The End of May

I cannot believe it is almost June.  The spring melted quickly away in all the rain.  We were sequestered inside because of it.  While it made me feel a bit batty at the times, what else was I going to do with three kids and an infant anyway?  I am not brave and outgoing when I have a baby.  I hunker down.

This past week Jamey had a day off so he took baby duty so I could give our kids their achievement tests.  While I sat with them during test time I was able to order their books for next year and get my paperwork together to submit to the local school superintendent. Except for a little bit of work I'd like each of the kids to do this summer, we are calling school done for the year.

We've had enough hot, muggy days to make it feel as if summer is here.  The sun shines and the lack of rain is glorious.  The baby is taking real, two- and three-hour naps in the afternoon which is freeing me up to work on weeding the garden and flower beds.  It feels so good to be doing normal things like weeding.  And weeding adds a whole new purpose when you get to feed them to your pigs.

Last year, the girls and I picked blueberries at a local, organic blueberry farm.  We had gone early and were the only ones there for awhile.  I was able to pick side by side with the owner and she graciously answered some of my pressing blueberry-growing questions.  In the past, we have netted our bushes to keep the birds away but at their farm, they had wire strung over the rows with sections of reflective tape tied to the wires which moved in the wind and made a lovely rustling sound.  I decided to order some and try it this year.  I also put some of it on stakes in our strawberry patch.  So far, it seems to be working with the strawberries but the blueberries aren't ripe enough yet to know.  When I went out to snap a picture for you I found this...

Is she turning her head away because she's blinded by the tape or is she calling her friends to tell them that there's no net this year?  In the picture the tape looks white, but it is a very shiny, prism-y, silver.

Our first CSA box comes this week!  While we're not planting much this year for preserving, we are planting a few things to eat fresh.  And then there's all that garden space that you can't just leave bare otherwise the weeds will take over and drop seeds for next year's garden. We are using landscaping plastic to help keep weeds down in the sections we aren't using.  

We're actually amazed our garden looks as good as it does.  It's strange how when you're overwhelmed it seems impossible to imagine having time again for anything.  But it comes.  

Just like the sun.

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Glorious Spring

I could spend an entire day outside taking pictures.  I don't seem to pay as much attention to detail without my camera.  I need to work on that.  Since it isn't possible right now I settle for short stints outside between teaching and lunch, between loads of laundry and sweeping, between checking math and assigning chores.

In a few short weeks, we'll be wrapping up the end of the school year and my days will open up.  I can't wait.  For now, I inhale the Lily of the Valley and lilac and head back inside.

Our lettuces reseeded themselves nicely and are waiting to be thinned and weeded.  We've been enjoying asparagus and even found the first mushroom of the year on our logs.

Our blueberries are in bloom (above).  We lost one of our bushes over the winter and hope to replace it with another soon.  Our two honey bee colonies are doing splendidly.  Last week Jamey added more bars to the top bar hive and a super to the Langstroth (below) to give them the room they need. Both queens took their mating flights, were fertilized and are laying eggs.

I pruned our red raspberries on the late side this year but they seem to be thriving anyway.

Flocks of barn swallows have made their homes in our barns this spring.  They flit in and out all day long.  Every time I walk down to the barn, they swoop in and out right over my head and I can't help but giggle with delight.

I'm even excited about blooming weeds.  They feed our bees, you see:-).

And these two sisters?  They're making everyone smile.  Especially Spock.  He went from being nervous, jumpy and preferring the inside of the barn to rooting-beside, skipping-around, and sleeping-outside-three-wide with these two.

Right now, this is my favorite season EVER.

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Blueberry Delight

I wanted to give you all an update on our blueberry bushes.  All sixteen are still alive and seem to be doing well!  All are showing new growth. The blossoms turned into fruit and the fruit is ripening!

In addition to increasing the acidity of the soil through a couple sulfur treatments (one while planting and the other a few weeks later) and some other tips we're trying out from a blueberry-grower-friend (we'll share more about what we're doing once we know it's working well), Jamey bought some cheap litmus papers that we can test the soil's acidity with.  As of a month ago, the acidity level wasn't quite up to par (par being 4.5 to 5), but over time it will continue to improve.  We'll test the soil again in the spring and see where we are.

As soon as the first couple berries started to ripen, I covered them with bird netting.  It's only a minor inconvenience to lift the netting to pick the berries and pull the weeds.  As the bushes grow taller, netting them will be more of a challenge, but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.  An occasional bird has gotten caught in the netting- sometimes we can free it, once one died tangled up in it, and another time I finally freed one and Somersault promptly pounced on it and ate it.  Thanks, kitty (not).

We've had pretty regular rain so far this summer which has been wonderful.  Sometimes, it's not a real soaking rain, so I water the bushes to make sure they get a good dousing every 3-4 days.  I've learned with red raspberries that if the plants don't get good water after the fruit is set, it doesn't ripen properly- instead they shrivel and dry up so I want them watered well.

There might not be many, but they're ours:-).

After lugging 5-gallon buckets over to the bushes a few times, I borrowed the kids' wagon and now wheel my buckets down.  Water is pumped from the cistern at our back door which collects house roof rain water.

The wood chip mulch has been great.  Not only does it keep the moisture in but as it breaks down, it will mimic the forest floor.  This reminds me of the wild blueberries that grew along the edge of the woods in the mountains of Pennsylvania where I picked them growing up at a family cabin.

Also, you may know that if you lay fresh blueberries out in a single layer after picking, they'll ripen up even further.  The wood chips provide a clean landing place for any ripe blueberries that fall off the bush.  The next time I come along to pick, the ones laying on the wood chips are beautifully ripe and clean- perfectly fine to eat.

wineberries and blueberries on cereal

While we're only eating them fresh because our harvest is tiny, here are a few of our favorite blueberry recipes just in case you find yourselves swimming in them....

Fruit and Oat Muffins

Classic Blueberry Muffins

Blueberry (or any fruit, really) Swirl Coffee Cake

Mama JJ's Aunt Valerie's Blueberry (or Strawberry) Bars

Freezing Blueberries

Blueberry Crumb Bars

Cobbler, Southern Style

Blueberry Buckle

Fruit Pizza with Lemon Curd
Blueberry Zucchini Bread

I'm pretty sure that those blueberry bushes are the best birthday present I've ever received.  It's funny how what we value changes.  I'm thinking of finding Jamey some dried cow dung to use in his bee smoker for his birthday this year.  Shhh- don't tell him.  He's going to be thrilled:-).

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Out and About

Our 17 pullets are growing fast.  We've decided that chicks are a must every spring- they provide hours of outdoor entertainment for our kids!  They are living happily in the chicken tractor for now.  

Baby, stick-trees do begin to look like real fruit trees after awhile- take heart!  This is the first year that I think our peach and apple trees have trunks that actually look like trees instead of sticks.

Our two hives all set and ready to go.

Leaves on trees mean shade once again.

snow peas

Our first couple spears of asparagus with onions behind.

A really neat trick of Jamey's- place tomato cages over fall-planted garlic.  It allows the garlic to come up and the chickens to be in the garden at the same time.  The cages keep the chickens from scratching up the garlic.

Our second blueberry bed in complete with age-old railroad ties.  A little stone wall is being constructed on this side of the white work shop for the remaining few bushes.

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Blue Gold

I'm pretty sure my favorite fruit is the blueberry.

I grew up following behind my mother and grandmother, a bucket strung around my neck.  I'm sure that early on, I would eat more than went into my bucket, just like in the book Blueberries for Sal.  We picked at my Great Uncle John's farm which his family still owns so our family still has access to.  As I got older and especially as I started thinking about growing our own food, my goal shifted and I filled those buckets as fast and as full as I could whenever I had the chance.  I wrote about one of our trips there in this post.

His farm is out of state, so even though there are more than enough blueberries for us to have our fill, perfectly timing a weekend to go pick is tough and we feel badly relying on nearby family to pick for us.

I also feel badly because my very last quart of frozen blueberries is almost empty.

When we first moved to this house, we haphazardly bought a few blueberry plants and plopped them into the ground.  We crossed our fingers hoping that we had good blueberry soil.  Meanwhile, the blueberry plants died a quick and, hopefully, painless death.

Years later, I did  some research and started a notebook on all that starting a small pick-your-own blueberry patch would entail.  One of our side yards was the target planting spot.  Maps were drawn up, the shade was charted, and I got pregnant with Miriam.  So much for those plans.  Morning sickness, Jamey in school, and everything else caused us to put those plans on the back burner.

This winter I told Jamey I wanted to try again (for blueberries) and asked for some for my birthday.  It's not until June, but early spring planting is the way to go.  This past weekend, we planted the majority of the bushes he bought for me.  I have the sore muscles to prove it.  These will be for us, but hopefully we'll one day have enough to share with friends and neighbors.

I'm going to show you what we did.  While we did have our homework done this time, everyone's soil is different, so I'm not going to go into detailed specifics.  We're not successful blueberry growers yet!  So, if you're interested in planting blueberries do your own research specific to your own soil and region.

We decided to plant them at the upper end of our sunflower patch where they would receive full sun.  This spot is also right outside our kitchen windows, so I can keep a close eye on the weeds, birds, and children picking.  We already had two sweet cherry trees planted at that end, so one row has both cherries and blueberries.  The cherry trees might provide some shade, but it will be minimal since these are fruit trees that  we intend to keep well-pruned for ample production.

Blueberries need special attention for the following reasons:

1) They are particular about their soil, specifically the acidity level.  Have your soil tested and determine if you need to manipulate the soil to increase it's acidity (like we did).

2) They don't like wet feet.  By this I mean they need proper drainage.  Planting them on slight mounds and mixing in plenty of organic matter (like peat) will help with this.

3) Their roots are shallow, so they don't like to dry out.

4) They like full sun.

Our attempt is shown below.

Our sunflower patch is a patchy mess of bare ground and grass.  You can tell where the upper end of it is because of the two cherry trees.

Here Jamey is tilling the all-blueberry row.  He found very old (and falling apart) discarded railroad ties to help keep out the weeds and help hold the additional soil/peat that those rows will contain.  You can see Sam in the red shirt by his bike killing ants by lighting them on fire with a magnifying glass.  He's a boy.

Here the railroad ties have been dug homes and are in place.  I dug the holes for the blueberry bushes in this row.  The holes are five feet apart and the row is about three feet wide.

This next photograph shows Jamey tilling up the row with the cherry trees.

I prepared the holes and soil and planted those little beauties with Sam, Sadie and Miriam helping.

We then mulched them with several inches of untreated mulch.  We ran out of railroad ties.  If anyone local knows where we can score some more super-old ones for free, we'd really appreciate it.  We still have three bushes that we didn't have room for, so they will be planted along the work shop (the white building to the right).  It's shaded in the early morning, but receives intense afternoon sun (the white wall will help reflect it, too).

We planted at least four varieties to ensure pollination and chose bushes of different ages, anywhere between one and four-year-old plants, for a total of 16 bushes.  According to one source, each mature bush can produce as many as a gallon or more blueberries each year.  I'm not counting on having it that good.  Even half of that would make me very, very happy.

Our fingers are crossed once again!  If you grow blueberries, what tips do you have for us?  What do you do for them year to year?  How many bushes do you have and what is their yield?  Do you love them as much as I do (this may be a trick question because I'm pretty sure I love them best)? :-)

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