and under shade cloth)…

• Arugula (Wild Rocket)
• Beet (Chioggia, Detroit Red, Golden)
• Lettuce (Rocky Top Mix, Red Romain)
• Pak Choy (more of a cool weather green)
• Swiss Chard (Rainbow)

And finally…. summer isn’t officially summer without some awesome watermelons!

• Moon and Stars (Yellow Flesh)
• Sugar Baby

In preparation for the summer growing season, the seedlings I started in mid-February have already been successfully hardened off and moved to a holding area outside.

As I carefully moved each plant to their temporary home,  I was overwhelmed by how unbelievably fast our seedlings have grown.  My wonderful inexpensive plant growing shelf unit hubby built, at a moment’s notice I might add, in conjunction with a grow light equipped with eight T5 lights made this possible!  Thank you sweetie

Now with a great deal of empty “plant growing shelf space” on my hands I started another wave of summer veggie seedlings (of course).  This time, I moved away from using a premixed organic potting soil mix and an assortment of plastic containers and opted to use soil blocks instead with our own special blend of organic soil and fertilizer ingredients.

Look at the squash go!  Grow baby grow.

Notice the little flag in the photo above?  I made this simple little “toothpick flag” to help keep me organized while I seeded my blocks.  It never fails.  You’re in the middle of seeding blocks only to be called away for something or another then when you return, you struggle to find the last seed you dropped in.  Some seeds are very small and dark and blend with the soil.  Gently slipped in between two blocks, the toothpick flag makes a handy little reminder of what block to seed next. 

To make our soil blocks, I used these nifty devices.

Some of the advantages of using soil blocks include…

• Environmentally friendly way to start seeds (toss out the plastic containers)
• Greatly reduces (if not eliminates) plant transplant shock
• Can grow more seedlings in a smaller space

This will be my first time using this method to start seeds, so I’ll be sure to give you an update on our progress.

Until next time… eat healthy, grow something and keep a smile on your face.

God Bless!

Summer Seedlings

If you’ve been following my blog for any length of time, you know that it’s been part of our garden renovation plan to install a few raised beds to grow veggies and such.  Despite the fact that our pool demo is not 100% complete, and is the site for our future veggie garden, hubby and I decided to move forward with two “temporary” veggie beds in a different location on our property.  The “health benefits and food budget savings” of growing our own fresh veggies would be a ginormous  “+” in our lives right now.  So, here’s the plan…

We already know the perfect spot for our two raised beds…  our future chicken coop area.  The area requires a small amount of work to get it ready for a couple of raised beds (as opposed to other areas on our property). There are two newly planted fruit trees about seven feet from this area, so the raised beds may get a little bit of light shade in the late afternoon, which is not such a bad idea here in the desert. I’ll just need to remember this point as I’m planning what veggies will go where in my raised beds.

Regarding the dimensions and layout of our raised beds….   I’m still having breathing issues when I bend too far forward for any length of time, so we decided on the following dimensions for our veggie beds: 4′ W x 16′ L x 18″ H. Having them taller should help.

In addition to growing some veggies, hubby and I want to include watermelons on our list of things to grow.  The perfect spot for the sprawling habit of this melon is the north end of the two raised beds.  We are still undecided if we should install two small beds (3′x3′x6″H) and let the watermelon spill out over the sides and sprawl where it will -or- set up a “mound/hill” of compost on the ground and let the watermelon grow from there. Hmmmmm.  I’m leaning toward the small beds. What do you think?

To kick off our veggie growing adventure, I decided to take a two-hour seed starting class just to refresh my memory – it’s been some time since I grew veggies.  The class was taught by a popular retired Master Gardener here in town and was held on her property. Before I arrived, I knew the class would be for newbie gardeners so I was prepared to just have fun with it, enjoy time with like minded folks and view it as a way to be inspired to get going.

The summer veggie starting class provided basic beginner training as well as a small seed starter kit that we used during class to plant seeds.  The kit consisted of a plastic food container, seed soil, 25-30 seeds of your choosing and four six-pack plant containers.

After selecting my seeds and moistening and placing my seed soil into my plastic container, I  carefully carved out five tiny rows and planted my seeds accordingly. Row 1 – Tomatillo. Row 2 – Green Grape Tomato. Row 3 – Juliet Tomato. Row 4 – Rosa Bianca Eggplant. Row 5 – Jalapeno Pepper. Proud of my tiny little garden container, I picked up a spray bottle and was about to gently mist the soil with water when a class assistant came up beside me with a sippy cup full of water and proceeded to splash water about haphazardly into my container.  Ahhhhhh.  Rather than freak out, I politely stopped her, thanked her for the unannounced assistance and stared helplessly at my now jumbled up seeds and soil.  I had a choice.  At the end of class, carefully seal up my container, politely say my goodbyes than trash everything when I got home and chock it up to “what do you expect from a $20 class” – or – test my gardening skills by accepting the mystery garden that now laid before me.  I decided on the second choice and chocked it up to experience.

So now with a little encouragement under my belt and the initial step forward complete, it was time to decide… transplants vs. seeds.  It was an easy and quick decision seeing that both hubby and I have always been partial to starting from seed.  Growing from seed allows us to have better control over what and how things are grown, have a much wider selection of veggies to choose from, and have the ability to side step the headache of introducing soil and plant diseases as well as insects that can come along for the ride with store-bought transplants.

Now we faced the harder task of selecting the seed company and the types of veggies we wanted to plant.  Hmmmmm.  Knowing that we are behind for growing spring veggies with the heat rolling in soon, our veggie selection was narrowed down to summer veggies.

We decided to go with Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds this year.  Our decision was based on the following:  they signed the Safe Seed Pledge confirming that they will not knowingly sell genetically modified (GM) seeds to farmers and home gardeners, they are dedicated to preserving heirloom seeds, and because they have awesome shipping costs.

Hubby and I pulled out all of our seed starting tools from way back when and supplemented our gardening arsenal with a couple of new items (like building an inexpensive seed starting shelf unit from wood and a plan we found on the internet).  Next step is to build our raised beds and get our seeds growing!

The seedlings from the seed starter class are growing like gang-busters and will be ready to begin the hardening off process in the next week or so.  The pictures below show the seedlings just a week or so old thru to current day.  Big difference!  FYI – out of the 30 plants, I’ve been able to identify all but five.  They are either eggplant or tomatillo – time will tell.

Hope you take my lead and do your heart and health a favor by planting something you can eat in your garden

God Bless,

Honey Bees Are Here!

These past several days our orchard has been overflowing in a sea of pink, white, and mauve flowers interspersed with touches of green from newly emerging leaves. To say the least, it’s been a bit of blissful heaven for myself and the local honey bees!

My heart is warmed by the fact that I’ve been physically able to work in the orchard, side-by-side with my hubby, with only a few restrictions.  This past year has been extremely challenging on many levels, and even just four months ago working in my beloved orchard seemed like an impossible distant dream.  I’m thankful for your prayers and God’s healing touch and comfort as he’s carried me through.

Today, nature has forced us to take a break from our gardening chores by literally “raining on our sunshine parade”.  Our day and night temperatures have turned a tad chilly again, the skies have darkened and soaked our soil with rain, again. Sigh.  I’m certain my fruit trees are enjoying a sip of water.

Since I’m on a “garden break”, I thought I’d share a little news with you.  Some time ago, I mentioned that hubby won a nuc of honey bees.  OUR BEES HAVE FINALLY ARRIVED! (my apologies for the shout out).

After contacting the beekeeper about a possible delivery date in time for our orchard flower bloom, he decided to give us an established hive of bees.  A nuc consists of about 4-5 frames and an established hive can have 8-10 frames.  There are a few other differences and pros and cons to both but the explanation is a bit lengthy for today’s post.  I’d rather share our new bees with you.

The photo below shows our bee box with five frames inside (two new and three older ones).  You can also see four frames hanging outside the box during the placement of the frames.  Our new bee hive has a total of 10 frames.

The beekeeper lives about 4 hours away, so he arranged for us to pick up a hive from our local test orchard.  Hubby and I met the orchard manager at the orchard gate one evening around 6:00PM to pick up our new hive.  By this time, the bees were all nice and tucked away in their hive after their long day’s work making it easier to seal up, handle and transport the hive. Shortly after arriving home that evening with our new bundle of joy(s), hubby placed the hive temporarily on top of our empty bee box which was hunkered down on top of four blocks that he setup and leveled the day before.  He made certain that the setup had a slight tilt forward to it to help keep the hive dry in case it rained (like today).  We also set out a chicken waterer and filled the trough area with gravel to give the bees something to land on to prevent drowning.

The next morning, I was tasked with slightly nudging the small wood board out a bit to allow a space for the bees to exit and enter the bee hive at their leisure. No, the bees didn’t swarm and attack me as soon as I pried the wood board out.  It was very quiet, though I could see some movement inside at the doorway entrance.  After completing my task, I went inside the house and came back out an hour or so later to check on the hive.  By this time, I could see that a few bees were beginning to venture out and explore their new home and surroundings.

Next came the task of transferring the frames from the orchard’s bee hive box to ours.  Hubby suited up and fired up the smoker. The smoker is used to calm the bees before and during the process of opening and inspecting (in our case transferring) the hive.  To begin, hubby blew a few long puffs of smoke at the entrance to calm the bees guarding the entrance, then he lifted up one of the corners and blew a couple of long puffs of smoke inside the hive then shut the lid down and waited a minute or so to allow the bees to retreat down deeper into the hive. With the lid off, he blew a couple more puffs of smoke down between the frames then proceeded with the transfer process.

During the transfer, hubby inspected each frame individually before placing them into our bee box.

Awesome!

Starting along one of the outside walls, he lowered each frame gently into place making sure to not squish any of the honey bees and leaving the right amount of space between the wall of the box and between each frame.  During his inspection of the frames he tried to locate the queen but was unable to find her.  I’m certain he’ll find her during his next inspection.

Hubby did a great job with the bees and the bees cooperated fully during the entire process

With the bees now safe and sound in their new home, we just let them do their thing for a week or so being sure to peek over at them every day.  They are absolutely loving the orchard and we always see them loaded with pollen when they return to the hive.

The bees are in a temporary location and close to their final spot.  After some serious discussions, we’ve decided on their final location (just a few feet away from where they are now).  For their final destination, hubby built them a very sturdy stand to set the hive on.  This will make it easier for us to keep out unwanted guests like ants and it will help to make caring for our bees less back breaking work.  Hubby found the plans on-line and made some revisions to fit our needs. Great job sweetie!  The bees are going to love it.

Over the next week or so, we will be moving the hive slowly to its new position (about 1 foot every couple of days).  This helps to keep peace with the bees.

As always, thanks for stopping by and hope you have a great weekend.

God Bless,

P.S. What do you think of my new logo?

Orchard Blooms

What a beautiful weekend.  The skies were clear, the sun was shining bright.  With the exception of a single day of spring winds so typical in the desert, all-in-all this weekend was simply perfect to soak up the stunning view in our orchard.  While Hubby and I were tending to our orchard and newly planted blueberries, it was impossible to ignore the sun glistening on the spectacular display of spring blooms in the orchard.  As we tended to our garden chores amongst the blooms, I swear I could see the honey bees happily twirling about in the air humming their favorite song as they visited each and every flower on our trees collecting nectar and pollen to make their wonderful sticky sweet pot of gold. Yes, it was that lovely outdoors on the Asher Homestead.

Words just seem to pale in comparison, so I thought I would invite you to join us in our orchard.  Enjoy!

Flavor Queen Pluot

Artic Star Nectarine

All-In-One Almond

Dorsett Golden Apple

(left to right) Flavor King and Queen Pluot, Artic Star Nectarine and Flavor Delight Aprium

Joining the party at French Country Cottage

Ahhhhhhh… Beautiful Spring is here at last.

God Bless!

Blueberries in the Desert

In my last post I mentioned that hubby and I were going to plant blueberries and shared a “future blueberry site” photo with you…

Our blueberry raised bed is now complete and our blueberries have been planted!  The only thing left to do is hook up the permanent irrigation.  Before we do that, there’s a lot of work to do to trench and lay in pvc pipe for not only the blueberries, but our orchard as well. Yup, I’m still hand watering… well, only the back orchard.  Hubby setup a temporary watering system up front so all I have to do is turn the water on, turn a valve and watch as my front orchard fruit trees enjoy their sip of semi-automated water For the time being, hubby is going to set up a temporary irrigation solution for the blueberries until we can get the other work completed.

Now, as raised beds go… there’s about as many ways to build and setup a raised bed as there are creative minds in this world (just check out You Tube or Google).  Some better than others.  It’s uncertain as to where our raised bed falls into the whole “rating” scale, but all I know is it’s solid, square, level and hubby built and installed it to last for many years to come.  He’s a perfectionist that way. My vote… two thumbs up and an “expert” rating.  One thing to keep in mind when planting blueberries is that they can be productive for 20+ years.  With the desert sun being as brutal as it is, I’ll be a happy camper  if my raised bed  lasts between 5-7 years before it needs repair.  It would be unrealistic to think that it can last the entire 20+ years.

For those of you interested, here’s how hubby built and setup the raised bed for our blueberries…

Obviously, our first step was to select an appropriate site for our bushes. A location that would provide great morning sun and a bit of shade in the afternoon.  The back of our house faces North, so we decided to place the blueberries up against the west wall of the property.  A great morning sun location and the wall and fruit trees will help to shade our blueberries from the searing afternoon sun.  We also needed to determine the size of our raised bed and settled on 4′ wide x 9′ long x 2′ high based on the mature sizes of our bushes and what we were trying to ultimately accomplish with their growth.

Next, we needed some nutrient filled dirt to fill our raised bed.  Not just any dirt… acidic compost.  Blueberries require acidity in their soil to do their best and crank out those lovely little blue gems   They like their soil pH to be between 5 to 6 and they like actively decomposing organic matter. With this in mind, we ordered about two yards of acidified compost to fill our 4′ x 9′ raised bed and amended it with organic peat moss.

Then we sketched out our raised bed design and determined what materials we had to buy and calculated how much lumber we needed in order to build it.  We purchased the following:

• (4) – 2′ x 12′ x 12′ untreated lumber (sides, front, and back) – we had the home center cut the pieces to size for us
• (4) – 4′ x 4′ x 8′ untreated lumber (posts) – hubby had to cut these
• 3″ Deck screws
• About 1/2 ton of “rough” pea gravel – sounds like a lot, but it wasn’t
• PVC pipe, fittings and glue to set up the irrigation
• Drip manifold (4 outputs) and drip tubing

With all the materials now at hand, hubby cut the posts to size and assembled the sides, front and back of the raised bed.

We wanted the posts to go into the ground (about 12″ deep) for more stability, so hubby pulled out his trusty little jack hammer and dug six oversized holes to accommodate the posts and a bed of gravel in each (to help with drainage). Fully assembled, the raised bed is quite heavy and I’m certain that it won’t budge an inch with or without the added support.

It took some time to get it level, but when everything was said and done, the raised bed is level and looked great!

Notice the color change from light raw wood (photo above) to a darker tone (photo below)?  Hubby found a great non-toxic product to protect the wood from the elements without the grief of using “chemically treated” lumber.  It’s called Vallhalla LifeTime Wood Treatment.  It’s super easy to apply, very economical and a little goes a l-o-n-g way.  Once applied, the product dries very quickly, but we let it sit for a couple of days before filling the raised bed with soil.  I’m rather fond of the aged and weathered look

Once the bed was all ready to go, hubby installed the blueberry portion of our irrigation system and capped it off to finish at a later date.  He also laid in a 4″-6″ layer of gravel on the entire bottom of the bed to help with drainage.

Next, the soil. We filled the raised bed with the acidified compost (amended with peat moss) about 4″ from the top edge of the bed, then leveled the soil to get ready for planting.  In the picture below, you can see the three drip manifolds hubby installed.  From these, he’ll run a couple of lines with drips to each blueberry bush.  As they grow, he has room to increase the number of drips to each bush to four.

In the photo below, you can see the “high-tech” tool we used to mark the placement for each blueberry bush… rocks

After a little digging, a little water and a little organic bone meal, the blueberries were placed into their permanent location. In the next few months, we plan to put up some 30% shade cloth to use during the middle of summer. After planting, I watered the blueberries thoroughly and came back a couple of days later and pruned off all the flowers and twiggy and broken branches.

When planting blueberries in your garden, there’s one important thing to remember.  Have patience.  Growing blueberries requires the same amount of patience as growing fruit trees.  Left on their own, the blueberries will probably start producing berries fairly quickly, but for the health of the plant and to obtain the best quality fruit, it is best to remove the flowers each year for the first 3 years.

Check out these Dave Wilson Nursery videos about growing blueberries in your own backyard!

God Bless,

Crazy About Fruit Trees

In keeping with our fruit tree fascination (well, obsession really), hubby and I wanted to take our “interests” a bit further.  Our goal… to explore other fruit options beyond the multitude of fruit tree varieties available to the home gardener.  Before I finish my thought about that (yup, a cliffhanger), let’s take a step back for a moment. Some of you may be wondering how growing fruit trees captured our hearts and took over a good portion of our 1/2 acre property. Well, simply put, it’s just where we happened to start with our sustainable garden.  Nothing more to it than that, really.  Okay, so m-a-y-b-e we’ve gone a bit further with our orchard than the average backyard gardener, but that’s just us pushing the envelope as usual. So, with an assortment of gardening tools at the ready and a simple child-like scribble of a sketch clutched tightly in hand, we plunged a shovel into our rocky unforgiving soil and claimed a spot for our orchard.

What actually got the “ball rolling” was when I contacted a local horticulturist about an article he had written in one of our local newspapers.  In his article, he provided a fairly extensive list of recommended fruit trees and rootstock information for our area.  The most intriguing part of his article is the fact that every recommended fruit tree listed was compiled from a 15 year test performed at a local test orchard here in town, spearheaded by the same horticulturist I spoke with.

Such a list is a much sought-after commodity for those living in a hot and dry climate, such as the Mojave desert, who desperately want the following questions answered, “can you grow fruit trees in the desert and if so, which ones do best?”.  The answers provided within this coveted fruit tree list were impressive and pressed for further exploration.  It sure peaked our interest, especially since the test orchard was only a stones throw away from our newly purchased home. Cha ching!  An information seeker’s dream come true.  It also helped that the horticulturist got us connected with an organic group here in town ~ the folks we actually ordered our first several fruit trees through.

As far back as I can remember, both hubby and I frequently pondered the thought of growing a few fruit trees and starting a small veggie garden to help replace some of the veggies we were purchasing from the grocery store, but we just never took it to the next step. Those were the days when news of e-coli or salmonella outbreaks from store-bought produce were a rarity and growing your own food was more a matter of convenience than a health necessity. Oh, how things have changed in just the past 20 some years.

We first began dreaming of a world with home-grown fruits and veggies when we lived in Southern California.  During our renting days, in a small but cozy duplex lushly landscaped with hibiscus and holly bushes, our landlord gave us permission to plant whatever we wanted in a small planter at the back of our duplex. I’m sure we could have done something with it, but we were young and busy with our careers to pay it any mind.

Shortly after moving into our first home, I was smitten with the look and feel of a cottage garden with its loose and carefree design filled with clusters of roses, perennials and bulbs with a promise of days gone by.  These special gardens just speak to my heart and shout loudly with a happy and inviting voice “welcome, come sit a while and enjoy the beauty around you”. I fell in love with cottage style (both inside and outside our home) and haven’t looked back since.  The dream of fruit trees and veggies took a back seat to this new adoration.

Moving to Southern Nevada made us yearn for our ole’ cottage garden but we did our best to create what we thought was a “compatible” desert xeric garden ~ still no fruit trees or veggies.  I guess we were a bit shell-shocked at the time from the big move from green and plush to rocks and dirt plus it didn’t help that we were very skeptical about anything growing here. Today we know better!

Fast forward to today.  Here we sit within our “much in need of TLC” home with more “need to get done” projects than we can wrap our heads around.  A 1/2 acre lot that also has just as many “have-to” projects and only have a “penny” budget to do it all with.  But… you know what?  God always provides and our fruit orchard gives us such sweet rewards

So what’s in store for us regarding new fruit options?  I think I may have mentioned this in another post, but we now have Southern Highbush blueberries.  We also hope to grow watermelons this summer.  More info to come!

God Bless,

Fruit Trees – More Benefits Than Fruit

Hi everyone!  This past weekend was so beautiful outdoors and extremely “spring-like”.  My favorite kind of weather.  Hubby and I soaked up the sun’s healing rays all weekend long as we continued to focus all of our attention in the orchard.  As always, we have a ton of work to get to in the house, specifically our “tight-budget” kitchen renovation, but first things first.  Our fruit trees need our attention to ensure we give them a great start to the upcoming harvest season.

I’ve been wanting to mention a few of the benefits to growing your own fruit trees.  The obvious benefit is the wonderful fruit you get to harvest in your own backyard.  There’s nothing better than the taste of fresh grown fruit “picked at peak” ripeness. Store bought doesn’t even come close in comparison. Another benefit are the health benefits from eating in-season, non-GMO, non-pesticide-laden fruit.  What about the other not so obvious benefits?  Did you know that when you do your annual pruning (typically in December/January) you can save the branches you remove for some real nifty uses? If the branches are large enough, you can build rustic support structures for your veggie garden.  You can use them in a number of craft projects.  Or you can simply add a little more beauty to your home and life. How you ask?  Simply grab a few of your favorite vases, glass jars, etc., and fill them up about 1/4 of the way with fresh cool water…

Next, select a few branches (with teeny tiny buds) and cut off  (at an angle) a small section at the bottom of each branch.

Place the branches into your water-filled containers and voila!  Within 1-2 weeks, you’ll have gorgeous blooms like the photos below.  Just remember to change the water out every few days with fresh water and cut off another small section of the bottom of your branches (to encourage the branch to soak up the water).  The blooms should last you for about 1-2 weeks.  Fruit tree flowers are so beautiful!

Flavor Delight Aprium branches

~*~

Saturn (Donut) Peach branches

~*~

Fruit tree flowers are so beautiful!

Here’s another great use for fruit tree branches.  You can use them for your next BBQ.  I’m sure you’ve heard of “smoking”, well, each different fruit tree branch gives its own unique flavor to cooked meats and veggies!  I haven’t tried this one yet, but it is on my “to do” list in the very near future.  I have it on good authority (from our local test Orchard), who sell different fruit tree branch bundles specifically for this purpose.  Here’s a helpful fruit wood selection guide for your next BBQ…

Fruit Wood Selection Guide

Almond	Nutty, sweet flavor that is good with all meats.
Apple	Very mild in flavor and gives food a sweetness with a sweet aroma. Good with poultry, pork and pork ribs.
Apricot	Slightly sweet, dense, fruit flavor. Beef, poultry, game birds, and pork.
Cherry	Sweet, mild flavor that goes great with virtually everything. This is one of the most popular woods for smoking. A favorite with chicken, beef, pork and poultry.
Fig	Burns hot and fast and sends a heady, almost sweetly floral aroma. Use with fish, poultry, lobster, and pizza.
Grapevines	Tart smoke giving a fruity but sometimes heavy flavor. Use it sparingly with poultry or lamb.
Nectarine	Sweet and mild, great for poultry and pork.
Peach	Similar to nectarine but a distinctly different taste. Great for poultry and pork.
Pear	Similar to apple and produces a sweet, mild flavor. Good with poultry, pork and pork ribs.
Plum	Great for poultry and pork. This wood is similar to hickory but is sweeter and milder in flavor.

During the growing season and through the winter, any painted branches will have most of the water based paint worn off and will burn the remaining paint off easily.  Be sure to give it a few minutes before placing your food on the BBQ.   Enjoy!

God Bless,

Hired Help For the Orchard

A couple of weeks ago, hubby and I sat down and chatted about acquiring some help around the orchard and garden this year.  We jotted down some of our requirements and decided if we could find help that met each and every requirement, we’d jump head first in welcoming them to our property.  Our list went something like this…

• Work long hours (sunrise to sunset) – 7 days a week
• Minimal breaks
• Provide own tools
• Be highly skilled
• No music, talking, or complaining
• Work for food

After much consideration, we decided to take the leap and seek out the help we were looking for.  Within days our search was over.  So without further adieu, I’d like to introduce you to our new helpers…

approximately 250 Red Wiggler Worms, and…

80 Blue Orchard Bees

We are so glad to have these hard little workers under our care. As most of you know, hubby won a small colony of honey bees with a queen last Spring and there’s a good chance we will be receiving them in the next couple of weeks. Keep your fingers crossed!

Red wigglers are self-sufficient hard workers and require very little tending to.  This is the first time we’ve ordered worms for our orchard, so I  was unsure what to expect once the box was opened.  Fortunately, the instructions provided with the worms were very simple and easy to follow.

Upon arrival, I quickly brought our new workers into the house to prevent them from baking in the sun at the front door.  After scanning the instructions, I promptly poured about 1/2 cup of fresh water over the contents of the green bag (see below – obviously, the worms).  The water helps quench their thirst after 3-4 days of travel and helps to “plump” them up to their normal size.

For our garden, we chose “super” red wigglers because of their size (4-5 inches long ~ 2 to 5 times bigger than regular red worms), high activity levels, and their strength, which enables them to quickly burrow tunnels through the dirt aerating the soil as they push and munch through. These tunnels allow air movement, water and other nutrients to reach the root systems of trees and other plants, promoting excellent root growth and plant vigor.  And here’s the best part.  No breaks necessary. These efficient power-houses eat and poo as they work, leaving behind an awesome source of nutrition for trees and plants alike.  How great is that!?!

In case you’re curious, here’s how we put our worms to work…

After giving the worms some time to “soak up” their water, I filled a plastic tub with moist compost then poured the worms out in a pile on top.  I’ve never seen worms move so quickly before. Within a few minutes, all of the worms disappeared into the compost.  Not even a trace of worm was left exposed. A good preview of things to come

Next, I soaked some newspaper in water and gently laid it on top of the “worm” compost pile.  They use this for food and shelter and it helps to keep the compost moist.  Just the way they like it.

Once tucked in, I moved the “worm tub” into the shade and hubby proceeded to dig several shallow holes around the perimeter of the water basins under each fruit tree.

If you’re wondering why the soil looks a bit red in the next photo, it’s because we just watered in EDDHA iron a few days earlier.  An important step this time of year.

Once the holes were ready for worm occupation, I scooped up a hand full of worms (okay, yes this is my hand with a bunch of slimy worms crawling on it – it was only a little creepy when they tried to burrow between my fingers).  I then proceeded to pick out a few lucky winners for each hole.

Hovering a few inches above each hole, I gently dropped a few worms in and covered the new occupants with the newly excavated soil.  In most cases, the worms had already dug quickly down into the soil before I could get them covered.  Now that’s efficient!

So far, we’ve only set out our new wiggly workers with the trees in the back orchard.  Over the next few days, we’ll need to place the workers in the front orchard so we can get everyone situated in their new home.  In the mean time, our “wormies” are kept safe and moist in their temporary compost tub home in the garage.  We tried to keep them in the house by the back door for sunlight, but our 7 month old ragdoll kitten, Jaspurr, was harassing them too much.  He thought they were new toys for him and dug into the compost knocking about 7 of them out onto the floor.  There were no survivors

Like honey bees, Blue Orchard Bees require a bit more time and care to keep them healthy, happy, and productive.  The value they bring as a contributing member to my orchard, is, well… priceless. They are a key member in the management of a fruit orchard, especially if you are looking to obtain high yields during harvest time. Sounds like my kind of worker.

In spite of the fact that we will be receiving a small colony of honey bees with a queen in the near future (can you say… honey?), we decided to make the small investment and order some of these mighty wonders in the orchard world.  What makes them so special?  Well, there are too many great things about them to list here, so I thought I’d list the facts that helped us to make our decision to invest our time and a small amount of cash.

Due to their reproductive biology and early flowering periods, fruit trees require either a large population of pollinators or pollinators that are highly effective at the pollination process, both would be even better.  Since fruit trees have a short bloom cycle (about two to three weeks) that occur early in the season, pollinators are frequently interrupted by inclement cold weather.  This also increases the risk that the flowers will no longer be viable for fertilization, reproductively speaking that is.  For these reasons, it is desirable to pollinate fruit tree flowers for as many days as possible and early in the flowering period.

Blue Orchard Bees (nicknamed B.O.B.) are better adapted for flying in poor weather conditions and can forage and pollinate under overcast skies and at temps as low as 54°F when other bees are barely active.  They also forage and collect pollen earlier in the morning and end later in the afternoon than other bees.

Studies conducted in North Ogden, Utah showed the unbelievable fruit yields obtained using B.O.B.s versus Honey Bees.  Results:  Honey Bees used exclusively over a three-year period averaged 10,333 pounds of fruit annually.  When B.O.B.s were used exclusively over a three-year period within the same crop, they averaged 26,430 pounds of fruit annually.  One of those years had a cold spell that killed nearly 46% of the fruit tree flowers – the B.O.B.s still out performed the honey bees!

A few differences between Honey Bees and Blue Orchard Bees

Honey Bees

• Social, live in colonies/hive, and share in building nests and rearing young
• Females can and will sting; drones/males do not
• Carry pollen moistened with nectar on their hind legs
• Develop from egg to adult within 16 – 24 days
• Wander from pollen sources and can ignore the target crop
• Produce honey
• Remain in their hive during winter months; emerge on warm days

Blue Orchard Bees (B.O.B.)

• Solitary, build their own nest in tunnels using mud to seal the ends, and rear/provide for their own young
• Females can sting, but rarely do – only if grabbed; males do not have a sting
• Carry dry pollen in hair located under their abdomen
• Females collect large amounts of pollen and nectar for making provisions for their young thus pollinate a higher number of trees; males collect nectar for their own consumption
• Develop from egg to adult over several months – produce only one generation each year
• Show a strong preference for fruit tree flowers; not distracted from target crop
• Do not produce honey
• Requires a dormant period before emergence (bee keepers need to keep cocoons refrigerated at 39°F – 49°F until ready to set out in spring

Hope you enjoyed these brief facts.

Now, this is how we received our B.O.B.s.  Nesting straws wrapped in newspaper in a small box.  Each straw contains approximately 12-18 cocoons each separated by a wall of mud and provisions of pollen and nectar for each cocoon.

We also purchased a small plastic humidifier (left in the photo below).  This is used to store the straws and/or cocoons in the refrigerator.  It prevents them from drying out.  The wood block is called a nesting block.  The nesting block goes inside a small house within the orchard (hubby is building the house as we speak).  The house helps to protect the block from wind, rain, etc.  The female B.O.B.s will use this block to lay eggs and set up provisions for each (similar to the straws).  The small package on the right is a “bee attractant” and the two small boxes contain more bees (loose cocoons ~ about 20).

Hubby and I can’t wait until our B.O.B.s are ready to be set out in the orchard to begin the pollination process.  This should be happening in the next few weeks.  I’ll keep you posted.

Hope you have a great day and happy valentines!

God Bless,

Prevent Sunburn on Fruit Trees

Busy is an understatement around here on the Asher Homestead with the various work activities required in the fruit orchard this time of year. What I have to say next may sound a bit odd to you, but… “We LOVE IT!”.  Especially after being cooped up inside for months.  It feels great to be able to stroll amongst my fruit trees observing the positive effect of last year’s growth. Cheeks kissed by the warmth of the sun and cool breezes skipping across my shoulders (at least the days I was outside – last several days it’s been hair tangling force winds and cold again).

Today the sun’s shining bright, but still too windy and cold to complete the task of spray painting our fruit trees. Painting our fruit trees with a 50/50 solution of 100% acrylic paint and water helps to prevent sunburn, which ultimately helps to prevent borer damage. Borers love to find their way into tree limbs and trunks by way of damaged/wounded areas on the tree (i.e., sun burn damage) which can ultimately result in the loss of a limb, trunk or worse, death to the tree itself.  This small ounce of prevention goes a long way in helping to save your investment… and future fruit crop.

Before painting the fruit trees, it’s helpful to be able to inspect the surfaces of the tree and visually take-in the beauty of each tree’s bark color and patterns.  Like in the first photo above. The picture shows the attractive bark of a Flavor Delight Aprium © [a cross between an apricot and plum].  You can see the flower buds swelling along the smaller ancillary branches.  The buds will be opening soon and, here in the Las Vegas area, produce fruit sometime in early June.  The fruit from this tree is especially tasty and sweet. Here’s a photo of our Flavor Delight Aprium [on the left] and May Pride Peach fruit from last year’s harvest. Delish!

When the fruit trees were between 1-2 years, it was fairly easy to make up a small batch of the 50/50 paint solution and paint it on the trees generously with a paint brush.  Now that the trees are older, there are a lot more branches to contend with and the entire structure of the tree is wider, taller and much more challenging to paint.  Getting into the interior of the tree to paint is the trickiest to complete without an “eye poke” or  scrape or two to the back of my hands and arms. That’s why we changed up our strategy this year by purchasing a refurbished hand-held paint sprayer and wearing appropriate protective gear to accomplish our painting task. Here’s a list of our essentials…

Protective Gear List

• Gloves
• Long sleeved shirt
• Protective eye goggles / glasses
• Disposable mask
• Bandana (thought about this to protect my hair from paint over spray, but this was not an issue – at least this time around)

Our Paint Supply List

• Hand held (HVLP) paint sprayer [HVLP = high volume low pressure] (refurbished – a less expensive option)
• Heavy duty extension cord (for outdoor use)
• Paint filters (to filter out any globs of paint before it can clog our sprayer)
• One gallon of water-based 100% acrylic interior “flat” paint in white (objective is to reflect light/heat off trees)
• Paint can opener
• Water
• Measuring cup
• Small bottle brushes (to clean paint sprayer)
• Stir stick
• Rags and/or paper towels (for clean up)

With all of the winds we’ve been having, it’s been next to impossible to finish painting our trees.  It’s my hope ~ dream ~ prayer that I’m able to wrap up my painting task this weekend.  The swelling flower buds are getting ready to burst open and painting  the flowers (my future fruit) would not be a good thing.  Our pollinators would agree!

Hope you have a wonderful day ~ be sure to spend some time outdoors and enjoy!

God Bless,

New Year – New Fruit Trees!

Hi friends!

Missed chatting with you over these past couple of months.  Well, we’re obviously well into the beginning of a new year and I am just now playing “catch-up” with my blog writing. December, January and February are such busy months for hubby and I, as we tend to our annual fruit tree orchard tasks. As for my weird health “thing”, I’ve had a lot more energy lately and less “breathing” issues.  The severity has seemed to subside a bit as well.  Please keep praying for me and let these past several weeks be a positive trend to recovery.  Hope all of you have gotten off to a great start this year as well.

Around these parts, or at least on the Asher homestead, the start of a new year always brings with it much anticipation and excitement as a new fruit season approaches. Just the thought of fresh, sweet and delectably delish’ sun warmed fruit makes me want to do a happy dance. Knowing that it is chemical/pesticide free, grown in nutrient rich soil, and was grown right in my own backyard (and front yard) makes we want to, well… twirl incessantly with arms held high reaching up to the sky! Excuse the momentary giddiness – too much fruit sugar in my thoughts

This is our third growing season and we expect to see fruit from most, if not all, of our fruit trees.  In preparation for our orchard’s generous abundance, I’ve been reading thru recipe and canning books in an attempt to plan ahead for our sun-kissed treasures.  I plan to use an entire arsenal of food storage and preparation tools… canning, freezing, drying, juicing, baking, cooking, and of course, fresh eating and sharing.  I even created a calendar documenting harvest times for all of my fruit trees to with the planing.  Believe me when I say there’s lots to plan for when you have apples, figs, peaches, nectarines, apricots, plums, cherries, pluots, pomegranates, almonds, and asian pears to look forward to.

Along with the “sweet” rewards of managing an orchard on our 1/2 acre lot, is a fairly lengthy “honey-do” list for both hubby and I.  The list gets even longer when new fruit tree arrivals are expected into the orchard, which of course, we ordered more back in September.  How does the saying go?  “One can never have enough time, money or… fruit trees”. Well, you get the jist.

Our New Arrival List

All of our new fruit trees are Dave Wilson bare root fruit trees.  These are absolutely the best and set the standard for fruit tree quality (not bad for ‘free’ publicity). Be sure to check them out!  If you’re wondering about the differences between container (potted) fruit trees and bare root fruit trees and which ones would work best in your garden, check out my post.

• Gold Kist Apricot (replace our Blenheim Apricot)
• May Pride Peach (replace our multi-peach tree)
• Flavor Delight Pluot (new)
• Flavor Supreme Pluot (new)
• Spice Zee Nectaplum (new)

In addition to our new fruit trees, we are also planting blueberries!  Southern Highbush blueberries (low chill).

• Sharpblue
• Misty
• Sunshine

Blueberries in the desert?  You betcha!

As of today, hubby has finished building the raised bed (4′ x 9′) for our new blueberry bushes and is in the process of getting the bed prepared for planting.  Hopefully, this will take place this weekend as long as the weather cooperates.  I’ll be sure to share the ins and outs of building and preparing a planter for blueberries in the near future.

Other Happenings on the Asher Homestead

Not everything has been “perfect” in the orchard this past winter. In addition to our many successes, we’ve had a couple of failures.  Despite our best efforts, we lost our Meyer Lemon (planted last Spring) and we’re uncertain if our Mandarin Tangerine will make it (it’s looking pretty beat up) :(

The main reason for our failure? We were unprepared for the coldest winter we’ve had here in Las Vegas, NV for some time.  Citrus are very cold sensitive and we placed our frost blankets on our baby citrus trees just a little too late.  All it took was one wicked night of cold and that’s all she wrote.  We kept them watered and covered with the blankets for several weeks, but it just wasn’t enough to make a difference. We will be replacing them, but it may need to wait until next Spring.  More research is needed so our chances of success are better. Some ideas we’re kicking around are: 1) check weather more frequently (duh!), 2) build a tent frame with PVC that we can drape the frost blankets over and clip onto to keep from blowing in the wind and prevent the weight of the blankets from crushing the trees, 3) string x-mas onto the trees to provide warmth, and 4) place mulch under trees (but not up against the trunk) to provide warmth to trees and ground.

So far it looks like all the other trees made it through.  We’ll know more when the leaves and buds open.

Two of the new fruit trees we received are replacements.  We had to remove both our Blenheim Apricot and Multi-Peach.  Both the apricot and the peach failed to thrive for whatever reason, so hubby dug em’ up and tossed them into the dumpster.  We’re trying a new apricot, Gold Kist, which was highly recommended by the horticulturist at the Orchard in North Las Vegas.  And we decided to replace the multi-peach, which had 4 different varieties growing on the same tree, for a single variety type.  May Pride is an awesome peach, so we’re excited to see it join our ensemble of fruit trees.

Earlier this month, we had about 5 yards of compost and 2 yards of acidified compost delivered to our property.  The acidified (with sulfur and other goodies) is for our blueberries (they love acidic soil) and the regular compost is for our new trees and regular maintenance of our orchard.

In the Near Future

We have a couple of other exciting additions to our homestead, but we’ll keep the lid on those for now.  Still waiting for the honey bees that Ted won last Spring during a beekeeping class he attended at the Orchard in North Las Vegas.  The beekeeper lives about 4 hours away and has been busy building hoop houses on his property. I just sent another e-mail earlier today, so hopefully we can make arrangements for delivery in the next couple of weeks.

Veggie growing activities may be starting soon on the Asher Homestead.  The plan is to get two veggies beds up and going using materials on our property to save $$.  Something more to look forward to.

 

Gotta make hubby a lunch for tomorrow and then head off to bed.  Hope you have sweet dreams and a restful sleep my dear friends.

May the blessing of heaven pour down on you and your family tonight