The third day of spring has arrived and our orchard, grape vine, and fenced in garden are doing great!  The orchard has started to blossom, at least half of it has. The Fuji apple tree has blossomed the most, however the deer have decided to indulge in her blossoms. Craig's Crimson Cherry also has blossoms all over the tree, but the deer have yet  to feast on them. The Parfianka Pomegranate is doing very well also. Our All-in-One Almond still hasn't begun to blossom, but she is looking much better then the citrus. During February, winter finally decided to give us a freeze or two, and the Meyer's Lemon and Washington Naval Orange took severe damage, but hopefully they can recover this Spring and Summer with some loving.

The only surviving Fuji Apple blossom, of five.

As previously mentioned, we caught up on 40 years worth of gardening needed on the Muscadine Grape Vine just before spring. Within the last two weeks, we recruited help to finished weeding the around under the vine, and also planted two more varieties of grapes! Concord Blue on the right and Red Caco on the left, slowly starting to show growth.

 The raised beds are doing great. The soil level looks low in the beds as the rain is started to compact and erode the soil.  Our oldest spinach plants are producing massive leaves, while the younger plants are starting to sprout out baby spinach leaves perfect for salads, already! The basil and habanero peppers are slowly growing more with the increasingly warm weather.

The tomatoes are doing great, all of which are about a foot tall now! 

Our blue potato is in the right foreground, while in the back you can see the Peas, Beans, Squash, and the illusive Athena Bean guarding the garden :O

 

The center bed, maybe 1/3 planted. Two varieties of cucumber are the far end of the bed, to the left of the flying pig. There are two varieties of carrots, the only green section you can see in the bed. Also in the middle, coming closer to the camera, are our broccoli. Still to go in are our strawberries.

Still to be planted are our strawberries, a few more herbs including Thyme, Cilantro, and possibly Rosemary. Not pictured are the two varieties of pumpkin, our watermelons, and golden roma tomatoes I acquired seeds of last week. Hope everyone enjoys Spring, before Summer sets in unleashing grueling heat and high humidity!

Taming the Beast!

Its been 2 weeks since we've updated- Yikes!  We've been busy with Valentine's Day, Craig's 25th birthday, planting more in the garden and digging out the grape vine!  I'll have to add my pictures later.

In the garden we now have almost all of our seeds planted!  We still need to get ready for planting corn, pumpkins, watermelons, and a few more potatoes, but my tomato plants and basil are looking happy to be in the sunshine.  Athena has been adventuring a little outside this week, and she absolutely loves rolling in the dirt in the garden path- I knew she would! 

Today, we tamed the beast also known as our grape vine!  It was a lot more work than we expected...but the project is turning out better than expected, too!  Doug was here to help, so the 3 of us put in 4 hours of work trimming back weeds and brambles, cutting down small trees, and digging up the roots.  Finally, our vine was free- and its HUGE!  We guess that the vine must be somewhere around 100-150 years old.  It has vines that are thicker than my arm.  We've asked the landlord to tell us more about it, so hopefully we will get some of its history soon. 

After exposing the actual vine itself, we decided to re-do the posts and arbor that used to hold the vines up.  We set 4 posts and attached the metal rods to the top of the posts.  Tomorrow we will finish putting the rods up, paint the arbor to give it a fresh look, and then finally put the vines back over the arbor so it can grow and look beautiful!

Depending on how many grapes it produces, I'm going to get a winemaking kit and learn to make wine for our household and friends.  I know a lot about Muscadine wine and winemaking on the commercial scale, but I actually know nothing about home wine making- I guess this fall we will start the experiment and see how it goes.  I've already decided that I'll label our wine with a picture of the farmhouse and store it in the wonderful wine cooler Craig bought for me when we started dating.  I'll post pictures of the grape vine process and the finished arbor tomorrow!  Until then- peace, love, and happy gardening :)