by katie | Jun 2, 2011 | Farming, Fine Gardening, Gardening, Organic Gardening, Pruning, Self sustainability, Trees, Vegetable Gardening
When I took a fruit tree pruning workshop last fall, the organic commercial growers there described their maintenance regime. One thing they emphasized, was thinning fruit about 6-8 weeks after bloom when the fruit is very small . Thinning down to one per cluster....
by katie | May 28, 2011 | Annuals, Farming, Fine Gardening, Flower growing, Gardening, Organic Gardening, Perennials, Self sustainability, Shrubs, Trees, Uncategorized, Vegetable Gardening
As the garden matures and perennials divide and spread, it becomes harder to just rototill through a bed. I find myself forking more and more of the beds this year. I think only three out of twenty, forty foot rows were rototilled by my husband this year. The rest had...
by katie | May 10, 2011 | Baking, Cooking, Farming, Flower growing, Gardening, Organic Gardening, Self sustainability, Trees, Vegetable Gardening
As this year shapes up for us, we are finding ourselves working hard to finish infrastructure development and to do it with a cash flow problem. TRADE has become our middle name, maybe our surname . We are trading for carpentry help to install our outdoor kitchen. So...
by katie | Mar 18, 2011 | Annuals, Farming, Fine Gardening, Flower growing, Gardening, Organic Gardening, Perennials, Self sustainability, Trees, Vegetable Gardening
One of the things I’ve learned along the way, was to look back periodically at what we’ve accomplished . This helps when facing overwhelming tasks, a list of chores and new projects that never quits. Developing bare land is like that, just never ending. So...
by katie | Jan 30, 2011 | Farming, Gardening, Organic Gardening, Pruning, Self sustainability, Trees, Vegetable Gardening
After coming back from Filigreen Farms I decided we needed to turn our whole upper garden into espallier fruit trees. We planned to turn it into gardens anyway but now hopefully it will be a longer lived planting and easier for us to maintain as we get older than...
by katie | Jan 30, 2011 | Cooking, Farming, Fine Gardening, Flower growing, Gardening, Organic Gardening, Perennials, Pruning, Self sustainability, Shrubs, Trees, Vegetable Gardening
Well I went with more friends to the second lesson on biodynamic orchard practices and pruning. This day started at The Apple Farm http://www.philoapplefarm.com/ with Tim Bates telling us about the most beautiful compost and how the innoculents work. Luke Frey...
