"Five Apple Farm: Growing It Larrapin"
Geek adventures with honey bees, gardens & more on a Blue Ridge homestead
Garden Walk – May 27th
I was blog-visitng over at My Wildlife Sanctuary and enjoyed how the writer described her daily photo walk in her garden. Thus inspired, I waited for a break in the rain (I think we’re about 16 or so inches ahead of normal so far this year with total rainfall usually averaging only 46 inches!) to go out for a photo stroll in the yarden. These are some veggie garden snapshots:
Above, the Blue Lake bush beans are just at the stage the rabbits like them. (Got to get that little rabbit fencing up for them…)
This is the Kale & Snow Peas bed. The kales are Blue Curled Scottish and Ragged Jack (Red Russian – in top right of pic). Ragged Jack is a lot sweeter and next year it’s my choice. We stir fry/saute our kale with just a bit of olive oil and garlic and it is so very delicious that way – and so wonderfully green. We’ve eaten bundles and bundles out of this bed already and it’s still full.
The peas are Oregon Sugar Pods. Very productive! Not as sweet, nor as finicky as our favorites, Sugar Snaps.
Here’s the former Pea & Spinach bed, cleared yesterday of the bolting spinach. The peas are still going strong. I’ll put bush beans in now, since I have the handy leftover stick fence for rabbits…
I love beets! I never plant enough. These are in bad need of thinning & eating the thinnings!
This bed of broccoli (underplanted with a small romaine lettuce) is nearly done. It was so lovely. There are a few red cabbages in there, but they are looking a little puny. I need to whip up a tonic for them…
And in the midst of our bounty, here’s a future bounty for butterflies, more of the Tropical Milkweed I so adored last year and wrote several posts about under the Butterfly label.
This bed has Swiss Chard (also in need of thinning — Hello, my name is Leigh and I’m an over-planter….but wait, we almost always get to eat the thinnings too…or if we don’t the chickens get to…) on the end, Chinese cabbage (Joy Choi) in the middle and some more broccoli toward the right. The Joy Choi is amazingly productive and quick to reach eating size. We had a big one last night stir fried with mushrooms and it was YUMMY. I may go chinese on my cabbage choices from now on…
My tater row. Or one of them. This one was planted late b/c the other row got hit hard by a late frost. But then the frost-hit row regrew — or about every other one anyway, so the row has big empty places. Hmm, what could I plant there?
Thanks for joining me in the garden walkabout in late May. My garden is a bit behind a lot of my neighbors b/c I’m always slow to figure out when and where I want to plant things. But wow, we are doing some good eating out of this garden. More about that next post!
Read MoreHow many wheelbarrows to plant a tree at Larrapin?
Just how many wheelbarrows do I need around here? All three! One to hold the digging tools (which usually includes my first authentic Ozark gardening tool: a prison road crew worthy digging pick and eye protection for flying rock…), one to haul the topsoil to the site from the topsoil pile, and on to hold the enormous amount of leaf mulch!
This is a little pear tree planted about a month ago. If the rain will pass today and I can get out with my camera, I’ll do a baby tree progress picture later this afternoon. (That is Glimmer the Golden Locust behind it, confusing the picture.)
My next post will be on the new tree planting technique I learned from my new favorite book on rainwater harvesting. Just my luck, to discover the best drylands water management book ever, during the rainiest year ever in Northwest Arkansas! (OK maybe not the rainiest ever, but sure to be in the rain hall of fame…) More later!
Read MoreWhat is Happening with Spring in Northwest Arkansas??
I’ve waited and waited for the perfect day to FINALLY plant my darling baby tomatoes but I’m not sure that even today — May 11th — is the right day. I’ve heard it’s going down to 35 tonight! What’s with these spring temps? (Nevermind the floods, thunderstorms, windstorms and tornadoes in the region lately…) I feel a bit silly complaining about such minor inconveniences when the news around the state and region is so frequently dire, as in the last round of tornadoes yesterday in Missouri and other parts of Arkansas.
The pic above is from back in late March, when I was busy planting the broccoli plants that are, despite all aforementioned weather issues, now sporting beautiful sprigs of eating-size broccoli heads. This wheelbarrow is a farm family member. It was a gift from the artist Peg and the poet Genie many years ago in North Carolina. That’s duct tape strengthening one handle. The tire is the new never-flat kind — which are completely worth the expense, I will add. The old gray wheelbarrow is even more than she used to be! Thanks Peg and Genie!
Read MoreBees in the Comfrey Flowers
One thing I’ve learned from my baby-steps study of permaculture concepts is the idea of planting “guilds.” That is, grouping plants that benefit each other by being in proximity. A classic example seems to be grouping a tree with smaller plants such as nutrient accumulators/mulch producers like comfrey, then some plants that attract beneficial insects etc. So last year I planted this comfrey at the base of the Prarie Fire Crabapple, a tree I treasure for the spring blooms, but mostly for it’s bird-food value. (Permaculture is much more oriented toward people-feeding trees, but I’m getting to those this year…) It also has some Sedum (attracts beneficials) at its base.
And by golly, both the tree and the comfrey look remarkably happy! Comfrey is one of those great multi-functional plants that accumulates nutrients from deep in the soil, is self-mulching and weed suppressing and pollinators LOVE it. (And of course it’s medicinal.) Just don’t let comfrey loose in rich garden soil, or you’ll soon have a comfrey farm…
The bumble bees are busy adoring every pink bloom on the comfrey. There are loads of bees this spring (bumblebees — but I’m seeing very very few wild honeybees) and they are loving the comfrey!
Bees are hard to photograph. They are, after all, very busy.
And very beautiful in their yellow and black velvet coats.
And he’s off to another flower!
So, after this experience, I’m putting a start of comfrey at the base of every new tree I plant. (Don’t worry, not even comfrey can become invasive in our natural clay/gravel…) I’ll let you know how it goes.
Read MoreLike Clockwork, He Arrived April 15th
For the three Springtimes we’ve spent at Larrapin, the hummers have arrived promptly on tax day, April 15th. This year was no different and as usual we were scrambling to get the feeders up as he was zooming around the spot where it usually hangs… It took me a while longer though, to get a proper welcome-back photo.
Read MoreNew Visitors to Larrapin
These two lovelies are like flying jewels. They are fans of the
mutton suet we’ve located at the Fayetteville Farmers Market. It’s
incredible and the birds LOVE it even birds that aren’t usually found on suet feeders.
(And it’s nice that it’s a sustainable local product.)
This cute redhead is a big fan.
And this red-all-over lovely (summer tanager?) is also a fan. I
didn’t know they would go for suet but *everybody* loves this suet.
This photo is foggy because of the extreme zoom. He was sitting out in
the golden locust and made quite a colorful sight.
Here he is, smaller, but better focus.
And here, gobbling mutton suet…
Here is the tanager’s lovely wife, who also has a taste for this amazing suet!
Welcome to the new summer visitors!
The Beauty of a Clothesline, Part II
I posted the pic above a few days ago, when the sun was shining enough to dry clothes in about an hour. Today it’s raining and I want to add my promised addendum to the clothesline post. Thanks “Amanda” for your comment and agreement about the beauty of clothes hung out to dry — and the silliness of communities that outlaw this simple way to save energy.
One group has gone even further to celebrate the clothesline:
Project Laundry List
Our Mission: Project Laundry List uses words, images, and advocacy to educate people about how simple lifestyle modifications, including air-drying one’s clothes, reduce our dependence on environmentally and culturally costly energy sources.
What fun! And why not get behind these simple things that can go a long way to reducing energy usage.
The main block to handing out clothes (as long as you don’t live in a clotheslines-outlawed community) is lack of time. Then the question becomes: Do I want to have the kind of life where I don’t even have time to stand out in my lovely back yard and hang up clothes while listening to the birds sing? That is the kind of question that has driven me to seek more simplicity and less consumerism. The less I buy and spend, the less I have to work outside the home, the more time I get to spend with the wind, the birds and my family. Now that’s a good deal.
I’ll end with this wonderfully poetic take on the beauty of clotheslines from poet Mendy Knott called “Instruments of Peace” from her blog A Creative Life. Here’s a snippet:
Read More“Looking out the window, hands in the kitchen sink
washing up the dishes gives a person time to think.
I see our colorful clothing fly,
this old Arkansas home’s prayer flags;
from t-shirts stitched with slogans to denims and dust rags.
The blessed sun shines down.
The breeze it blows and fills.
They sail and pull at pins
as if the billowing clothes
could keep this old world spinnin’
spinnin’ spinnin’ spinnin’ spinnin’
spinnin’ round.”(Read Mendy’s whole poem here: Instruments of Peace)
First Harvest at Larrapin
While we’ve nibbled out of the Spinach bed already, tonight we had
these two batches of greens to harvest before the big thunderstorms
that are coming. That’s spinach on the right and Ragged Jack/Russian
kale on the left. We love to saute it with a little olive oil and
garlic in a big iron skillet (or wok). It stays very green and is
delicious.
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