Definitely get them in the ground in a final planting - preferably in the final location you want them. The roots will recover fine over the Winter and the tree is genetically programmed to deal with growth on the top part.
The bigger rootstock trees may survive, but will not do well in a pot. Better off getting the M29 or Bud5 rootstock and trying to get them in a 10 gal or larger pot.
If it's M111, just plant them in the ground - find a way!
If they are soft enough that you can press the flesh and dent them, they should be pretty sweet! I don't some across many bitter plums when ripe and soft. You can look for little holes and leaking sap that are signs of worms. But a very ripe plum will be soft and drip juice when you bite it.
As for managing the thicket, try to cut off growth that is sideways and below 6 ft or so. Plums will overgrow vertically and break branches if not cared for. If you dig small seedlings in the winter when dormant, you will quickly find out if they are true seedling or root suckers. Probably most of them are root suckers..
I have battled Pseudomonas syringae quite a bit -- it thrives as things get warmer but stay wet.
This can often take out whole branches by affecting the bark around young trees enough that it destroys the bark all the way around, effectively girdling the branch.
Bethany Brown wrote:I have chips. I’m guessing I have about 200 cubic feet, hopefully there will be more tomorrow. My orchard area is about 6000 square feet. I know the cops won’t be able to cover all of it. What do y’all think? Should I use it closest to the trees, make paths, or just mulch well at one end of the orchard and hope to get more chips later to do another section?
I would prioritize mulch for the young trees that need to do the most development - about 6" deep in a 2' radius. Also good to establish some comfrey at the edge of the circle -- it will take over as the living mulch in a few years.
If you want to establish raspberries, shape the chips to the place to grow and plan then 3' apart. Or if you're tired of hauling chips, just spread the pile into a foot or less and plant into the soil beneath it..
Try to get it done before April to suck up some water and really help this summer!
Hans Quistorff wrote: should I dig up the extra crowns so they are nicely spaced? What kind of distance do you have between crowns?
Leaving the root in the ground in a god area is best - as tough as the blackberries seem, they really don't transplant very well.
As Hans said, if you tie up the first year canes it separates them from the 2nd year canes for easier berry picking the the 2nd year canes can be cut when they brown out. The long 1st year canes can be trained along a wire or wrapped in a big circle like a blackberry wreath on a pole - just keep the tips off the ground to prevent a thicket from forming..
Mathew Trotter wrote:There's literally a flood advisory. In June. We don't even get rain in June! I don't even understand this climate anymore...
In May and June there is snowpack melt. When there is a burst of rain, that fills the rivers AND increases the snowpack melt so the rivers that drain this can get high. Our well on the Columbia River bottom lands is fully artesian now, running out of the wellhead!
We band our own and I think this is easy for a small operator to do. The small bander with the small bands is fine for calves up to 4 months old or so - we band as soon as practical.
We also have a large bander with the rings for older animals, annd those bands are also fairly effective for removing large horns without a lot of trauma.
I don't have experience with the Callicrate banders.
A related joke my father always told: If you want to be a cattleman, you need to learn enough math to count to 2.
I have a bridge crossing a drainage slough on my property and after a few years of open access I closed the gate on it. The next day a deer fawn had been taken down by coyotes at the gate..
You can graft another plum onto that -- it's best to pick one that is a good pollinator match if you can, the the remaining branches may start fruiting better.
To graft, select one of the large branches and cut it, then do a "cleft graft" with another variety.
The lack of fruit may be from the variety (some ornamental plums are more flowering than fruiting), the pollination availability (if nothing compatible is nearby) or just the season and conditions (too cold and rainy for the bees when it flowers)
The grafting part needs a lot more detail than what I outlined, but it will be a fun project if you can research your way through it.
Opening up in April at $1200/month - would love to find someone that also integrates into surrounding 100 acre farm.
Quiet location at end of road. 3BR/1BA older house on large lot with fenced yard, chicken house, space for gardening, parking.
Surrounded by operating cattle farm - possible work trade for portion of rent: agriculture, construction, mechanic...
Possible space for animals, ag business...
Does the neighborhood agreement also prohibit "pet" pigs like a kunekune? They are not very destructive if you have your garden crops isolated or raised.
I think the nutritional and sugar content of 12" RCG should be pretty good. I'm not sure about the digestion, but soft green blade grass is always going to run through cattle looser than with tough stalks or hay.
Is there a lot of rush grass growing in there also?
And the wet lowlands will be more difficult for some worms and parasites like liver fluke, so make sure you have some regular controls for your local populations.
Ive been looking for land to run a no till restoration Agriculture farm in Lewis County for years, but it seems like the only land that ever makes it to the public listing sites is incredibly overpriced (per acre, talking about raw land or old farms here rather than fancy estates)
There is quite a bit going through the market for timber land and old dairy farms in the 50-100 acre range. You can look at what actually sells to see where market price is, and you can look at what doesn't sell to see what is overpriced. Certainly almost everything is expensive these days!
There is a LOT of regulation on stocking carp, so that also means that public sources of breeding carp are hard to find and risky to use. Most wildlife operations for carp will get a permit and then buy and stock only sterile fish (triploid) which are very expensive.
If you determine you can ignore regulations, just catching some in local ponds can work -- the wildlife dept even conveniently tells you ponds with known invasive carp.
If you have trouble, I can let you know some side waters of the Columbia river where grass carp can be found.
I've had people order beef from my site not knowing it's pickup and local delivery only. I have just refunded the money for the mistake. The seller would not offer a refund??
I manage my pastures to get a lot of summer hay and I rotate on the 4 highest fields on my river bottomland (but there isn't much green grass) while feeding about half a bale per full size cow per day. I have the cows together with their babies from this year, and most of the yearlings are in a separate field with the same hay and thin grass.
In our wet area, most of the hay put up is overmatured so calves will gain some winter weight but cows will lose some.
We couldn't get nearly as many animals through without the winter hay - it would probably be one-third to make it through
I run both 100% Wagyu and Wagyu/Angus cross. I would recommend holding wagyu longer, and 3 year is better than 2....but 2 years is still excellent! Don't worry about getting to perfection - harvest the meat when the time is right.
For any grassfed beef, I would wait until June or so to butcher in our area, since the winter body is more in survival mode than storing up fat.
Black Locust grows pretty great in Washington. I have some on a fenceline right by a ditch, and very high water table will kill them, but I think they need at least a foot above winter water table is all. More successful plantings I have had in lower spots would be ash trees and red alder. For very low (nearly flooded) I have gone for bald cypress and pin oak. Black Walnut like a good tap root and probably need a couple feet above the water table.
Since I often have drainage ditches in lowland fields, I clean out ditches into piles of the spoils 5-6 feet high, and then plant trees into the sides at 1-2 ft height -- really helps in very low areas!
Right, don't expect a realtor to get it, but do give them keywords and house features for the listing. Even in Winter the time is good to sell now, so get it on the market as soon as you can!
Your garden looks beautifully done and will be seen as a real positive for the right buyer. I think there are more buyers interested in a mini-homestead too with people being locked down and feeling helpless for so long..
My experience with NRCS projects is that any permit is ALSO needed - they don't overrule anything with that. In general, you must please EVERY commanding body, not just one.
90 cu meters is not much for a pond -- your should clarify if that is "per year" like most drainage and earthworks projects are regulated. Then by year 5 you can have a nice little pond...
We are selling our home of 11 years and moving closer to our farm - the kids are schooled, my day job is behind me, and we are moving o to retired life in Longview, WA!
The property has been my nursery, lab, prototyping garden, and food forest development site and makes an awesome homestead property with easy commute to the Seattle high tech companies -- but that feature makes the price and property tax pretty outrageously high...
That looks like it should work. I have had success on a much smaller scale with the sod about 6 layers high and 2 feet wide. I found planting potatoes into the flipped sod worked pretty well. I also poked larger hardwood cuttings like pear and plum into these and those rooted better than soil and could easily be pushed deep.
My place has a lot of these conditions! I have a lot of drainage ditches that I clean out into mounds to plant into.
Plum trees have been the best fruit for really wet sites, even with some standing water in the winter they seem to survive. Elderberry are also pretty good there. Hawthorn is also good there and can be used as a rootstock for many pears.
Apples and pears seem to be ok a foot or two up a mound. Any mound will settle over time though so it will need added to if there is not any higher ground within 15 feet to get roots growing into.
I think an open swale/ditch will be a lot more maintainable that buried pipe or French drain. If there is mud flow, a French drain will clog up pretty fast.
Having an open trench to the depth you need and a 20' culvert (12" or more") topped with some gravel is something easier to detect where any blockage is.
As far as the electrical line? No good experience or suggestion there - hope you can figure that one out!
An apple tree will probably survive that. I've seen a lot of "old" apple trees that fall over and eventually become 4-5 apple trees growing straight up all in a perfect line where the trunk was. You can prune it significantly where anything is in the way but it will start growing vertically from wherever you leave it.
If you want to get fancier with a leaning tree, you can plant a small apple to brace it up and even graft the branches by tying them tight together.
Our local bobcats will move so quietly through the woods, but when the crows detect them they will perch in the trees above them and make a horrible racket while following them around...
Remember that a tree root mass is roughly equal to the mass above ground, so even though it looks big, it is really a pretty minor wound. The tree will overcome it and not even be weakened to fall over..
"Lithium ion polymer" batteries are usually the thin ones for custom fit spaces and they can bulge quite a lot, but fortunately they don't explode much.
"Lithium ion" batteries are more likely to overheat, burn, or explode when charging goes bad on them - that's probably not what you have.
I like seeing the tree and the kids through the years -- keep up those updates!!
Antonovka fruit are usually pretty big and medium soft. Some that are yellow with red spots look pretty interesting. Looks like there will be a nice harvest this year!!
I would avoid doing things like this, but since it's done I wouldn't worry much about it either. Things that are waterproof generally don't leach in to the soils much. Just like plastic having toxins that are bad when they break down, but it takes a LONG time for them to break down in soil.
But if you are still worried about it, just replace it and get it off your mind..
