On the lighter side plus a FAB picture!

Gorgeous isn't it? My peonies this year are (or were) awesome. Sorry I didn't post more pictures. They're on the downhill now but the colors were outstanding! And along with my Constance Spry rose bush---they just scented up the whole side of the garden. Imagine what they will be like in a few more years! Wow!



Anyway---thank you for all the wonderful comments on my DNA posts---I so appreciate it.
Today though, we are back to blogging about food. One of my favorite subjects.

I ordered some wild plum trees a week or so ago to put along the side of our property and form a shrubby hedge area. They came yesterday and I want to highly recommend the place I bought them from: OIKOS purveyors of "native" and uncommon fruits *don't forget to notice that under the green bar/link section is a "subcategory" section----I missed it the first few times through and thought they didn't carry very much at first*.
They didn't say why but they up graded my size of trees on 3 of the 4 varieties I purchased. No extra shipping or anything did they charge and the trees---though in paper tubes---look great.The prices are excellent though most are seed grown which is why they are cheaper. If you have access to seeds of some of these you could easily start your own plum hedge however they no longer grow around here that we have seen so...purchasing was the only way to go for us. Yes, we could have chosen a grafted/domesticated plum but we needed a hedge to hide one side of the ram/chicken pen and we liked the idea of using something most people won't know is usable :-) So since today is cool, cloudy and rainy---perfect for planting trees---I will go outside and get started soon planting.
I would have liked to have a few more of their items, but they were either sold out or I just wasn't quite ready to purchase yet---but after this experience I will go back later this season probably.
I know some of you are wondering why I keep planting all these permanent items.I had told some of you earlier this year that we may sell our home ---but things have changed so we will be staying here. This is really good news for us since moving would have created a few problems difficult to solve easily---but some good things too which was why we considered it. However the choice is out of our hands now (in a very good way though) and so planting goes on. We are still downsizing some of our animals because of a few personal things we would like to do or accomplish now that our children are getting older. Unfortunately without farm sitters animals make some of our dreams difficult to do (Like a month long bike trip through Europe???? A long long long time dream!)

Anyway---off the rambling topic and back to food. Eventually I would like to add some paw paws and a few more persimmons to our property (we lost a few adult trees to storms). Oikos site has those including apricots which I would like to add and some more figs. Anything that can extend the season of food production here.
While doing a quick search for eventual size of my wild plums (I bought without thought of size or space!) I stumbled on a site called the natural food hub. Most of the external links are dead now but it had some interesting little tidbits on food so I thought I would share it: The Natural Food Hub.



Oh yes---SUPER SUPER SUPER congratulations to my brother and sister in law. I am going to be an AUNT again!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Yeah! (thinking girl here brother in law!!) Oh yes---and on their new home too! We didn't get to talk to you brother in law but we wanted you to know how glad we are for you! However---we notice we don't have an address yet---maybe you don't want us to know where you live now!!?? :-D

Puttin' my baby to bed

My twin fig trees became a single this year as one was injured by the late frost and then never was able to bounce back with the ongoing drought we have had. Normally dry weather would not worry me in regards to figs but obviously it can be a concern. One I will take much more seriously from now on. Even though I did water it it must not have been enough. It tried to make one futile come back and then "bam" it was gone again. To bad.

The one thing I do consider in regards to figs is freezing weather though. Always a concern with figs unless you live somewhere in zone 8 or so. My husbands grandmother did and WOW! she had a fig tree that you could climb in it was so big and green with leaves almost the whole year. However I don't live in zone 8---though I think global warming (or natural warming---whatever you want to call it) is trying to put me there.
Here is my 7A climate my brown turkey is one of the hardier figs that are grown and generally make it o.k without extreme protection. None of those burlap cages and blankets and rugs some people have to do. Sometimes we can even get a breba crop---but not always. That's o.k though for me---they are never quite as good as the late summer crop.

Recently I read on line about a man that successfully winters his figs through his zone 5 climate by putting a foot and a half of partial composted manure on top of the root zone come fall. So, I thought, why not try it myself and see if I liked it better or worse than the other way we have always over wintered our figs. By the way---our other way has always been do nothing really. If nothing else I thought it will have all that fertility to help it out this next year. So I put down about 3 inches (in a 4 foot circle) of pure dried sheep manure----courtesy of my dam where there is not grass and raking up the poo is easy. Then my son cleaned out my hay feeding area in my barn for me and I got the rest of my hay/manure to finish off my pile. In the picture---with Maggie my jackie wa wa as she is known here----it doesn't look that tall. It is though and that's after I walked on it to "squoosh" it down.

There are some potential drawbacks to using such a deep mulch of which the top and most important would be creating a habitat for voles and mice. These bad little critters could potential chew on my plant over the winter and possibly kill it. Unfortunately I have both of them but I also have an extremely tenacious, patient cat when it comes to hunting these guys. I will have to keep a good eye out for these little bad un's and make sure my cat is pulling his weight. Since right through that area is where he likes to do his "number 2 job" I would imagine it will be o.k. if I where to guess (which I am).

The second drawback is that it could keep the soil cooler underneath thus slowing the beginning spring growth. This particular drawback might actually work in my favor by keeping my plant from growing to soon and getting burnt by late frosts---like we had this year. I can also choose when to pull back the mulch to allow the soil around the tree to begin warming up, so again---not that much of a detriment in my opinion.

My one tree did well this past year considering and even tried to crop me some figs---but they didn't have time to ripen. It was so small of a tree for so long it just wasn't able to start soon enough in the year to have time to ripen them. I think it was the first to middle of October when I saw them starting---maybe even a bit later. They are still on the tree---sans leaves---but obviously will not finish so no homemade fig newton cookies for me. Or worse---no dried figs for my homemade focaccia with mascarpone cheese.

Come spring hopefully I will pull back that deep mulch, find nice un-chewed limbs down there, and take some cuttings. A whole row of figs is what I desire since really having one tree is like having one blueberry bush----there's just not enough to do much with.

By the way speaking of spring---I received my first seed catalog today. My they are starting soon----kind of like Christmas stuff in October. Tisk Tisk. It came from Pinetree Garden Seeds. I don't think I have ordered from them but there is the link in case anyone is interested. I don't know what they specialize in or if they are predominately organic or what since I haven't had a chance to view the catalog.

Happy Thanksgiving!!