All plans for landscaping and planting were delayed as we got hit with a real snow storm in October this Saturday:
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| Marigolds: after first hour of snow |
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| Marigolds: 3 hours later |
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| My “late blooming” rose |
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| Blackberries – with leaves – in the snow |
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| Grape vines in the snow |
Last winter we had lost several large pine trees – and the few that survived that bad storm have been leaning more and more each month. Jeff decided today that it was time for them to all go – so he pushed them down with his tractor. Pushing them had the distinct advantage of pulling out the entire root ball – this made cleaning up rather easy. 
The plan now is to make a straight line – parallel to the picket fence – all the way to the end of our field. Then plow from the fence on out toward the fruit trees. This new section will be divided into two parts – one for blackberries (toward the back) and one for blueberries – toward the front, on the ground where the pine trees used to grow. Hoping that the years of dropping pine needles turned the soil a bit more acid – to keep the blueberries happy. |
| All cleaned up! |
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| New blueberries, waiting to be planted |
Our early corn variety – Sugar Baby – is all picked…it took us a week, a few “buckets” each day during the work week, and then the remainder on Friday and Saturday. Alltogether, this resulted in – we think – about 65 quart bags of frozen corn. Not too bad, even though we lost count and were to tired to go back to the garage, where our extra freezers are, and do a recount. This was the first time we had planted an early variety and we were surprised to find rather large ears of corn on these relatively short, stocky kind of plants. (We had planted 2 lbs of this bi-color variety).
The Silver King corn is almost ripe – we are hoping for some rain to help the kernels fill out, but this is our project for the next weekend. Expecting lots of relatives to comes and help pick and take corn with them 🙂 We planted 5 lbs of this one (not sure what we were thinking).
Also spent time throughout the week to continue tying up bramble canes for next year’s fruit. We are getting some blackberries off this year, although we had tried to cut back the plants a lot this Spring to discourage fruiting and encourage the growth of fruiting canes for next year. Still, managed to make 2 pies and freeze 2 gallons of berries so far. We are irrigating the berries, since the weather has been extremely hot and dry.
Pretty much did the same “maintenance” on the grapes – continued tying up the vines, which are still growing at amazing rates, and continued irrigating.
Finally finished running all the wire in the 5 rows of last year’s plants, and started tying up all the berry shoots that are about 4 feet tall already. Also ran the rest of the irrigation lines in the 8 new rows – so far got emitters installed in one and half rows.
By Saturday evening we had the first two rows of trellis posts in the grape patch (only 3 rows to go). It actually went rather quickly, since Jeff had already drilled the holes and sharpened (with a chain saw) the fence posts. With the help of Zach’s tractor – which is still parked at our house, and which is a bit larger than our tractor – Jeff sank the posts by using the hydraulic front bucket. The ground is still soft enough from all the rain, but the grapes have grown a lot, and are touching the bottom of the tractor, so we need to get the rest of posts in this weekend.
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| Jeff checking the first couple of posts |
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