Tuesday, May 28, 2013

The Fruits Of Our Labor


We work hard daily on this farmstead and this time of year it becomes evident with the fruit trees, vines and brambles. Strawberries ripen on the plants sweet and red. 


Small, tiny, green clusters of new grapes hang on the vine in the early morning dew



Wild black mulberries hang on the trees in the ditches and fence rows around the farmstead.


Clusters of young immature apples thrive on the three apple trees scattered throughout the property


Peaches cling tenaciously to the limbs of the blood red peach trees. These trees have survived last years' drought, May snow storms, high winds, late frosts and torrential rains of late. What will the future bring? Will they provide a harvest this fall? Only time will tell. But for now they are loaded!


The rhubarb has taken a beating of late but with much of it already in the freezer it has done it's job for the year. Just thinned, newly fertilized and mulched it can now concentrate on growing the rest of the year without being harvested.  


The blackberries are lush with all the recent rains and are just starting to bloom. The promise of a heavy crop looks good. It has had a good addition of rabbit manure around it's roots and been weeded and mulched for the year. Now it is just a matter of keeping it watered well and tying up the runners to keep them off the ground. 


And the new raspberry additions seem to be flourishing. O Wise one tilled a bed full of rotten straw, goat manure and compost to make a rich bed for them. Once planted they were mulched down well and have enjoyed the heavy rains of late. I am new to growing raspberries but will give it my best. I think we are off to a good start and appreciate my neighbor sharing these with me so much! 


And last but not least the new strawberry plants planted just a few short weeks ago and then snowed on the next week are coming out. I lost a few but they will fill in with time I hope.

So as you see with just 3 apple trees, 4 peach trees, 2 plum trees, 2 crabapple trees and the wild mulberry and cherry trees tucked here and there along with 6 grape vines, 2 blackberry vines, 150 or so strawberry plants, a half dozen rhubarb crowns and a dozen or so raspberry plants we are able to keep ourselves with enough fruit canned and frozen to last us through the year. This provided plenty of applesauce, pie filling of all sorts and canned fruit, jams, jellies and juices  to satisfy our sweet needs and then some left over for me to experiment with my wine making.   

Some years we get a bumper crop of one fruit and some years the other but always something! And ALWAYS a blessing.

What fruit do you grow?


Blessings from The Holler 

The Canned Quilter

7 comments:

  1. Wow ~ I'm jealous of your nice growing season. I wish we could grow peaches. Here in northern Wisconsin we are just beginning our season. The blossoms on the apple trees are just starting to come on. My rhubarb is just poking out of the ground.

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  2. I was just saying to my hubby that I wish we had some apple trees, strawberry and blueberry bushes. Unfortunately we don't have any fruit growing on our homestead. Maybe we should start some.

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  3. Jealous! It all looks great, especially those trees. We are hoping to get some fruit trees planted this fall. I'm looking at pears, peaches & plums. Also researching if any apply will grow in our region, doubtful but still looking.

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  4. I've got rhubarb in. My goal for this year is to get a strawberry bed. We will see.

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  5. Beautiful fruit.. I sure wish I had the land here in Ohio that I had in Texas to grow everything to my hearts content.. but I dont.. sigh.. but.. on my tiny little postage stamp of a place in town, I have rhubarb, strawberries, some wild black berries, 3 blueberry bushes and last year I planted a Chicago Hardy Fig!! As of right now, there are 3 figs on that baby and Im sure there will be more on new wood soon!! Im tickled pink about those figs! Who would have ever thought you could grow figs in Ohio? ;) The minute I heard about them, I knew I'd be giving it a shot.

    Its not a lot but its more than I had before. ;) I keep trying to figure out how to get more & more fruit & food into my little lot.. If I had my way, I'd plant my entire yard in garden.. haha.. M'honey just isnt going for it. ;)

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  6. Our fruit trees here in northern Illinois look about the same as yours. Its always so exciting to see the fruit starting to set. I wanted to get some raspberries in this spring, but so far it hasn't happened. I try to can or freeze as much of our fruit as possible too!

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  7. beautiful photos! we first moved here and retired about 10 years ago-we had planted a fruit orchard back then-and we such horrible weather from ice storms to early spring frosts-that we lost our young orchard-sigh so I have nothing growing for fruit except for the wild fruits out in the woods. we have had so much rain this spring hoping there will be an abundance

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