The Adventures of CrazyED the beach sand guy

[CrazyEd]

Made it up to the farm again today to plant my 2 small foodplots. I had debated planting 10 days ago because of some extreme heat that was coming, although based on the looks of my rain gauge I should have planted. Although i can't complain with this kind of rain in July.

Here is one of my plots on June 10th.

Here it is today, July 26th.

It looks pretty rough, but i have been trying to build the soil for about 4 years now and believe it or not as bad as it looks, it's improved a lot. I don't know how big this whole plot is, maybe 1/3 of an acre. I usually plant about 56# of winter rye, 3# PPT, 3# Radish. I have been struggling to get the rye real thick. Most of what you see is a mix of annual weeds and standing rye. I basically weed whacked most of this, and then sprayed roundup and then planted, and then dragged my small thatcher around to try and get some decent seed to soil contact.


Since i've always wanted the Rye to come in thicker, this year I planted around 120# (double my normal amount) of winter rye, 3# PTT, 3# Radish. Hopefully the rye comes up thicker than normal and I can broadcast a heavy dose of medium red clover later this fall. 80% chance of rain tomorrow, followed by some cool (mid 70s), hopefully we can get some stuff growing!

I am starting to get some decent thatch of rye and weeds. Hopefully it helps hold moisture and help with germination.

Our NWSG are just exploding. It's been a great growing year for those and we'll have a lot of great cover on our property this fall. A lot of the big bluestem is already 4-5' tall and it's not even august!

Prairie Spy B.118 - I think i grafted this one in april of 2014.

Not a great picture but this is Winter Wildlife Crab on B.118 also grafted in 2014.

Here is a closeup of the prairie spy in the prairie grass

 

[CrazyEd]

I did loose 2 of my 3 Dustan Chestnuts this year. Not exactly sure what got them, they did leaf out but then I think they may have been zapped by a late frost or something. We did notice they were lost last time we were up.

The one that did survive does look great. I have a few more at home started from seed that i will move up.

Here is a stand of switchgrass

 

[CrazyEd]

I dont have many apples this year due to late frost, but there are a few Goldrush, Frostbite and a single Enterprise.

Goldrush

Frostbite

Wide shot of my main orchard

New Orchard coming along. most of these trees were whips and a lot are branching out pretty well.

 

[bueller]

If you get that rye to come in thicker you will have more organic matter and less weeds this time next year. If the clover doesn't take well you should consider a memorial day planting of buckwheat next year. Still can plant rye later in the summer after the buckwheat.

 

[buckvelvet]

Matt your trees look really healthy, darn that frost but hay another year of maturing with no fruit production can certainly help the overall health of the trees for later on down the road.

 

[Gator]

I lost all of my fruit this year to several late frost also. Only fruit I have is crab apples. I was really looking forward to this year too since last year was the first year of fruit for me and it was only a couple of my trees. Oh well.

 

[CrazyEd]

10 more days, another 2". Been a great year for us on that front. Usually everything is burned up by now but this year things are lush as ever.

Centurion Crab, grafted 4/2014 and planted this spring as a whip.

Here is another shot from my new orchard.

King David on M7 roots. Grafted in 2014, planted this spring. This thing is going crazy

Winter Wildlife Crab

Medium Red Clover in one of my plots

Jungle of Big Bluestem and Switchgrass

 

[CrazyEd]

Nice white pine coming along

Swamp White Oak started from seed. 3 years old

Dolgo B118 - I think planted 2014

Trying a bit of an expirement with these jackpines. They are on the edge of one of our prairies, about 5-8' tall. I just cut the tops off of them today to keep them shorter and bushy.

Can barely see my dad on his ATV in the jungle of Big Blue

Looking behind me from the picture above

Frostbite

 

[CrazyEd]

Frostbite, one of the only varieties that didnt freeze out on me. Lots of CAR this year due to high amounts of precipitation.

Even some CAR on Enterprise

1 Apple on Enterprise, my first enterprise fruit! Planted in 2012.

Trees in general look great.

Summercrisp and Flemish Beauty pears are some of the healthiest looking trees on my farm. Never been sprayed, bugs or disease don't seem to bother them at all.

Another shot of the wall of big blue

The work in progress foodplot

 

[bueller]

Everything looks great. How long does that big blue stay upright for you?

 

[CrazyEd]

Depends on how much snow comes and when. I am usually done hunting by rifle and the big blue has always been great through then. Switch does better in snow but switch doesn't get as tall. I have pictures of our switchgrass on April 30th that still looked very good.

 

[bueller]

Through the rifle hunt is late enough for me. Thanks.

 

[buckvelvet]

As always love to see the trees getting older!

 

[CrazyEd]

Ed's latest pics aren't showing up on my phone or computer for some reason.

Well the only thing I can think of - maybe is that I historically have uploaded all of my pictures to Google's "Picasa" photo album service. I think very recently that was transitioned into some other portion of google (Google+ or Google Albums) or something. I wonder if that broke it.

 

[CrazyEd]

How are you consuming? Tapatalk, browser?

I see all the pics on my Android via Chrome.

 

[buckvelvet]

It does not work on Mozilla. I have to open it in google chrome & I can see 'em.

 

[CrazyEd]

Yeah I just tried on IE and it's busted here too. Let me see what these yahoos at Google did.

 

[CrazyEd]

Looks like how i was linking them there must have been a permissions/authentication issue for public users, maybe not using chrome. I fixed it, I'll update all the urls and then if you refresh they should appear.

 

[CrazyEd]

Ok, Refresh and let me know.

 

[buckvelvet]

works.....