Springing Up on Future Farm

 It’s been a little over a month since we bought our Future Farm and we are loving it! The blueberry bushes are loaded with pink tinged fruits that are plumping up in the continuing May showers. Another exciting resident on future farm are the pitcher plants! According to Wickipedia “Sarracenia are threatened in the wild by development and the drainage of their habitat.” Well we have wet soil here and the pitcher plants are more than welcome to munch on the local fly population!

We planted a bunch of perennials to start out the year: 2 persimmon, 2 olive, 3 fig, 2 paw-paw, 2 mayhaw, 1 goji berry, 1 filbert, 1 tangerine, 2 scuppernong, 1 muscadine, 1 bunch of bamboo (bunching not running, for gardening stakes) and 1 American walnut tree. Our 2 pecan trees are shipping to us this fall. So far trees seem to love it here, they have nearly all budded out. I tried the soap trick to keep the deer away, but something keeps stealing/eating the soap! So now there are little chicken wire cages around the trees the deer like to eat.

Our soil is clay and sand with poor drainage and the water here is nutrient deficient, so vegetable gardening is sort of on hold until we can get some raised beds, sheet mulching, and compost/manure going. I say sort of because I planted things anyway, but many things aren’t growing very well (stunted) because of the soil and water available. We also need a truck, a tractor or a nice cultivator, a chainsaw, a chipper shredder… It looks like next year will be our big gardening year.

I really wanted to get some chickens, goats or bees started this year, but we got an exciting surprise instead. A little Future Farmer is on the way! So some of our bigger projects may be on hold for at least a little while. In the mean time, my goals are to install the cell signal booster, clean up the swimming pool before our big July 4th party and get a raised planter going so I can have some vegetables this year. Maybe we can even find time to fix the holes in the fence, getting us closer to goat ownership and keeping out the wild pigs that root through the property for grubs. Happy Spring!