Wedding Garden Map

This is a visual representation of the progress of the garden to date. The top is the North side, please note the compass rose in the bottom left. The arbor hasn't been constructed yet, it's position is a place holder for right now.

The four wispy looking things on the corners represent the rosemary bushes. The six flowers with the green background represent the gardenia bushes. The four big white flowers represent the azaleas. The two bushes on the right with the large clusters of little white flowers represent the butterfly bushes.

Wedding Garden Border

This is an outdated picture at this point, since so much has changed already this Spring, but it gives you an idea of the area. This is part of the main pasture that you saw in a previous post. The section that has been taken down fairly low to the ground with the weed whacker is about 50'x60'. The sections of really dirty lattice are parallel to the longer 60' sides of what will be the wedding garden. They're held up by PVC pipes that are buried in the ground about a foot and a half. Not cemented, just buried. Not sure how well they'll hold up, but they're really just there to hold back the blackberries this summer. All of the lattice and posts are re-purposed from the rose garden near the front of the property. The garden itself will be 40'x60', but we trimmed down the extra 5' on the longer Northern and Southern edges while we put in the flowering shrubs etc that will become the border of the garden. The corners are marked with posts, and there are black planters on top of them to make them more visible for the picture. The cinder block half way across the far side is marking where the arbor will be placed. There are mounds behind this flatter area that we may flatten out when we put down some clover this Spring, but they may be left through the wedding and flattened out when we have the heavy equipment in to repair the driveway and prepare the site for building our home.

The only bushes in place in this photo are four azaleas. They have white blooms on them already this Spring. Meredithe wanted mainly white flowers for the wedding, so we went with the white azaleas. It was pouring when we put in 12 more bushes this past weekend, so I don't have photos yet, but I think we've planted all of the main perennials that we're going to plant this Spring. The four corners marked by posts in this picture are now home to 4 large rosemary clippings taken from a relatives bush, hopefully they'll take root and thrive. Spaced 10' apart between the rosemary and azaleas are 6 gardenia bushes, Meredithe's favorite. The near border in this photo is now home to two white flowering butterfly bushes, 10' in from each corner. Putting them in during a rainstorm was quite pleasant! It made the dirt easier to move, even though it was heavy. It also kept it cool even though we were out in the open. I'll be sure to post pictures soon so you can see the full layout.

Goji Berries

Goji Berries

This little guy is our first Goji Berry bush. The Goji berry, or Wolfberry, as it is sometimes referred to, is a delicious little berry similar to a cranberry or blueberry in flavor. They have been cultivated in China for centuries, and and are prized for their uses in ancient Chinese medicinal practices. These claims have not been substantiated by modern medicine, but what we do know is that the berries are very high in antioxidants. In clinical trials Wolfberry juice significantly reduced levels of blood sugar, cholesterol and triglycerides in as little as 10 days.

In the US we normally see them in their dried form, but they can be eaten dried, raw, or traditionally they are cooked into soups or teas. Although not native to North America, we selected them for their rich antioxidants and their ability to grow just about anywhere (zones 2-10, although you may want to winter them in a greenhouse in the colder zones). They are a species of boxthorn and are related to potatoes, tomatoes, eggplants and other members of the nightshade family. For this reason Goji berries may not be for everyone since some people are sensitive to nightshades. Also, those on medications such as warfarin or other blood thinners should consult their physician before consuming Goji berries as they may amplify the blood thinning effects, possibly attributable to the antioxidants. I say stop taking the drugs and eat the berries instead, but I'm not a doctor.

The plant naturally grows as long rambling canes, hanging fairly low to, or running along the ground. In cultivation the plants are often staked or trellised. I've also heard that if you successfully intertwine four or five of the strongest canes on a young plant you can train them into a shrub, almost resembling a dwarf tree. I plan on training them up this fan trellis for now with the possibility of weaving the canes in the future.

Update 4/20/2015: Checked on our Goji berry bush this weekend and something thinks that the leaves are delicious! Not sure if it'll survive due to the severe leaf loss, but it may be early enough in the Spring to recover. Guess we'll just have to wait and see...

Paw Paws

Paw Paws

In an effort to move toward a more sustainable future we've begun working our little piece of the world with permaculture design principles in mind. Permaculture is a regenerative, self maintained agricultural system which attempts to model natural ecosystems. Plant and animal species native to our region are preferred, when comparable, to non-native species when deciding which plants and animals we choose to either plant or allow to thrive on our homestead. With this in mind, we have started introducing paw paws into what we hope will become a food forest on the Northern half of our land. The paw paw is a member of the Asimina genus, which is the only member of the Annonaceae family not confined to the tropics. The fruit is a large edible berry 2-6" long and about 2" wide. It looks something like a papaya, and tastes something like a banana or a mango. Since the paw paw is both native to Eastern North America, and high in protein, we thought it would be a beneficial and non intrusive addition to our food forest. We started with two little whips, each only about two feet tall. Since we have a significant deer population we planted them inside tomato cages wrapped in plastic. This should protect the little guys from getting eaten while they're young. The plastic also blocks some sunlight. Since paw paws are an understory tree, too much direct sunlight could be harmful while they're young. The tomato cages are recycled from the garden we're clearing in the front. The plastic was cut from a huge 100'x10' strip that I pulled out of a creek. I have the remainder rolled up and saved for future projects. These two should start bearing fruit in four or five years, but we may add a few more whips next year. The two we have should cross pollinate, but two whips from a different nursery next year could add diversity and improve our chances of consistent harvests.

Not on our land, but what ours will look like in 4-5 years, hopefully...

New growth on the paw paw whip

Clearing the Driveway Trees

 Clearing the Driveway Trees

Here is a closer view of the two trees we cleaned up near the top of the driveway. The top picture is Carley lounging with Butterbean in the shade before we get to work. You can also see some of the brush that has not yet been cleared on the right. In the third picture you can see that we used some of the tall grasses to mulch under the big trees. If you have better eyesight than me you can also see the monstrous stack of tomato cages being held in place with a set of tires. We removed them while slowly clearing the old garden area. I can't see those things in person from two feet away, let alone in these pictures, but there are about 30 of them stacked in the second and third photos. I only whacked one with the machete one time, which I thought was pretty good.

Clearing the Main Pasture

Clearing the Main Pasture

We've slowly but surely been working on clearing the main pasture. It had been used as a garden area by the previous owner, but it hasn't been cleared or maintained for about two years. Eventually, this clearing will become the flower/herb garden on the shadier Northern side of the clearing up the hill from the home site. But before we build the home in the opening we're clearing and leveling a 40' x 60'  in the garden area and planting the border shrubs in order to get married in what will become the garden. Pee-Paw is going to build an arbor for us to stand under at the West end of the garden, in front of the big pine you can see in the third picture. The first two pictures show a before and after of the field from a big day of clearing. If you look for the light pole in both photographs it's easier to figure out what is where. The main difference is that we cleared all of the brush that was standing about 4' tall in the entire clearing. We also removed trees in the strip of blackberries that we plan to keep there, for at least one more year of harvesting. There are plenty of wild blackberry patches all over the property, so we know we'll keep some of them around, but all of them just aren't necessary. Probably about 10' x 30' of blackberries are in that strip you can see more closely on the right in the third picture. We also removed the smaller trees beneath the two large trees on this side of the driveway. Notice how you can see the trunks in the second picture, but not the first picture. The strip of green in front of the light pole in the second picture is the same strip as seen from the closer view in the right of the third picture, looking West at the big pine.

The Turn Around

The Turn Around

This little turn around, that encircles the 5 or so trees in the center, wasn't too overgrown since it's back in the pines a little.  But Pee-Paw (Meredithe's father) stopped by with a battery powered sawzall so we decided to drop all of the low hanging limbs and remove a couple of stumps while we had the tool. It definitely made a big difference in clearance, both on the sides as well as above and below the truck. The foliage visible in the center of the circle is just a brush pile we created from the downed limbs, which will eventually be removed. There's a main turnaround at the top of the driveway, out in the clearing near the front of the property which we had been using more frequently. But now that the weather is warming up (it's already hitting the 80's) having this shady spot to turn around and park the truck in will be awesome! It's also the main hub of the property, so it will eventually be cleaned up and planted, maybe have a fountain or some other cool feature, but just having it opened up is highly beneficial. Think of it like the entryway to the future food forest. There's an old gate on the driveway in an old barbed wire fence line that runs East-West through the center of the property and this is just on the North side of that. There are three main "roads" that branch off of it. The picture was taken from the driveway leading in, facing North. The road to the right heads downhill to the muscadines, the road to the left to another clearing.

Muscadines!

Muscadines Before

Muscadines After

I found the muscadines growing on the NW corner of the property and they were all the way up to the tops of the trees surrounding their little clearing. I learned from the neighbor that they're twenty year old vines. Red muscadines on the West(Left), white on the East(Right). The white ones are definitely Carlos Bronze, which are used mostly for juice, or wine. Not sure about the red. They were originally trellised on wooden 4x4s cemented into the ground. Two sets of three posts each, at ten foot intervals. 5 lines of plastic coated metal clothesline were strung between each post. After twenty years, most of the bottoms of the posts were rotting at the line where they met the concrete.

First, I cut all of the vines higher than 6 feet or so off of the ground so that I could pull everything out of the trees. It was a true workout, and took hours, but it was actually fun. I felt like Tarzan by the end. I just made brush piles of it, everywhere around the clearing, about 30' x 30'. After that I had to make real decisions about which vines to keep and which to prune away with the hand pruners. They were extremely overgrown so there was plenty to work with. I just picked the ones I wanted and aimed for a 4 arm kniffen style trellis. Once they were pruned back I removed the old wires, kicked over the old posts and removed them. I actually laid them out around a portion of the nearby clearing where I am going to allow wild blackberries to continue to take over. Everything outside the 12'x12' is trimmed down. Then I pounded 6' construction stakes next to the poured concrete and recycled the clothesline, but chose only two lines, instead of the previous five, for the 4 arm kniffen. It allows more light into the muscadines, and will be plenty for my needs. I had previously worked on them for about 5 hours, but this day I started at dawn and left about an hour before dusk. It was a major renovation, but shouldn't be so brutal in the coming years. I think at least two of the four of each variety should be productive, the others looked pretty woody and may not be worth saving. I could replace those four vines and have two sets of four set twenty years apart. But lets just see what they do this year the way they are now.

One Red Vine