north carolina

Posted on May 7, 2023May 26, 2023 by admin — Leave a comment

State of the Farm and Pictures from This Week

This has been a busy week on the farm. We try to give a semi-annual update that talks about what is going on at the farm in detail. We’ve also been working this week on our potatoes, developing the back field and planting a few ornamental plants.

I had a few days on the farm this week to ponder the future plans for the farm. I’m taking a class with IDEO on Insights for Innovation. The class project revolves around the farm so it was good having time to ponder the future plans for the farm while working in the field.

Here are some pictures from this week

Posted on May 1, 2023 by admin

Interview with Niti Bali – Food Church founder

I’m taking a class called “Insights for Innovation” with IDEO. Part of that class is doing interviews for developing empathy and better understanding customers. Niti was the perfect person to interview to better understand the farm-to-fork community. I learned a lot in the interview and hope you do too.

Posted on April 16, 2023April 16, 2023 by admin

Mulch, Mulch, Mulch and Soggy Potatoes

The last few weeks have brought us rain every week. We had hoped to start planting this week, but it was just to wet to prep the beds for the winter squash, pollinators and summer cover crops. Instead we worked on planting olive trees and a Yaupon holly tree. We also trimmed the grass in the blackberry beds and put down mulch in part of the blackberry beds. We also started putting mulch around the mulberry trees and a few of the elderberry bushes in the food forest area.

We planted comfrey around the trees and bushes in the food forest area as we put the woodchip mulch down. It will take several work days to put all the mulch down and plant comfrey, but we are off to good start.

The garlic is putting out scapes. Those are great for cooking. The taste is similar to a green onion.

The bees are staying busy. We hope to have our first harvest of honey in June.

The blackberries in this area are ready for summer

Potatoes are coming up in some areas, but not in others. Having a wet spring can be difficult with potatoes

The garlic is putting out scapes. The scapes were cut and will end up in dinner

Posted on April 1, 2023April 1, 2023 by admin

Planting Hazel Trees and Moving Pine Logs

We planted our first hazel trees. This is a test planting to see how they do. We should have our first nuts from the hazel trees in 2-3 years, if all goes well.

We also pulled up drip feed lines so we can trim and to make it easier to cut the grass. Drip irrigation is great, but having lines everywhere does make for some management challenges when it comes to cutting grass and keeping everything looking nice and well managed.

We also had a few logs to move from a dead pine tree that we cut. Its been too wet to move the logs until now. It is nice to get them out of the way so I can mow that area.

The spring flowers are blooming and the bees are busy.

We’ve learned that young seedlings are often enough reason for a deer to want inside the anti-deer fence area, so we put cages around them.

It was a nice way to spend a Friday afternoon.

Posted on March 26, 2023 by admin

Planting Potatoes – Garlic is Growing Nicely

The potatoes are in the ground. Hopefully they really take off. The garlic looks great.

Posted on March 12, 2023 by admin

Planting a Pecan Tree and Flying a Kite

We planted the 3rd pecan tree, spread pine straw and took some time to enjoy the pleasure of flying a kite in the back field. What a nice day. Warm and sunny.

Posted on February 21, 2023February 21, 2023 by admin

Blueberries Go In! Bees Go In!

Since we started the farm, one of the things I’m looked forward to is planting blueberries. We had a couple of delays putting them in, but now they are finally installed.

The picture doesn’t show the blueberry plants amidst the pine stray, but they are there!

Experiment of using the hugelkultur mound for blueberries

My wife Connie, came up with a wonderful idea. She suggested that we plant blueberries in the Hugelkultur mound. This gives the blueberries a wonderfully sunny place that is very well drained. The hugelkultur mound is approximately 85 feet long x 30 feet wide. It is now home to 20 blueberry plans (all rabbiteye), raspberries and goji berries. This area has easy access to drip irrigation and is inside the anti-deer fence. We planted a mixture of blueberries, including Columbus, IRA, Yadkin and Tifblue varieties. The raspberries are Fall Gold from Rabbit Ridge Nursery in Coates, NC. The raspberries are acclimated to this area, so we hope they will do well. We still need to put up the trellis for the raspberries and the goji berries.

Bees on the Farm, means Honey will be Available Later in the Year

We are excited to have bees on the property. We have partnered with a local beekeeper so we can offer honey from our farm later in the year. I’ll post a blog entry when the honey is available. The bees will also help pollinate our berries and crops.

We also plan to bees on your place in the mountains again this summer (www.troublesomegap.com) so we should have sourwood honey available as well.

The flowers are coming up on the farm, so spring isn’t that far away.

Posted on October 30, 2022 by admin

Mowing Grass and Enjoying a Slower Pace on the Farm

It was relaxing putting lime on the back field and getting it mowed. It is ready for winter. Nice to be able to take a break from a very busy summer growing season.