I have to start by thanking our Webmaster, Kurt Dennis,for putting this together yesterday . His wife ,Sarah ,(also my daughter, BTW) was also quite involved . Kudos !
What I hope to accomplish with this blog is to keep readers informed of the farms progress ,struggles and triumphs as we work towards our goal of producing high quality ,naturally grown Berries and Medicinal Herbs . We have been developing the farm for two years now ,so from time to time, I will backtrack and discuss what we accomplished last year and I will also discuss our plans for the future .
Most farmers would be harvesting right now ,and we will be harvesting honey soon,but our main focus this week was bed preparation for Aronia ,that is coming this month and Elderberry cuttings for early next Spring. The beds were plowed twice with our BCS tractor then triple tilled . Before the last till ,we added wood ashes saved from our wood stove . This will add nutrients and raise the pH of the soil a bit as our soil is naturally quite acidic . Due to the weather ,we have not been able to cover the beds with landscape fabric yet . The fabric is great for initial weed control and biodegrades over time We also have a truckload of Mushroom compost on its way that we will add to the soil as we plant.
Aronia is due in mid October so we have some time to complete the fabric install. For those of you unfamiliar with Aronia ,it is a “super fruit” . It is just catching on in the United States but is well-known in Europe . It is loaded with all kinds of “good stuff” such as antioxidants . We are excited to be one of the first farms in New York to be adding it as a commercial product . Our initial planting will be a half-acre ,consisting of 350 plants .
Last year, at this time , we were just finishing our initial Blueberry planting . Due to a very wet Spring last year ,we were forced to plant 300 blueberry bushes in a different spot and do it in the Fall . This is not recommended for the Northeast but ,we had to either get them in the ground ,or cover them with mulch and hope they survived . I made the decision to plant . In late August we got the beds done by using the BCS tractor and the rotary plow . We were able to create a somewhat raised bed that we covered with landscape fabric . We planted during September and finished mulching in early October. Thankfully ,we had a mild Winter and other than a few plants the Rabbits snuck through the fence and nibbled ,we lost nothing in the Blueberries . We fertilized with Hollytone (an organic fertilizer for acid loving plants ) in early June and got exceptional new growth from 90% of our planting so the gamble paid off .
We made a mistake in not fencing our Elderberry plants and lost 5 out of 40 to the Deer. That won’t happen again .Fencing is ready to be installed.Those that did not become Deer food managed to survive the drought due to copious mulch and lots of watering . Our plans include another half-acre of Elderberry plants this Spring ,about 350 give or take .
A Farmers work is never done
BCS Tractor with Tiller