A Surprise Orchard

Dad surprised me with nine fruit trees that he found on sale half-price. He found two of my favorite apple variety HoneyCrisp, and a Granny Smith and a Gala for variety and pollinators. He got three peach trees, two Elberta and one Georgia Belle. And finally, two plum trees, a Blue Damson and a Santa Rosa.

We spent all day digging the holes for the trees on a sunny south facing bank in the back yard.

I have always wanted fruit trees so to finally be able to plant an orchard is a dream come true. I can't wait to see these beauties leaf out this year and in a few more years we will have fruit! My mouth is watering in anticipation of fresh homegrown peaches picked at the peak of ripeness.

We still need to install a heavy mulch around the base of the trees to keep the soil moist and to keep weeds down. For right now, we have used grass clippings, but I plan on putting some straw down to make a thicker mulch. Two things you want to keep in mind when mulching your fruit trees:

1. Keep mulch away from the bark of your trees. Mulch harbors insects, keep it at least six inches away from the trunk . 
2. The area being mulched grows with the tree, the mulch should extend to the drip line at the end of the trees branches. 

Can you grow Strawberries in an old tire?

I sure hope so because that's my plan for the boy's strawberry patch this season. We've been filling a large tractor tire and two smaller tires with compost and straw from the goat pen and finally got them filled up enough to plant. I had a little tray of 6 plants that we carefully tucked into the straw.

I was proudly showing off the newly filled tire planters to my neighbor EJ, who, being a local, kindly pointed out that in the South Carolina summer sun, they would probably be cooked in the tires. Yea, I didn't think of that, you see I'm used to growing in the mountains where you are always working to warm up the soil and extend your short growing season, baking the plants in their beds never occurred to me. I am having to practically start from scratch here, everything I knew about plants and growing in the mountains is right out the window.  Different soil, different climate. This is our first growing season here, I know I'll make mistakes but I'll be learning every step of the way.

Well, I wish you luck strawberries, I hope you don't get cooked before harvest!
Now before you go accusing me of cruelty to strawberries I do believe they have a good chance of survival, they get some shade in the late afternoons and with three young garden helpers to be sure they're well watered, I'm sure they won't suffer from neglect.

How do you grow your Strawberries?

This Week in the Garden - Amazing Changes

I spent all weekend in the garden with my dad, we had a great time digging in new beds for potatoes, tomatoes, rhubarb, lettuces and more!

It's a lot of fun planning and deciding where all of the different plants will go. We purchased our seed and plants from our local farm co-op

We used recycled pvc pipe for the borders around the perimeter bed to keep the big wheel traffic out.

We hauled numerous wheelbarrow loads of used goat bedding (straw/manure) to build up the red clay soil.

The radishes are almost ready to eat!

I started my herb garden with Rosemary Sage and Lavender plants and started Oregano, Thyme and Basil from seed.

We improved the border around the beans corn and onions

Breaking Ground: How to establish new garden beds

Our new garden is an old pool that was filled in with red clay fill dirt. Someone must have gotten tired of all the upkeep and maintenance required to keep a pool nice and clean and just had it filled in. It has been growing weeds ever since. I decided that it was the perfect place for my garden and my husband decided it was the perfect place for the kids play yard, so now it's both, part playground, part garden.

It may not look like much now, but on the left side you can see some straw mulch covering our onions, beans corn and sunflowers. The three circles in the middle will eventually be planted with herbs. We have only just begun! Notice the fencing? That's the most important feature right now, it contains our twin two year old toddler tornadoes, and keeps the chickens and goats out of out garden.

Breaking ground in a new garden bed can be a lot of work. Here's how we prepped our beds for planting.

1. First we double dug the beds. Breaking up the lumps of red clay as we go. A tiller would have made this much easier, but since we don't have one, we used a shovel. 
2. Add lots of organic material and manure (compost!)
3. Plant seeds or started plants
4. Mulch heavily

Written out like that it seems so easy, just 4 simple steps, but when you're out there with a shovel in your hands it isn't quite as easy as it looks. The payoff is worth it though, I can't wait to see our garden grow!