Monthly Archives: October 2010

planting fruit trees!

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So, last weekend we started building an orchard!  You’ve gotta start somewhere, so we began planting our new fruit trees in the same section of the farm that’s already home to an older cherry and apple tree.  It’s the part of the farm that receives the most direct south-facing sunlight and is close to the house without encroaching too much on the part of the yard that needs to stay a ‘yard’ for the kids and the farmyard volleyball players.

With the help of Julie’s dad (we’ll call him Captain) and brother Ben, we tested the ph level of the soil (which was pretty much exactly what we needed it to be – phew!), dug holes, added gravel for drainage, followed by a mix of compost and soil to create a rich, healthy home for our new trees. 

We got three of our trees planted:  our William’s Pride apple tree, our Fantasia nectarine tree and our Green Gage plum tree.  According to the helpful Fruit Tree guide we picked up at Cedar Rim Nursery, we know the following about our orchard starters:

William’s Pride Apple:  A dwarf apple tree that is dark red, disease resistant, slightly sweet, good fresh and cooking apple.  It does not require a polinizer and has an early fruiting and blooming time.

Fantasia Nectarine:  A semi-dwarf tree that produces bright yellow fruit with heavy red blush, vigorous and productive and certified virus free.  It does not need a polinizer and has a late fruiting time.

Green Gage Plum:  Also a dwarf tree that grows greenish yellow fruit with amber flesh.  Sweet tasting.  Also does not need a polinizer and has a mid fruiting time.

We also bought, but have not yet planted a Desert King Fig tree (yellowish-freen fruit with delectably sweet strawberry colored flesh, vigorous and reliable, grows 10-25′) and two female fuzzy green kiwi vines (we’re looking for a male to polinate them).

The Captain, who has done the whole sustainable farming thing himself, had some great advice for us.  First of all, we were planning on surrounding the base of our trees with cedar woodchips and he warned us that cedar pulls nitrogen out of the soil which would negatively impact our trees (they need nitrogen!).  He also suggested that we talk to local farmers to find out what kinds of fruit trees they’ve had success with in the area.  As fun as it is to collect interesting fruit trees, if they don’t live and flourish well in our climate and soil, there’s not a lot of point in investing time and money and land space in them.  Good point!  We really would have been at a disadvantage if the Captain had not been there to help us get our fruit trees planted.  Indication that we still have A LOT to learn!  All part of the process – we learn as we go :)

Special thanks to the Captain and Ben for the help! 

Okay, little fruit trees – grow, grow, grow! 

a real poopy situation

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This isn’t going to be about animal poop or even composting toilet poop.  It’s all about baby poop.  Because when you live on a farm with multiple families, including babies, baby poop becomes part of your life.  And given how extreme this was, we thought this poop story was blog-worthy.  Forgive us.

A couple weeks ago, Chris, Julie, Matt C and I were hanging out in their living room.  Baby Kai had recently been put down for his nap and we were enjoying some baby-free hang-out time.  Shortly after going down for his nap, Kai started crying.  We left him presuming it was his usual ‘I don’t want to nap, but I’m going to fall asleep in 5 minutes’ cry.  However, when the crying lasted longer than normal, Julie decided to go and see what was going on.  Within seconds of opening his nursery door, we heard her shout, ‘HELP!  I NEED HELP PEOPLE!’.  We rushed over and were met with a WALL OF STINK – the kind that makes you reel backwards when it hits you.  Poor Kai was standing up in his crib, screaming his eyes out, absolutely COVERED in his own poo.  Somehow, despite his diaper still being on, his poo was EVERYWHERE – the crib, the floor, the wall and all over him.  It was kind of insane.  And so was the clean up. 

Apparently, there’s an infamous poo story attached to every kid and we think this may be Kai’s.  Crappy (pun intended) photos attached :)

checking out the local nurseries

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The farm girls spent some time exploring local nurseries this weekend, looking for great deals on fruit trees, shrubs and seeds.  We LOVE nurseries – especially beautiful ones!  Farm girls in a nursery are like kids in a candy shop – oohing and aahing over everything and wishing we could buy up all the beautiful trees and flowering plants. 

We checked out two nurseries:  Triple Tree Nurseryland in Maple Ridge and Cedar Rim Nursery in Langley.  Triple Tree Nurseryland is BEAUTIFUL.  It’s very thoughtfully groomed with impressive displays of well-manicured plants and a pond that holds the biggest coy fish I’ve ever seen.  All of the photos above were taken at Triple Tree. 

Although we bought our kiwi vines, some bulbs and a few small plants from Triple Tree, we made most of our big purchases at Cedar Rim Nursery.  Cedar Rim Nursery is located in Langley and it is HUGE.  It’s a wholesale nursery which means that other nurseries go to Cedar Rim to buy their stock.  It’s pretty fun to explore Cedar Rim – you need to use a map to navigate yourself around and find what you’re looking for because the place is so big.  I think we spent 3 hours there picking out our fruit trees, herbs, garlic and shrubs.  They have some big sales on right now:  buy 2 fruit trees, get the 3rd free, a 50% off coupon that each customer can use on one item that costs up to $150, plus 5% off your entire bill if you sign up to be a member (free).  Needless to say, we took advantage of the deals and bought ourselves a nectarine tree, apple tree, fig tree, plum tree, as well as other small plants.  The nursery grampa (at least that’s what I think I heard him referred to as), a white haired British gentleman in khakis, helped us gather up all of our purchases.

The staff at both nurseries were really helpful and encouraging, giving us great advice and promoting other nurseries if we couldn’t find what we were looking for at theirs (always a nice touch).  It was nice to get out this weekend to do this kind of shopping and exploring.  Both nurseries are places that I’ll definitely return to – to both purchase things and to just wander around to get inspired and learn new plant information.  I recommend a visit to both if you’ve never been!