It actually was a good day, regardless of having no power, since I got a lot done outside! The funny thing is that I distintly remember posting somewhere on here about kinda missing the "old" days, when we first moved out here and didn't have power. It was kind of a "watch what you wish for" moment!
It was another cool weather day (lower 80's and mostly overcast), so nothing was accomplished inside but I whooped it on the brush pile and maybe have two wheel barrowfuls left to tackle later today!
The more I looked at the ground that the pile had been scovering up, the better I liked it and we'll be sliding the Chick-n-Barn up to this area on docs' next 3 days off. The spot where it is sitting now, there's a small crater located under the barn and something is living under it as a found a small hole today when I got the jungle cut down enough to see it. :/
Got more of the garden paths worked on with cardboard and sawdust mulch and just love it! Cheyenne does too and she uses the pathways as a puppy racetrack...it's a riot to watch! Well, it was, until she started racing around in the asparagus bed. Took some of my scrap pieces of chicken wire and a wire cage and have her blocked out of it for now.
While working in the garden, I decided to take the orchard fence to yet another level and will be removing a section of the garden fence so that it will open up the orchard area to the garden. The plan is that I'll be able to run trees/bushes south to north which will allow me to run the soaker hoses in the same direction for watering as opposed to snaking the hoses from tree to tree and watering the walkway, which is a huge waste of water.
While clearing the jungle to the C-n-B, I found what I suspect is a Persimmon sapling. There's another one, just across the way from it near the orchard fence, too!
Our Riesentraube tomato plants and Georgia Jet Sweet Tater vines:
And lastly, a pic of the wild Butterfly Pea Vine that is also growing in the above bed.
Love the photos! The pathways and gardens look great, and I love your ingenuity in constructing something to keep the puppy races out of your asparagus!
Dawn, I can't tell if that's a persimmon or not. Do you have any mature trees in the area? If not, and you want to try and grow them, LMK. I know where there's several trees growing and can always get the seeds-even if I miss out on the fruit. Just remember, you need at least 2 trees to get fruit. Persimmon is one of the few trees that have both males and females. So, if you have a male and no female, you won't get any fruit, and if you have a female and no male, no fruit.
There are a lot of Persimmons in this area and my aunts' farm is loaded with them. We'll be foraging the fruits at her place as soon as they're ripe. We can't get over how loaded the trees are this year despite the drought! I also have some seedling that I started from the fruits last year.
Let me know if you'd like some Meyer Lemon tree seeds. The wild tree I found has been growing for years and we're both in zone 7 so they should grow well for you!
Well, lunch break is over so I'm going to go finish up the last of the brush pile and start getting the section of fence down.
I'd love to try it! Even if I couldn't get it to grow outside, I'm sure I could grow it inside. I'll be working on my orchard this fall (finally!), so I should hopefully have a place to put it. I had been going to put in a persimmon, but w/all the trees I've found this year growing at the nature center, I'm hoping I can get some. Plus, I might just bring home some of the seeds and try to get them to grow, then plant them in the woods next to me.
We'll be going by the lemon tree tomorrow on the way to moms so I'll get some fresh fruits. Want to do some rubber-necking on that back road to see if we can see the wildfire damage from Wednesday.
Well, I was good today...
The brush pile is no more and I made it rain...not once, but twice!
I no sooner started breaking up branches and the sky gets dark off to the northeast, the wind starts blowing like crazy and I decided to just keep on cleaning up and dared it to rain on my demolition project. (<insert chest thumping smiley here) Got a light, 20 minute soaker and it dropped the temp from 90F down to the low 70's in no time flat!
I finished up removal of the brush pile and decide to feed and water the chicks real quick. Got everything set for them, decide to work on tearing down the fence section and the sky starts getting dark again. So I grab the camera and walk it up to the camper, get back to the fence to start working on getting the chicken wire off of the rails and kaboom! Thundercap right on top of us! Grab up all the tools, toss them in the wheel barrow and fastly walk back up to the camper. Get back up here just in time for a flash of lightning and then the bottom drops out of the bucket for a few minutes and tones down to a nice 30 minute soaking rain.
Took the thunder and lightning as a sign that I just needed to keep working on the C-n-B area for the time being! So I broke out the lops and conquered a bunch of blackberry brambles until the skeeters decided I was on their dinner menu! Lo and behold, I only have a small area of brambles to get through until I have the C-n-B completely free of the jungle!
The poke "trees" are still standing as our Pileated Woodpecker has been dining on the berries every day, several times a day and I'm trying to get a pic of it (how's that for an excuse? ).
Some critters' entrance way:
The "crater" under the Barn:
Burn, brambles burn and the last of the brush pile aka kindling:
The break in the heat has been fantastic as I love being outdoors. I'm bound to be the worlds worst housekeeper because of it, too!
I'll be taking some Persimmon leaf pix tomorrow, from maturer trees, in hopes of positively IDing my two suspects. The PawPaw seeds never did anything this year but I'm still caring for the pot that they're in in hopes of seeing life next year. Due to the heatwave, mom and I still haven't made it back up to the woods to check on her suspect PawPaw, either. My Chinquapin seedlings didn't make it through the heat either so I'll be attempting them again this year, too!