Spring at Palmetto Acres Garden

Baby lettuce, spinach, radishes, beets, and carrots growing happily in the cold frame.

Jumbo-sized brown eggs from our layers.

Spring was all the buzz this weekend!  We had gorgeous weather to garden in South Carolina.  There's not much in season, just some early mixed greens, lemons, and farm-fresh eggs (sounds to me like a recipe for lemon bars and spring salad; oh, we added a couple early radishes on that salad, too).  Plans are being put into action for this summer's food garden, and already some vegetable seeds are sprouting under fluorescent lights indoors.  It's our fourth year on this property, and fruit trees look like they are going to put on a heavy crop - 10 bush cherries are lit up with hundreds of thousands of white blossoms; if there are no late freezes, we will need braces for peach and apple trees.

Meyer lemons ripening indoors.

Last spring we introduced laying chickens to our hobby farm; there has been no more fun and rewarding endeavor.  Our jumbo-sized eggs do not fit well in standard egg containers.  We're adding meat chickens this year of the Cornish Rock variety, which top out at 6-8 pounds by eight weeks of age.  It's the same breed chicken in any grocery store; ours will be raised on an organic diet and free-ranged over grass, as natural a life as possible, which should yield highly superior meat at less cost per pound than market free-range organic chickens.

Laying hens in their movable chicken run.

Cornish Rock chick

Cornish Rock chicks get their first meal in the brooder.  As cute as they are, these are livestock, not pets.

Chicks, the First Week

Rhode Island Red chick at one week old.  A miniature comb and wattle are growing on its forehead.

Wing and tail feathers.

The chicks are a week old now and are growing fast.  They have doubled in size since we brought them home, and they are showing loads of personality.  We have our eager ones, reluctant ones, curious ones, and shy ones.  Some are assertive, first to do everything; and others prefer to follow.  Feathers are starting to grow out from the shoulder, wings, and tail.  Thanks to those wing feathers, they are getting rather adept at cruising around in their 8 ft. x 4 ft. brooder pen.  It looks like a couple of the chicks are playing at pecking order, and not necessarily the largest ones either.  Maintenance is very low - we refill the feed tray every other day, and we haven't yet had to refill the gallon waterer.

3rd-year semi-dwarf nectarine tree.

We have an excellent stand of spinach this spring; lettuce, carrots, and onions are just sprouting.  Peas just went in the ground over the weekend after being pre-sprouted in wet paper towels.  Indoors our peppers, dill, and bedding flowers are growing under lights, and we will add to them tomato and other warm-weather crops this week.  We're still enjoying peach and cherry blossoms.  Happy first day of Spring!

Bush cherries in bloom.

Baby chicks are here!

A golden comet chick explores its new home.

Outside, the air is warm, hyacinths, cherry trees, and peach trees are in bloom, and cool weather crops are sprouting out of bare ground.  These events lead to one undeniable conclusion:  Spring has arrived!  After months of waiting, we are the proud parents of a dozen healthy chicks.  Rhode Island Red and Golden Comet chicks are happily peeping in our brooder; they have taken their first drinks and meal well.  I'll spare you all the details and get on with the show.

Baby chicks in their box.

Rhode Island Red chick.

Getting their first meal.

Taking their first drink (electrolytes have been added to
the water).

Happy in their new brooder.

March 12, 2012

The first peach blossom.

March is here, and it's beginning to look like it.  Mounds of green clover up to 10 inches high are covering our future corn patch.  Grass is turning green again, thanks to abundant Spring rains, and trees are in bloom everywhere.  After wheelbarrowing mulch to the far ends of the property during a church work day, we came home to plant:

Onion and carrot plantings
next to garlic

6 ft. of raddishes
18 ft. of 'Salad Bowl' lettuce
6 ft. of 'Romain' lettuce
25 ft. carrots
25 ft. yellow onions

Bush cherries two years old.

We also re-planted spinach seed where there are bare spots and mowed part of the lawn.  A second batch of peas is rolled up in moist paper towels on top of the refrigerator to sprout and be planted before St. Patrick's Day.  This is a busy weekend for the garden, since it's also time to sow seeds of tomatoes and dill indoors.  Broccoli will be transplanted out into the garden by next weekend, so it's time to start hardening off our seedlings by acclimating them to sunlight and wind after being pampered under fluorescent lights on a heat mat indoors.

Bees are loving our bush cherries, and the first peach blossoms have opened.  We finished a very busy day by watering our blueberries with an acid-loving fertilizer and by misting all the newly-planted seed.  Thanks to all this work on a sunny day, we can humbly show off our red necks!

The vegetable garden in March showing garlic left; clover center;
and peas, spinach, lettuce, and brussels sprouts right.

March 5, 2012

Cherry flowers.

Do the trees know something we don't?  Or are they just rashly blooming by the end of February to die in the next freeze?  Early stone fruit trees (plum and cherry of the genus Prunus) are breaking out into bloom all around our area, as well as the useless Bradford Pear, and peach trees aren't far behind.  Temperatures in the mid-to-upper 70's on the first of March felt wonderful, and the landscape is visibly waking up from dormancy.

Maple flowers.

So what happens if March comes in like a lamb?  Will it go out like a lion?  This folklore saying has its origin in people who (before the Weather Channel) needed foreknowledge of the weather for planting, and who believed everything in nature was created with the principle of balance.  From my observation, this saying is about 50/50 accurate, just like the groundhog who on February 2nd predicted six more weeks of winter.  Oops!  It's going to be a tough call on March with its already rapid changes from balmy to severe weather.

The Almanac doesn't seem to call for any late freezes this Spring - but it's sometimes vague in its forecast and hard to interpret on purpose.  So outdoor planting will go on, with carrots, onions, lettuces, and even some early snow peas by this coming weekend.  Once again we are starting the peas indoors wrapped up in a damp paper towel on top of the refrigerator until they germinate, inoculating them with nitrogen-fixing bacteria, then carefully setting sprouted seeds in prepared soil outside.  We've moved the pea fence to their new growing location, next to the spinach.

Seedlings under grow lights.

We've also started parsley seed indoors on the heating mat and will be planting other herbs soon, along with tomatoes and other warm-weather crops in a couple weeks.

February 6, 2012

Warm weather is encouraging honey bees out already.

We acquired nursery-grown potted trees in May 2010.  Now two seasons later they are nicely branched and are set to fruit.  Tree pruning sounds like a complicated process, but it is easy with a few directions.  The goal of all tree pruning is to design a strong branch system that admits plenty of light.

Apple tree trained to central leader shape.

Trees fall into either a central leader system (one main trunk), or an open center system (bowl shaped).  A tree with a central leader has a whorl of 3 to 4 side branches every 18 inches or so up the trunk; side branches bear the fruit; in order to sustain the weight without cracking, these branches must maintain a wide angle from the main trunk; we have trained our apple trees to this system. 

The open center shape is ideal for peaches; we cut out the centers of our peach trees after their first season of growth to encourage side branches to spread outward, forming a bowl shape. 

Peach tree trained to the open center system (bowl shaped)

Shaping a tree during its summer growing cycle is the better way to mold a tree, pinching off sprouts where they are not needed, and directing sprouts into good growing positions.  Small weights such as clothes pins hung on the end of desirable branches will help pull them down when young; later, tree spacers may be needed to hold branches in position.  A tree spacer can be made from a 1x1: pound a small nail into both ends, snip off the nail head, and insert the spacer in between a branch and the main trunk.  Later, fruit will help to pull these branches down naturally, but they should never be allowed to hang lower than horizontal or fruiting will cease.  Summer pruning can also remove water sprouts (weak branches that grow straight up near the main trunk) before they steal a lot of tree energy.

Tree spacers

Winter pruning is the time to fix any tree problems; last July, as you can read, we were so busy with vegetable preservation that our trees were all but forgotten, and late-season rains encouraged some water sprouts.  There were also a few branches crowding out light, so we removed them.  Fruiting branches were headed off, by removing 1/3 of their total length, to strengthen them and to encourage new branching at the tip.  The result is nicely shaped trees, strong fruiting branches, with an open system admitting light.