I heard it thru the grapevine...

This year, I have the honor privilege chore of cleaning up the grapevines on the farm. And not just the grapevines....the peach trees, apple trees, and pear tree. They have been neglected for the past God-only-knows-how-long years. I have taken it upon myself to clean up around them - cut out the honeysuckle and small trees from the grapevines, spray the fruit trees, prune said trees, etc. So, tomorrow, the plan is - after chickens & cows - to spray the trees, make a Home Depot run for pruning tools, and start clearing out.

Another project that I have in the planning stages right now is a raised bed for strawberries. I'm looking to build a 16'x16'x2' bed with cinder blocks. As I was guesstimating the cost, I nearly had a coronary! I'm trying to look at it from this standpoint: it's an investment with delayed returns. (It'd be next year before I could harvest any strawberries. Then I'm planning to make jam and possibly sell it.) I looked at doing a smaller version of the bed for tomatoes but realized that, for the few plants I'd be putting out, it'd be more cost effective to plant them in (a) 5 gallon buckets (b) 2 square bales of wheat straw. The buckets I can get free, but the wheat straw provides instant mulch.

I hope to remember my camera tomorrow to get some "before" pictures of the fruit trees/vines. I'll try to take pictures during the whole process, including my raised beds, to document what works and what doesn't.