TIMBERRRR!

The volunteer black walnut that has been a pest to our adopted apple tree and nearby tomatoes is no more. This afternoon Meg, Steveo, and I took the first step towards reclaiming the area around our garden. As renters, a consistent obstacle we have to address is clearing out the neglect of former tenants. We're not sour about it because we know that it is giving us the opportunity to learn what to do and not do when we buy our own property.

As I mentioned in the last post, we want to learn how to care for fruit trees. The lucky adoptee we chose had a black walnut that was entirely too close.



As you can see, the tree wasn't all that big, but even at this size, it commanded a good deal of space well beyond its branches. I'll talk about the bennefits of the black walnut's toxicity in a bit, but first there was some fun to be had with sharp objects.


Steve started chopping!




I was chopping!




Meg was chopping! It was anarchy!




Side note: Black Walnut + Tap Root = A whole lot of whacking


The whole project took about half an hour and already the apple tree looks much happier. Now don't get me wrong, black walnuts are not all bad. However, where this one was located was doing more harm than good. If you do have some black walnuts that aren't too close to your garden they are actually quite beneficial. Just this past weekend on "You Bet Your Garden," Mike McGrath said that a good mixture of their leaves can be an effective suppressive mulch that will keep bamboo or other running plants from spreading all over the place.

Adopt a Tree

We have been given the opportunity to try something pretty cool at El Rancho. I don't know if Meg and I have ever mentioned the fruit trees on our property, but they are in abundance and in very poor condition. The owner of the house and land is very fond of trees and allows them to sprout wherever they may. We agree that the more trees the merrier, but our little orchard is in serious need of some TLC. What we are dealing with is crowding and years of neglected pruning. We want to have fruit-bearing trees at The Future House and avoiding what has happened here is high on our list of concerns. Our mission is to save not all of the trees, but start with one and maybe work from there.

Focusing on only one tree, when there are easily a dozen or more, makes the most sense for one very real reason, which is we have no idea what we are doing. Neither Meg or I have any experience with trees beyond climbing and respectful admiriation. We figured the best approach would be to spend this winter reading our asses off on tree care and then test our knowledge on one tree. This way if something goes terribly wrong the casualties will be minimal. The lucky test subject we adopted is an apple tree (we're not sure what kind) close to the chicken pen and garden.



What this photo shows is a few of the obstacles we must address. The first is the volunteer black walnut positioned between the apple tree and the chickens. The leaves and root system of black walnuts contain a toxin that is bad for apple trees. (A little side note, these toxins are also terrible for tomatoes. The roots of this tree extend to where we planted our tomatoes and it severly cut down our production.) So the first thing we have to do is cut down that damn walnut tree. The next thing we will have to address are the six to eight foot spikes in the middle of the tree. This type of fruit tree should look like a goblet (open in the center). We will have to be careful when we cut these out because we don't want to shock and kill the tree by removing too much at once.

The walnut can be cut down now, but we are going to hold off until early spring before we do any pruning. As these steps unfurl, we will be sure to keep you posted.

Cheers.

mmm, pesto

As I mentioned yesterday, our tomato sauce looked a little lonely in our big, new freezer. Last night I whipped up some basil pesto to keep it company. Also, our basil patch was growing out of control and we needed to use it up before the cold got it. But mostly I wanted a friend for the tomato sauce.

This year, we planted basil around the bell peppers. They're reportedly good companions for each other and though I don't know the reason for that, I do know that we got awesome peppers and basil.


I pulled basil until I'd filled an empty case of beer...


...and dragged it all up to the kitchen. I pulled off all the good, relatively bug-free basil leaves and put them in this gigantic bowl so I could wash them:


I ended up with two bowls full of basil–and there's about twice as much still out in the garden. Looks like we'll be pesto-ing again before the season is out. And yes, in case you're wondering, we do all our food prep on the kitchen floor.

When all the basil leaves were cleaned and dried and scrunched up, we probably had about four cups. To that, I added maybe a cup and a half or two cups of olive oil, a handful of pine nuts, a small head of garlic, about a quarter of a cup of balsamic vinegar, a tiny bit of salt, and a deliciously obscene amount of grated up Romano and Parmesan cheese. I threw everything into the trusty Magic Bullet (of infomercial fame–thanks, Yolie) and zapped it up.

Pesto in progress:


It's pretty thick, because when we cook with it we'll add a little starchy pasta water to thin it out. I ended up with six cups, which I split into six freezer bags. Yum.

Freezing

Since we've been gardening, the idea of eating out of season has become more and more strange. Grocery store tomatoes aren't so great even in the summer, so I really don't want anything to do with an underripe, imported-from-Chile, January tomato. I don't want to know where that tomato came from or what was done to it that made it so pink.

Eventually, we'll be totally self-sufficient with produce from our garden. But if we happen to hit peak oil this winter and can't rely on Wegmans, we could last comfortably for, oh, three weeks. That's better than most people, I suppose. We managed to fill our tiny freezer:


And my parents bought us a bigger one as a wedding gift. We set it up and got it running yesterday, and moved all of our food to it this morning:

It looks so sad and empty. This week I'm going to make as much pesto as I can out of the crop of basil that's holding on in the garden, and we can probably harvest quite a few peppers.

The freezer inventory so far:

• nine bags of tomato soup
• eight bags of zucchini/yellow squash soup
• one big bag of corn
• three big bags of green beans
• ten bags of tomato sauce
• three containers of hot sauce
• two bags of hot peppers

Garlics

Last year we chose a pretty crappy location for our garlic, and most of the bulbs we harvested were small and/or squishy. Gross. Half of it didn't even make it through the winter (despite our efforts to mulch) due to some combination of inadequate sun and the garlic's own lack of hardiness.

This year we annexed the superior upper garden, which is basically filled with pure compost, is in full sun, and has great drainage. We also paid more attention to the garlic we bought, and found varieties that can handle a decently cold and snowy Pennsylvania winter. Our garlic is going to be so awesome.

Steve-o generously tilled the garden for us, so it took practically no time to build two lovely beds.


Nice!

Last Sunday we planted 200 cloves: 50 each of Spanish Roja and Chesnok Red, and 100 of an unnamed hardneck variety we bought at the Emmaus Farmers' Market. Next week, we'll add 50 cloves of Music and 25 Russian Giant, plus some German Extra Hardy, Italian Purple, Bogatyr, Georgia Crystal and more Spanish Roja. Our 350-400 cloves will turn into 2000 cloves by next year, and you can bet we'll be reeking of it.

Way Down Yonder

...in the paw paw patch

It's paw paw season here at the ranch. Did you know that paw paws are the only tropical fruit to have survived the ice age in North America? Or that they're also our largest edible native fruit? Well now you do.

Paw paws grow in clusters, and since the fruit is quite heavy the trees sag under the weight. Between the branches touching the ground and the leaves already beginning to change, the trees look a bit ragged by the end of the season.


The tree on the right has had about enough.

Paw paws used to grow all over the place in the wild, but they're not very common anymore. A lot of people have probably never eaten one. I think they taste sort of like the blandest parts of a banana, an apple, and a mango all mushed together. Due to unfortunate circumstances, I can't smell a paw paw without thinking of a particularly filthy cat. However, most people who try paw paws really love them.


Kelly has enough paw paws to last through halftime.

Where the Time Goes

Okay, okay, I know that I have been making excuses about time and how we should write more, but damn if we're not wicked busy. We both started new jobs receintly, which is going fantastic, and getting acclimated to our new schedules is taking some time. So that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Although our schedules have been shuffled around, we have remained active in the garden. We planted our fall crops, which were then consumed by deer, and built mini hoop houses for the beds so the crops will last beyond the first frost. The chickens are taking to their new pen, but their egg production has ceased. We can't figure out what their problem is, but the moment we do, we'll be sure to let you know a month later. [Writer's Block]

The flowers in our garden are still blooming. I think they may be the only flowers that are doing well in our area. There is no other way to describe it without photos, so imagine a bunch of brown and autumn bent yards broken by a mysteriously colorful garden tucked on the otherside of a diseased orchard. I noticed this last week when I went in the garden to follow a humming bird that was traficing between some morning glories and cardinal climbers. When I located its main area of activity, I soon realized that there were quite a few more birds enjoying our flowers. I swear to you that when I stood up it was like I was swimming in a cloud of little birds. It was amazing. The heat is continuing to stick, so hopefully with the help of our water barrels, we can continue to enjoy our little aviary just a bit longer.