Blueberry Patch Enclosure

Two things happened this past week that have been hopes and on the table for discussion for some time.  

1.  We planted blueberry bushes 6 years ago when we first moved into our house.  The enclosures started out as individual for each plant.  But then they grew out of them each year.  So some of the enclosures got bigger.  Last year, I convinced the Laird to move some of the plants into the mostly formed 2 rows and build a row enclosure.  And while it looked a bit better to have 2 long row enclosures, it did not help the "pleasure of picking berries" factor.  We would have to reach over or under the fence and get all tangled up in netting.  And the kids really couldn't do either of those things.  So while the formed enclosures prevented the kids and every other creature from eating all the berries... it made for very difficult picking.  For a few years I have suggested making a fenced blueberry patch- to keep the deer and birds out, but allow for people to go inside to pick berries.  The hesitation has always been having a large structure in the middle of the yard, blocking the view... and the amount of mulch it would take to cover the entire area... and worry that it would become a weed patch (like our garden).  And up until last week, that stance has stood quite firm.  But I think he just got tired of making and fixing the enclosures.every.single.spring!  And we figured out that we could leave the grass path down the middle, and if we made a gate wide enough, we could just ride the mower down the center and keep things tidy.

2.  A couple years ago, I got the itch to have a green house.  One of those beautiful ones built out of an eclectic collection of old windows.  You know what I am talking about... think pinterest.  The Laird suggested that we could pick up a kit from Lowes for much cheaper.  I responded that cheap isn't aesthetically appealing, and if it's going to be in our yard, we might as well put some effort and creativity into it.  Like we did for our chicken coop- something we are quite proud of.  So I found a seller on craigslist, and we went and picked up about 8 or 9 windows.  At some point, we abandoned our initial idea of building the green house against the house.   And those said windows have been sitting in our garage for at least 2 years now.  And the discussion turned towards whether or not it was really worth the time and money, and the fact that we no longer liked the initial plan... that if we were to build a free standing green house, we were going to need to find a bunch more windows, for cheap.  Well it turned out that some friends had all the windows replaced and were willing to give us the windows.  We checked them out and were interested.  But with other projects and goals, we never acted upon them.  The greenhouse goal did not seem as important- it just felt like a whole lot of work and money.  Up until last week.

                                                                                   Well last week, the tides changed.  Somehow the Laird came around to both ideas- he picked up the windows,  and got materials for the blueberry enclosure.  And here we are.  This weekend we got that blueberry enclosure started and finished!!  It feels amazing to start and finish a project.  And I spent a good amount of time working out a plan for the walls of our proposed green house, and laying out some ideas.  The Laird started siting the location and figuring out what we needed to do to get the location ready.  But that is a much larger project and we have a few other smaller and more pressing tasks to accomplish before we dive into this green house.  But the hope is that we can start and finish by the end of the summer, so that this time next year we will be starting our seeds in our green house.

It's really amazing to work together on projects we are both excited about.  I am not sure how or why the Laird finally came around, because I had become content with not doing either.  Less work for sure.  But I am excited to see some of these hopes being realized.  

  

HoneyBees- week 2 update & 1st Hive Inspection

Memorial Day marked 2 weeks since we welcomed our swarm to the Top Bar Hive at Redwoodshire.  We've been watching them daily through our observation window, and they have been very busy.  At day 12, we did our first hive inspection.  Unfortunately we only took a couple photos, because we were focused on inspecting the comb- which was territory completely unknown to us.  And it seems as though we probably made a few mistakes in the process- though nothing hugely detrimental.  The inspection went well and was so fascinating.  We were blindly going about it, as we noted what we saw, but were not entirely sure what everything we observed was.
Check it out:  The dark golden filled cells are stores of pollen.  The light cells are filled with a clear liquid, or empty.
DAY 12- Hive Inspection

And the Laird spotted the QUEEN!!  He's been talking about needing to find the queen, to which I always responded with cynicism because there are thousands of bees in the hive.  But sure enough he spotted her-- which made us both quite pleased.  We have a queen!  I think we spotted some eggs within the empty cells, though we are not entirely sure.  On our next inspection, hopefully we will spot some larvae or capped brood cells.  

DAY 15:  Observation- Spotted the queen through the observation window- though I didn't have my camera to take photos.  Check out the bee entering the hive-- notice the pollen filled back legs!  I can't believe I got such a cool photo.  The bees are quite active today.

There are 9 good sized bars of comb visible.  I spotted 2 smaller combs started on bars 10 & 11.  About 1/3 the length of the hive is filled with comb- as our TBH can fit 30 top bars.  

  

In other news, our Queen Anne Golden Raspberries survived the transplant and have sprouted leaves.  Of them, 9 out of 11 plants are thriving!  The red raspberry row is growing like crazy, and is covered with blossoms and berries.  And the blueberry blossoms have started becoming berries as well.  It's our third season, and it's going to be the best one yet!

News in chickens:  One of our little Amerucana chicks, Belle appears to be sick with Wry Neck.  We're researching in on the internet and doing our best to remedy her condition-isolation from other chicks,  baby vitamins & tuna in water.  She seems to be doing slightly better, but is still under the weather.  Queen Mother & Diana have been enjoying their days free ranging in the yard, while the 4 little Marans are getting used to the coop.  We finally finished securing the run below the coop, and they are utilizing that as well.  The Laird is trying so hard to get that garden planted, but with re-fencing the garden, finishing up the chicken coop, bee business, yard clean up....  he's a bit behind.  The garden is taking a toll due to all the other projects before us.  Hopefully this weekend we will get everything in and planted.

This is all the news fit to print at Redwoodshire.  Bees, chickens and berries.  

The Lusty Month of May- Chickens, Bees & Berries

So much has happened in the past 2 weeks!  We have added some ladies to our flock of chickens. The Laird's friend gave us 2 of his Copper Maran laying hens, plus 4 month old chicks.  Our hens are named, The Queen Mother & Diana.  Within the first 24 hours of having them at Redwoodshire we had 2 different escaping events- but thankfully they both returned and we are wiser in the ways of these chickens skills.

We have a double brooder set up in the dining room.  The newest princesses (on the right) are: Mulan, Pocahontas, Jasmine & Tiana.  When the weather warms up a bit, the Copper Marans (right) will head out to join Queen Mother & diana in the coop.  The little ones will head out shortly after that.  We still have to secure the chicken run, shingle the roof, & install the windows.

 Our original chicks are growing so quickly.  Their feathers are so beautiful!  We currently have 4 different breeds of chickens- and because the Americanas can lay different colors, we may have 4 different color eggs in our collections.  We will have to wait until they start laying to see what color eggs Cinderella & Belle will produce.  The other chickens will range from dark chocolate brown, to light brown.

   

Here are some blossoms on a blueberry bush.  It's the 3rd season for these blueberries and it looks like it's going to be an amazing year.  Both baby apple trees are slowly but surely growing and getting better looking with each passing year.  

It is swarm season, and the Laird's friend also caught us a swarm from one of his hives.  Two weeks ago, his bees swarmed for the first time this season.  Despite his best efforts to catch them for us, they swarmed and found one of this other hives that was empty because the hive didn't make it through winter.  Yesterday they swarmed again (multiple times) and he was able to capture them in this box.

The Laird brought them home, and together we donned our veils and gloves and a good flashlight and headed for the hive.  Both anxious to remove the lid and get to work- we set to work.  I lifted the lid.  The Laird flipped the box, and banged the bees into the hive.  Then we quickly replaced the top bars.  The darkness made it difficult to see what we were doing, but we're hoping the queen made it into the hive.  There are a number of bees still lingering in the nuc box.  Now we just watch and wait, and then watch some more.  And take a few photos too! Really looking forward to the awesome opportunities that bees and chickens will lend towards my photography.

Our Top Bar Hive has a sweet observation window.  We are able to open it up and see what they are up to.  Day 1- the bees are mostly  clustered in the corner & near one entrance.  Some bees are still clustered on the nuc box.  There is some activity outside of the hive.

Things are very exciting here at Redwoodshire.  We read lots of books about bees and chickens over winter, but have had to get the books back out to refresh our memory.  In addition to the livestock, we've been harvesting first fruits of rhubarb & asparagus.  We added 10 Queen Anne Golden Raspberries to our 3 year old Red raspberry row.  Not sure what this first year will amount to, but I have heard that the Golden Raspberries are amazing.   We are very grateful for the help we have had from friends who are helping us enter new territory of homesteading (chickens & bees).  I hope we can be those kind of friends to eager learners in the future, once we have skills to offer.

The hardy cold weather crops- Peas & Lettuce

An update from the Garden at Redwoodshire.  We are daily amazed at what a tiny little seed can produce.  You simply plant the seed, water it, and it does what it was created to do.  

The PEAS-  The peas are growing strong and will be ready for picking in a matter of days.  Lady genevieve enjoyed a pea pod straight off the plant- which is exciting since she's going through a bit of a picky eating phase.    One day this past week, we noticed a bunch of white flowers on our pea plants.  Then all of a sudden there were peas!  With such small fruit, it doesn't take long for them to appear and then be ready to pick.  The peas are another seed that can withstand the cold temperatures and be planted as early as 6 weeks before the last frost.  This minor detail we didn't know, so we got a bit of a late start. 

Can you spot the little green peas growing out of the bottom of the white flowers?

THE LETTUCE patch-  We planted 3 different varieties of lettuce:  Tom Thumb (left), Salad greens (right), & mesclun (not pictured).  Lettuce are another plant that can be planted by seed before the last frost.  They actually do best when they are planted early, when the days are cool and the nights are cold.  Lettuce doesn't really like the "hot" hot of summer.  Though this is the first time the Laird has ever grown lettuce himself, his experiences with it as a kid made quite an impression on him- he hates growing lettuce.  But since we were given a nice variety of lettuce seeds, he decided to give it a try.  He decided that he really likes the "Tom Thumb" variety.  Our Mesclun mix was eaten by bugs and then flowered quickly- so we never got to eat of it.  The Salad greens mix grew well too.  We've enjoyed a number of salads from this little patch of lettuce!  If we grow lettuce again next season, Tom Thumb wins a spot in our garden- no bugs and no problems!

Doesn't this look amazingly delicious?  

The BLUEBERRIES-  The Blueberries are netted and growing nice and plump!  So far we have managed to protect our berries form the birds with a temporary Tepee netting system.  In the future, we will have to decide how to protect the 6 plants (possibly more) we have in our patch.  For now, we only have 1 plant old enough to bear fruit so the tepee works for this season.

Today is the longest day of the year- enjoy every minute of it!  Happy longest day of the year!

G.Y.O. Blueberries- Grow Your Own

Blueberries!  We love blueberries here at Redwoodshire, and getting our plants in the ground was high on the priority list when closed on the house last Fall.  We ordered a few baby plants online through Gurneys, and bought 2 more established plants from our neighborhood nursery, Gro-Moore Farm.  We have 3 Bluecrop & 3 Jersey plants.  Once the plants arrive in the mail, we had to decide where to start our Blueberry patch.  Blueberries need acidic soil to thrive.  Our area sits on top of limestone, thus making the soil very basic.  Though not ideal for blueberries, it is still possible to grow them with care and soil amendment.

Mid-May blueberries

We purchased a few soil pH kits at Gro-Moore Farm Market and tested the soil in our garden, the area where for the raspberry row, and the area we'd decided to start our blueberry patch.  We decided to plant our blueberries in the space where the giant pine trees used to stand (the same pine trees that the Laird felled in the fall- see post about Felling Trees).  Decomposed pine needles naturally make the soil more acidic, therefore it was the perfect place to plant those blueberries.  A hundred years of decomposed pine needles right under our feet.  After testing the soil their, the pH was only 1 point more acidic than in the garden, but still on the outer range of idea for blueberries.  This means we still have to apply sulfur/ acid to maintain the right pH for blueberries to thrive.

As with other fruit bearing plants & tress, it is important to have more than one plant of a kind for cross pollination of the flowers to occur.  As previously mentioned, we have the Bluecrop and Jersey blueberry varieties. We planted our blueberries in

the fall, and they seem to be thriving.  Unfortunately,  toward the end of winter the deer got to one of our more established plants and nibbled it down to sticks.  It is currently recovering from that trauma.  Our largest plant survived the deer and bitter winter and currently has flowers becoming blueberries.  With only 1 flowering blueberry bush, we did not anticipate fruit due to the lack of cross pollination.  Much to our surprise, those flowers are becoming blueberries!  It is recommended that you pinch the flowers off new plants for the first 2 years, in order to allow the plant to focus it's energy on plant growth rather than bearing fruit.  Though this is difficult to do, the plants will have a higher yield in years to come.  Our large plant is well established and at least a few years old, so we allowed it to fruit.  None of the other plants were old enough to produce flowers, therefore we'll be pinching flowers from those plants for the next few years.  Such self control, but it will be well worth it.

There are so many things to do with blueberries- eat them off the bush, bake with them, make jam, freeze them for smoothies... flavor my homemade Kefir!  It is going to take a few years of establishment before we have any significant yield of fruit, so in the meantime we need to figure out how to protect our plants from the deer and birds.  We also have to learn the process of pruning blueberry bushes.  All for another day... and another post.

Early June Blueberries

Mmmmm blueberries!  Someday hopefully we'll have a bunch to enjoy every day!  And maybe even enough to share with those we love too.  We may have to get a few more plants!