Chronicles of the Long Shot Farm

Yesterday was a rotten day for deer encounters:  first, Tina hit a deer on her way to work, killed the deer, smashed the driver side headlight, hood and fender (luckily it happened close to home, the car still drives fine, so all she had to do was switch cars with Jeff).

Found several intriguing recipes for home-made deer repellent for gardeners at a website called deer-departed  but hoping the soap will do the trick.



Cherry tree after deer damage!



The second cherry tree – with a bar of soap to fend off potential deer!

With the help of the tractor, a wagon and the four-wheeler, we managed to spread a thick layer of mulch on the entire blueberry patch this evening while it was not raining.  Also trimmed off all the blueberry blossoms, to allow the plants to spent energy on growing roots for another year – after all, the life expectancy of blueberry bushes is about 50 years, so it is worthwhile giving the young plants an extra year of just growth for a good start.

Spent time in the small elderberry patch today, which is situated in an area of our property which tends to “flood” when we have excessive rain (which happened quite a lot this Spring).  There were an amazing number of “baby elderberries” (or suckers) on these one year old plants, which we promptly dug out to start a second patch of berries.  The new patch is on the bank between our two ponds, one row follows the path on top of the bank, the second row was started along the edge of the “wetlands” which border the lower, smaller pond.  We managed to get 24 new bushes started this way, plus we took root and stem cuttings, which we planted in small flower pots – if they grow, we should have another 2 dozen bushes to plant later this year.  (our Elderberry wine is the best! so here is hoping for lots of berries)