Get to work - planting more trees

We received a couple more apple trees from Stark Brothers on Friday and we rushed to get them planted on Saturday before a storm front passed by.

Suncrisp - a cross between golden delicious and an orange pippin, this is supposed to be cold hardy and should store well.

This more than doubles our apple trees, honeycrisp, red and golden delicious, gala and now suncrisp.

The question has been asked of us regarding why planting this many different varieties of apple trees. The short answer is before we invest in dozens of trees for our orchard grove, we want to find out want grows best.

Also on Saturday, we added a couple of concord grape vines next to the neptunes we planted a couple of weeks ago.

Of course, cages all around which is putting a strain on our depleted fence post inventory.

Four more chestnuts were planted on Sunday to bring that total to 13 (so far).

In between planting, weeds needed cutting and I had to oblige. I'm way behind in the weed management department. But the upcoming 3 day weekend might be dry enough for us to get ahead.

Wednesday Wildlife, 6/25/14

It's been a while since I posted a wildlife photo, and I decided a Rose-breasted grosbeak sounded like a good candidate. I don't remember seeing these in my youth but we've been finding dozens of these around the acreage.

Here's a male that perched on the fence protecting the aronias:

We noticed the behavior of "sharpening" its beak on a mulberry branch in between sharp "chip" noises. An omnivore, I'm hoping they will feast on some of the grasshoppers that have recently invaded the juneberries.


Not the best photo as my small camera was extending a bit much on its range as he kept his distance from the crazy bald guy with a tiny camera. A storm approaching on Sunday probably increased his anxiety beyond seeing my ugly mug that afternoon.

First day of summer - nearly out of time to plant a tree

Time is running out for planting trees in Iowa. The hot summers can make it difficult for roots to get established, especially after the past three seasons here in SE Iowa. We've had success in fall planting and are already in the planning stages.

From our new additions to the apple grove, planted on 6/17:

The two gala:

And a red delicious:

These were purchased from Stark Brothers on their "End of Season" sale and delivered within a week of ordering.

Thanks to our 2014 suppliers

David over at True Blue Sam helped give us a start a couple of years ago with our coffeetree seeds and last year gave us a few seedlings (swamp white oak, catalpa, chinese chestnut, and a few more coffeetrees). And the gallons of chestnuts nuts. From those nuts, we have about a hundred growing and have transplanted a few to our new chestnut grove.

Chief River Nursery in Wisconsin was our source for 100 (plus a few extra) black hills spruce seedlings and river birch that the rabbits got into and clipped a few. Both have been doing very well for the little amount of rain so far this year.

Stark Brothers out of Missouri was our source for a couple of grafted pecan trees and a dozen blackberries. We thought we lost a few of the blackberries as I didn't think I hardened them off well enough but all are responding well with good growth. We decided to try a couple of nectarines to add to our fruit trees and they are doing well. The pecans? Here's a look:

Stark Brothers have discounted many of  their plants and we decided to add gala and red delicious apple trees to our small orchard, adding two more nectarines and started a vineyard with three grapevines. We planted these on 6/14 and on the 17th they looked well coming our of dormancy.
 
Henry Fields was where we got a couple of butternut starts and a few more pecan seedlings. I'm reserving judgement right now as this has been a difficult start of the year. One of the butternuts is showing good growth but the second one is slow coming around. The pecans are a bit behind as well. We also tried some juneberries to add to our fruit section and all are doing well so far. Lastly, we got a couple of sweet cherry trees but have them potted right now instead of planted at the acreage.

Our local Lowes had a few larger blackberry plants that we added this year and a couple of nectarine trees. We purchased an 8ft red oak from them last year and planted in recognition of the Mrs and I being together 25 years and it's done well, so we decided to give them another chance.

Theissens had a couple of ranier cherry trees that were on sale, so we decided, "why not?" They look very good so far where we planted them just below the pond and caged up to protect them from deer.

My acorn sources have been native red, black and swamp white oaks around the area. The red oaks have had a nearly 99% germination rate while the swamp white oak have been disappointing. The germination rate of the neighbor's catalpa seeds have been at about 10%. Another neighbor's hard maple tree was very generous last fall and I have plenty of small starts so far. My red maples at the homestead also produced a good crop of seeds this year and I have about 25 potted "yearling" red maple seedlings ready to go.

If I get every seedling transplanted and every seed and acorn planted, we will have nearly 1200 trees in the ground this year. 

Get to work on the weeds (and plant more trees)

Those weeds won't cut themselves and I've fallen behind.

The row of black hills spruce along the northern border of the acreage: 

 

And leading up to the pond:

These pictures were from a couple of weekends ago as I spent about 5 hours on the Stihl trimmer until the lightning flash convinced me to call it a day. I was able to clean the row with the spruces and where the nectarines and chestnuts are growing.

Speaking of chestnuts, we planted two more this past weekend on the 14th. And three more apple trees (gala and red delicious). And our last pawpaw replacements. And four more nectarine trees. That means another 12 is added to the list for a YTD of 156. Almost forgot, we dug an asparagus bed and started our vineyard with three grapevines.

Is the asparagus a vegetable? I don't know but we should harvest them in a couple of years.

Of course, we caged these up to restrict rodents and deer, as demonstrated below by the Mrs and #2 son.

Yep, it was a busy weekend.

Get to work and mow the weeds

Mowing weeds on nice sunny day.

I mowed the rows of the north section of walnuts and around the berries in the corner. About 3 hours of work and this Yanmar sipped the fuel and ran well. The only "problem" I have is that I have to clean the screens often. Dandelion seeds and other dry mulch tend to fill up the mesh grills, but it doesn't clog to the point of overheating, though.

Replacements - Pawpaws

We planted 9 pawpaws last fall and we were hoping the harsh winter did not do them in. We were hopeful but cautious since we potted another 12 or so at the homestead and buried them in the garden. I gave up hope this past weekend and nearly dug them all up but we found one of the nine survived. The root structures were pretty much dead.

Not a good survival rate, 1 in 9.

We planted 6 pawpaws over the past couple of weekends as replacements and have two left to transplant. We traded a couple of them to neighbors and lost some to the winter.

Three more chestnuts have been transplanted this week as well.

Our tree count is going up slowly but more could be planted if the weather cooperated. Only 1/10th of an inch of rain during May and we are regularly hauling water to this year's plantings already.

This could be our third season dry season and our concern is growing faster than the wild parsnip on the acreage.