buckvelvet
5 year old buck +
Man it all sure looks nice CE!
Turkey Creek
5 year old buck +
Looks great! How much fertilizer are you applying every year to your fruit trees? Ever did a soil sample to see how much if any change there is in the fertility from year to year next to a tree or foliage testing? Do sandhill cranes normally nest in that area? I thought they all went high into Canada or to Russia to nest for some reason.
CrazyEd
5 year old buck +
Probably not enough on the fert. In the past a couple spikes per tree. Last year I don't know if any, I don't think I had time. This year I plan to do it but haven't had a chance yet. Hopefully soon. I picked up 2 bags at a big box store, might have been 10-10-10, I still have a ton of spikes too. Just need to find the time.
Never done a soil sample ever, probably should test my sand pile sometime.
CrazyEd
5 year old buck +
I had 1/2" of rain in the rain gauge. we were last up about 8 days ago. Trees range from pink to barely open. Honeycrisp, Northern and prairie spy, wolf river furthest behind. Kerr, liberty, Centennial Goldrush and Sansa furthest along. Need some warm weather and some rain.
SmallChunk
5 year old buck +
I had to spray for tent catapillars on a Frostbite and a Mac last weekend too!
CrazyEd
5 year old buck +
Where abouts did you hear any details? I have not been keeping tabs on things. Wouldn't be the first tornado.............
CrazyEd
5 year old buck +
I will have to post some pics from when we took a direct hit about 15-20 years ago. I still think it's the best thing that could have happened to our land. It seemed devastating at the time but things have filled in nicely and it opened up the opportunity to get creative and install new types of habitat we desire like fruit trees and wild flower and prairie grasses.
Bowsnbucks
5 year old buck +
X-2 Ed. We had a tornado go thru a farm valley back in spring of '84 or '85. The valley had big patches of woods between farms and after the folks cut firewood out of the damaged area, they became jungles. Deer hotspots. All kinds of stuff grew in there where the trees had been knocked down. It didn't take the deer long to move right in !!
CrazyEd
5 year old buck +
My dad was chasing rare birds in the central part of the state today and he stopped by the farm. Happy to hear there was 3.5" of rain in the gauge, was last up about 3 weeks ago. He didn't have a lot of time to examine my orchards but he said from a distance everything looked to be growing very well. All the new trees looked great. No tent caterpillars visible. Saw fruit on my big Goldrush tree. Prairie grasses looked awesome. Water holes were full. My rye plot looked excellent, and some nice clover.
Tree Spud
5 year old buck +
Matt ...We had rain again up here last night and more on the way today.
CrazyEd
5 year old buck +
Went up to the farm yesterday, had another inch of rain in the rain guage which is always a great thing to see, especially since it was so hot on friday and saturday.
Here's a few black cherry hinge cuts, i think these are going into their 3rd season. The big upward shoot is about 2" at the base and probably 10' tall.
In my foodplot, i've actually got a little bit of medium red clover coming up that was broadcast into winter rye last fall. It's not super thick, but on my sand i'll take it. My food plots have been a work in progress for about 4 years now.
Here's a wider shot, winter rye is about to go to seed. I will either try to figure out a way to roll this down or weed whack it all and broadcast my fall plots into the thatch.
Pretty much lost all of my apples to 24 degrees temps during bloom. I did find a couple apples on one of my goldrush trees and a few on my Frostbite tree, but that was it. I guess I will focus on growing wood rather than growing fruit which is just fine with me as much as i'd like some apples. The trees themselves look excellent.
Coreopsis is full bloom (below), this particular variety is very much an endangered species, we have a huge patch that my father planted probably 10-15 years ago. I forget the exact species but it's not the common lance leaved coreopsis that it looks like. It might be sand coreopsis. Its much shorter than lance leaved but the flowers look the same.
sis
Here's a few black cherry hinge cuts, i think these are going into their 3rd season. The big upward shoot is about 2" at the base and probably 10' tall.
In my foodplot, i've actually got a little bit of medium red clover coming up that was broadcast into winter rye last fall. It's not super thick, but on my sand i'll take it. My food plots have been a work in progress for about 4 years now.
Here's a wider shot, winter rye is about to go to seed. I will either try to figure out a way to roll this down or weed whack it all and broadcast my fall plots into the thatch.
Pretty much lost all of my apples to 24 degrees temps during bloom. I did find a couple apples on one of my goldrush trees and a few on my Frostbite tree, but that was it. I guess I will focus on growing wood rather than growing fruit which is just fine with me as much as i'd like some apples. The trees themselves look excellent.
Coreopsis is full bloom (below), this particular variety is very much an endangered species, we have a huge patch that my father planted probably 10-15 years ago. I forget the exact species but it's not the common lance leaved coreopsis that it looks like. It might be sand coreopsis. Its much shorter than lance leaved but the flowers look the same.
sis
CrazyEd
5 year old buck +
Yeah, we have a lot more black cherrys that need to hit the ground, some of them are probably 50' tall and 2' around. We just didn't get to it this spring due to busy schedules so we'll try and get a few more this coming winter.
CrazyEd
5 year old buck +
Finally made it back up to the farm on Saturday, after about a month away. Had 1" of rain in the rain gauge, probably had been there a while because things were really dry, but not burning up. Good thing a pretty decent storm rolled through this morning. Either way I didn't take many pics but all of my apple trees look great. The 30 some we planted this spring as well as the other 50+. I counted 8 fruit total which is a bit disappointing but my trees need to keep growing so i'll take it. I did put my waders on and walked out to the middle of our pond island. I planted 25 or 50 some silky dogwood cuttings this spring. It was difficult to find them, but i did find one and it looked great. No lake of moisture out here, it's like walking on a bog.
I also took a few pictures of some hinge cuts again, these are black cherry. Probably cut these 3 years ago, this is looking down a 4-5" cherry tree, hard to see but there are tons of shoots all the way down the whole tree, these 2 closest to my camera are close to baseball bat size in diameter and 15' tall and I will probably hinge these again in spring to create even more cover. It truely is a living wall.
Here is a stump all sprouted out too
Other than that we spent about 2 hours spraying invasive (st. johns wort). The stuff is just about to bloom and if you nuke it now it doesn't go to seed. We've had a fair amount of the stuff around but in the past 3-5 years my dad has been very aggressive with the spraying and we are keeping it in check.
Our prairie grasses / prairies look awesome, the rain this morning should really give them a great boost as they start seed production, I should have taken a picture but i just didnt get my camera out much.
I also took a few pictures of some hinge cuts again, these are black cherry. Probably cut these 3 years ago, this is looking down a 4-5" cherry tree, hard to see but there are tons of shoots all the way down the whole tree, these 2 closest to my camera are close to baseball bat size in diameter and 15' tall and I will probably hinge these again in spring to create even more cover. It truely is a living wall.
Here is a stump all sprouted out too
Other than that we spent about 2 hours spraying invasive (st. johns wort). The stuff is just about to bloom and if you nuke it now it doesn't go to seed. We've had a fair amount of the stuff around but in the past 3-5 years my dad has been very aggressive with the spraying and we are keeping it in check.
Our prairie grasses / prairies look awesome, the rain this morning should really give them a great boost as they start seed production, I should have taken a picture but i just didnt get my camera out much.
CrazyEd
5 year old buck +
Yeah i was thinking about planting yesterday but decided to hold off with the extreme heat forecasted for the end of the week. I was worried if something did germinate it would burn up. I am going to probably plant in another 2-3 weeks which is probably a little latter than i would like but most of my plantings consist of winter rye which should be fine at that time.
