Posted on

Berry Bonanza

The berries are growing. There is no doubt about that. This year we have even more varieties of berries growing.

Aronia berries (chokeberry) have even more anti oxidents than blueberries especially the black chokeberries. We have our first aronia berries on the farm and they are growing nicely. Can’t wait to try some later in the summer.

Black Chokeberries (aronia) forming

Our blueberries are still young but they are growing quickly. Hopefully we’ll have enough to enjoy and share

The raspberry bushes have really surpised us with how quickly they are growing.

The blackberries are loving the warm weather and really growing quickly. We have reduced the amount of blackberries on the farm due to how often they need to be picked. It is so nice to have off-the-vine blackberries when we are working on the farm in the summer, so we have kept a few bushes.

The mulberry trees are really getting tall. It is nice seeing young berries on them. Mulberries are very different than all other berries in how they taste, how we pick them and how the berries form on the limb of the trees

Mulberries are coming
Posted on

Pruning on the Farm and More Bees

What beautiful weather this weekend. We’ve had several Saturdays in a row where the weather was just gorgeous. This weather definitely makes for a relaxing day.

Successful Elderberry Pruning Class

Thanks to everyone that came to our elderberry pruning and planting class. We had a wonderful time. We sent many of the elderberry cuttings to WNC to help with stream bank retention for areas damaged by the hurricane.

Expanded Apiary

New home for the bees

Moving the bees to the back field gives us room to expand the number of hives. We hope to have 10 hives in place for this year. I’ve been surprised by the number for people that want local honey. The bees are a great example of function stacking. The bees pollinate the trees and bushes while producing honey

Blueberries Needed Pruning

These blueberry plants are two years old. We have 22 blueberry plants on the farm. 20 on the HugelKultur mound and 2 in the back field (as a test planting). They were not pruned when they were originally planted 2 years ago. This was their very first pruning, we did leave a few cross branches but they weren’t rubbing on other branches so we chose to leave them for this year. Next year they will be pruned away. We did have a small bowl of blueberries last year but this year we are expecting bigger and better harvest. Here are the before and after photos

Blueberry plant needing to be pruned