It took us years to establish this patch of Lilies of the Valley.
Smells so Good
Peaches?
We’ve had bad luck with peach trees dying in the past, mainly due to us not removing all the buds as they are establishing themselves. One of the dead trees went again, bellow the graft or so we thought. So I removed all the buds this time, but there were so many I missed a few. And well, they turned into small peaches :). They’re delicious, just small. We didn’t think we’d be picking peaches in October.
Keeping it Soft
A day spent on a tractor is a day well spent. Not really doing anything with this field yet, just keeping it open.
Protected: Berry Tsunami
First Strawberries
It’s rare to get firsts these days :).
8 Years in the Ground
Some of the stick we put in the ground 8 years ago are starting to look like real trees. They have barely yielded any fruit so far, and so we hope that they’ll decide to produce a real crop one day. It’s been interesting to compare how well everything we bought from various nurseries performed. The best nursery by far has unfortunately closed. Another one I won’t name has given us only bad performers I’m tempted to just pull out of the ground after years of tending to. Worst failure rate, worst growth rate, worst everything, bleh.
plum
pear
Protected: Leaves
Failed Fencelessness
With plants more established, and no clear effect, I decided to relax counter measures a bit this year and see if maybe the orchard, fruit trees, and garden could do with less fencing. The sentence was immediate, we didn’t get as many berries, trees got damaged, and hard work was voided. It is now clear that while various measures aren’t 100% effective, they definitely help. With this confirmed, they’ll get implemented with more vehemence next year.
It’s a lot less work and it looks better without fences. What a shame.
Irrigation
It’s not much but for us it’s huge, we finally have enough water and ways to move it that we can give the gardens a good soak. For the past 9 years we’ve been reliant on the weather, which usually does its job in Vermont. Although when it didn’t, we’d be reactive and move a lot of water by hand only to keep plants alive. Now we’re able to soak several hundred square feet of soil whenever they could use it, and it’s less manual labor. Double win!
We want to build a rain capture system to diversify strategies, but that’s dependent on other projects. We’ll get there.
Flower Train
Flowers started rolling in, one of Nicole’s most successful crops. After many failed attempts, we finally have an established patch of Lilies of the Valley. It’s incredible how far we can smell it from.
