Our plan is to keep it fun while creating plenty of food. I said I refuse to be bullied by vegetables, so whatever we can't eat and don't feel like processing, we'll just give to coworkers, friends, or food banks. Nobody is going to starve if the crops fail, but any fresh food we add to our diets is a bonus. And because there's really no money involved, and there will be plenty for all, I don't think we should have any of the typical co-op "issues." I also think everyone should be self-directed. That means everyone comes and goes as they please (thanks to the co-op combo), and does whatever work suits them.
Because Rick and I are the landowners, we do want to weigh in on decisions that have any kind of permanent effect on the land, but by the same token, we've offered to pay all out-of-pocket costs. I'm really excited about this and think it's going to be great.
So, as of today, the farm is mostly cleared. We hauled off most of the brush, tree prunings, and old rotting lumber. Rick C. came in this weekend with a highlift jack and levered the privet stumps up.
Catherine dug in with tons of weeding around the orchard. Here she proudly points to her pile of destroyed velcro weed.
I pruned the grapes up (although they need more work), and Buddy dug out all the grass clippings from the old compost pile and spread that as mulch around the grapes. So now we had "found" the fenceline. We set up a big metal thingy from CARD to use as the new compost heap.
Part of the old fence was falling down, so Rick C got after it and tore out the old boards, dug new post holes, and cemented in new posts. We are adding a double gate there, between the almond tree and the old red grape. That's what we'll use as the main garden entrance, so folks don't have to go thru Buddy's yard. We used some chainlink gate pieces we had, but we'll cover them with boards to match the fence.
Rick C has this week off, and Rick J has off from Wed. on, so we hope to get that fence finished this week. Rick C had some starts, so he planted the first tomatoes and squash yesterday (Apr. 13). He says you can tell when its warm enough for tomatoes when the bermuda grass starts growing, because bermuda is dormant until the soil temp is 52. I think that's a great thing to know. It's better to go by the seasonal signs rather than calendar dates.
Notice the huge posts by the tomatoes. Rick C has a plan...
My tomato and tomatillo starts are still in the cold frame, and the peppers are still in the light box. I desperately need to transplant the tomatillos. Maybe we can work on that this afternoon. It's windy today, so I'm very glad I got over there yesterday and burned up all the punky wood. It was so crumbled and rotten that it would have been a pain to haul off, but it was still too solid to just till in.
I started small with the fire, but I ended up burning up almost all of both those piles. This picture shows some of the grape structure too. The whole back fence is planted in Thompson seedless grapes, trained up to the top of the fence.
The orchard has a cherry tree, an ancient apricot tree, an apple tree, and two trees that used to be 3 or 4 ways, but that I think are now just plums. Still, that should give us a lot of fruit. The plums, apricots, and cherries have already bloomed and set fruit, and the apple tree is in full bloom now. It was just thinking about blooming at the end of March. And, if nothing else, the orchard makes a fantastic beer garden. Did I mention that we drink as well as work?
You can just see the new rug I bought for the beer garden. We're trying to recycle and reuse as much as possible, but I felt this was a good investment.
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