A Microfarm
- Thread starter Barndog56
- Start date
Made crockpot applesauce with Honeygold, Honeycrisp, and Frostbite. Then picked the last of my apples before a hard freeze arrives in a few days. Northwest Greening, Braeburn, and Mutsu.
The Braeburn is off my Frankentree, while the other two are on Bud 9 rootstock. So it's not a problem growing large apples on a dwarf tree.
And a pic of the oak tree line in the back.
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The Braeburn is off my Frankentree, while the other two are on Bud 9 rootstock. So it's not a problem growing large apples on a dwarf tree.
And a pic of the oak tree line in the back.
Sent from my Pixel 6 using Tapatalk
Unreal weather this week, so I've prepped a new dahlia bed for spring planting. We'll be selling dahlia tubers starting this year.
And then I collected a bunch more flower seed, goldenrod, marigold, buckwheat, zinnia, blanket flower, strawflower.
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And then I collected a bunch more flower seed, goldenrod, marigold, buckwheat, zinnia, blanket flower, strawflower.
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Pre-existing dirt + organic matter and soil life = good soil. That pic doesn't actually show the topsoil. That's the aged horse manure I've added to create good topsoil. It's filled with earthworms, centipedes, and who knows what else that will all finish breaking it down. By spring it'll be good enough to grow in, but will take some more OM and a couple years before it's really top notch.
Here's a pic of my current garden soil next to the natural dirt found on my property.
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Here's a pic of my current garden soil next to the natural dirt found on my property.
Sent from my Pixel 6 using Tapatalk
SD51555
5 year old buck +
We are officially a Dahlia farm, after recording our first sales yesterday through our website.
For those who don't know, dahlias are in the potato family. While dahlias grow 3-5 feet tall and produce a ton of gorgeous blooms, they are producing 5-12 tubers underground. At the end of the growing season, after a killing frost, the tubers are dug up, divided, and stored for planting the following spring. Any tubers that freeze become nonviable.
Dahlia breeding is much like apple breeding, with thousands of named varieties. Saved seeds do not produce plants that match their mother. The two ways to reproduce a dahlia variety is through tubers, and rooted cuttings.
So our farm plan is to purchase popular varieties, multiply our stock through cuttings and tuber division, and sell those tubers on to growers. Those growers can be other farmers, farmer florists, home gardeners, etc. We only grew 4 varieties this year to make sure we could handle the storage requirements, and will be expanding to 40+ this year.
Single tubers can range in price from $5 for varieties that are easy to find everywhere, to as high as $30 for new, hard to find varieties. Farmers or breeders with those new varieties can sell out in just a minute or two of posting them for sale until they become more widely available.
While dahlias don't present any wildlife value, other than for bees and other pollinators, there may be a couple of reasons for you to purchase some from our farm.
1) Buying our dahlia bundle, one each of all 4 varieties, will produce a ready made, weekly bouquet of complementary flowers to give your wife. Just cut and place in a vase.
2) The Alfred Grille tuber we sell is wildly desired by Japanese beetles! The were all over it last year, preferring it's flowers over my fruit trees, even over the cherry trees. Use it as a trap crop to keep your fruit trees healthy.
If you've read this far, thanks for being at least a little interested, and please feel free to share our website with anyone you know who may be as well.
For those who don't know, dahlias are in the potato family. While dahlias grow 3-5 feet tall and produce a ton of gorgeous blooms, they are producing 5-12 tubers underground. At the end of the growing season, after a killing frost, the tubers are dug up, divided, and stored for planting the following spring. Any tubers that freeze become nonviable.
Dahlia breeding is much like apple breeding, with thousands of named varieties. Saved seeds do not produce plants that match their mother. The two ways to reproduce a dahlia variety is through tubers, and rooted cuttings.
So our farm plan is to purchase popular varieties, multiply our stock through cuttings and tuber division, and sell those tubers on to growers. Those growers can be other farmers, farmer florists, home gardeners, etc. We only grew 4 varieties this year to make sure we could handle the storage requirements, and will be expanding to 40+ this year.
Single tubers can range in price from $5 for varieties that are easy to find everywhere, to as high as $30 for new, hard to find varieties. Farmers or breeders with those new varieties can sell out in just a minute or two of posting them for sale until they become more widely available.
While dahlias don't present any wildlife value, other than for bees and other pollinators, there may be a couple of reasons for you to purchase some from our farm.
1) Buying our dahlia bundle, one each of all 4 varieties, will produce a ready made, weekly bouquet of complementary flowers to give your wife. Just cut and place in a vase.
2) The Alfred Grille tuber we sell is wildly desired by Japanese beetles! The were all over it last year, preferring it's flowers over my fruit trees, even over the cherry trees. Use it as a trap crop to keep your fruit trees healthy.
If you've read this far, thanks for being at least a little interested, and please feel free to share our website with anyone you know who may be as well.
Telemark
5 year old buck +
I lost all my dahlias to an early week-long freeze this past fall. I had some new tuberous begonias in that bed, too. I think my tulips will survive, though. They are in barrels under a pile of wood chips.
Congrats on the new venture. Dahlias are one of my favorite ornamentals. The flowers kinda taste like bell peppers, too. I sometimes throw some petals or smaller flowers into my salads in the summer when they're blooming well.
Congrats on the new venture. Dahlias are one of my favorite ornamentals. The flowers kinda taste like bell peppers, too. I sometimes throw some petals or smaller flowers into my salads in the summer when they're blooming well.
Harvested apple Scions yesterday, and they are now available for purchase on our website. I would have offered them up on the trading thread, but our finances require I sell anything I can. My wife has been unable to work since April of 2022 due to Multiple Sclerosis, and we're still waiting on government approval for her disability claim. It's hard to survive on a single income in the Biden economy.
I received notification today that my project proposal for Xerces’ Wisconsin Pollinator Habitat Kits 2024 has been accepted! So the week of June 10th I'll be picking up a selection of 576 native grasses, sedges, and flowers documented to be attractive to a diversity of pollinators and other beneficial insects. They'll be planted smack dab in the middle of my apple orchard.
T-Max
5 year old buck +
If you want to try chestnuts again, see if you can get some Badgersett. Also check with Buzz at perfect circle farm. He's also zone 4 but in VT.
www.badgersett.com
