My Little Orchard

I have been busy planning, plotting and planting fruit and nut trees in my little orchard.  My little orchard will consist of three apple trees, two pear trees, three plum trees, two hazelnut bushes and a black current bush.  Since I am in zone 3 for gardening I have to plant cold hardy varieties, which I found at a nursery in Quebec. The story of how the nursery began is quite interesting and can be read here: https://www.hardyfruittrees.ca/about-us/our-story/. It will be three to seven years before all my trees begin to bear fruit so I decided it was best to make orchard planning a priority.  The thought crossed my mind - will I still be living here to make the investment worth it? And then I considered that two of my neighbours are 90 years old and still living at home, one of them all by himself.  So of course I will reap the benefits of my investment. It will be a great lesson in patience and such a reward when I harvest the first fruits.

This is a photo of one of the last apples I harvested from my apple tree at my old home.  Those fruit trees were at least 50 years old. And my new fruit tree - only a twig at this point.

  

 

I finished expanding the flower garden that I started last year (removing sod and putting in good ground from the composted manure pile) and the spring bulbs I planted in the fall are blooming very nicely.  It is such a treat to have colour in the yard. There was only a lilac bush when I moved in so I am able to make grand plans for flower and shrub gardens, as time and money allow of course. I have plenty of work left in planning what to plant once the spring flowers are done to have continuous colour throughout the summer and fall. Since I free range the chickens, I decided to build a fence around the flower garden to keep the chickens out, at least for the first few years while plants get established. I collected branches from the creek that the beavers had eaten the bark off of to support the chicken wire, for a simple and rugged look.

 

My chosen location for my vegetable garden needs some maintenance and upgrading, as it has spent some time underwater this spring. We have had a lot of rain, which may be an annual thing, in addition to the winter thaw. In particular this year, one day we had 62mm of rain and it caused some of the communities to declare a state of emergency. Many roads and highways were closed due to flooding. (Hwy 650 still remains closed 5 weeks later) A hard lesson was learned in a neighbouring township when a young man on his way to work decided to drive through a flooded part of the road, not realizing that the road had washed away and his car was pulled into the ditch.  It was not even a stream - only a ditch but the amount of rain caused it to be a hazard.  I would perhaps have made the same decision to drive through a familiar road that simply seemed covered with water.  A fatal mistake for this young man. The water level in the creek by my property rose at least 10 feet but I was too busy bailing water out of my basement to check it out other than through binoculars from my window. Besides it would be dangerous to take Teaka close to it.

Just before the big rain I raised my asparagus.  The ground was still frozen about 12" down and therefore a few roots ripped off as I lifted them but I didn't want them to drown. They are growing well now so I think I made the right choice. The garlic did not fair as well and only one clove seems to have survived.  For fall I will plant them in a raised bed.  I now know that my potential plan to grow a field of garlic is not feasible in the north due to water saturation from the length of time it takes the ground to thaw in the spring. This is why northern farmers have to wait so much longer than farmers in the south to plant their crops, even in fields that have been tiled to drain water.

For a few weeks Teaka has been trying to tell me that something was in the tree but when I couldn't see anything I thought she was simply barking at the tree. Then I started to hear the chatter.  Baby raccoon chatter. She is well camouflaged but mama raccoon has her head outside of the hollow at the top of the tree.  The next day I didn't see or hear anything in the tree, then later in the day Teaka ran into the back field and cornered a very large raccoon - more than half her size. I called Teaka away just long enough for the raccoon to scurry off.  Not sure if it was the same resident raccoon.  I do hope mama raccoon decided to move her kits.