A pictoral walk through our place

Mike and I took advantage of the explosion of foliage and color last weekend to take some photos as we did our walk through, check on our plants and trees. I thought I'd share the shots!

The first three raised beds for the garden. We took out the pool(way to expensive to upkeep, especially with the lake a mere two miles away) and will fence this in one the remainder of them are built and filled. We have beans, snappeas, beets, radishes, turnips, swiss chard, spinach, mesclun, and lettuces in already. The bed in the foreground will be devoted the tomatoes - we're trying five different varieties this year.


The strawberry tower is coming along wonderfully! These two sides are planted with Tribute strawberries and the opposite two are planted with Ozark Beauties. We have blossoms already coming in, and I think we need to pinch those off to let them get a bit more established.

This is one of the three quinces that were here when we bought our house. We got a couple of fruit off of them last year, but they are jut gorgeous in bloom!

This is one of our raspberry plants. The coloring on the leaves is just breathtaking. We planted 26 starts, and 25 of them are showing new growth. We won't get raspberries this year, but next year...yummm!

This isn't the best shot, but those tiny blossoms are on my currants! My Gramma Jean gave us five rooted cuttings last year, and these babies are just taking off! Can't wait to get some berries this year :)


This is a Black Lace Elderberry. It is extremely ornamental, and Mike planted it below the kitchen windows. It should grow in to create a breathtaking showpiece.

I just love this shot. The foliage of the Peashrub is wonderfully textured, and I love the fact that Mike was able to catch the raindrops clinging to the leaves.

This is one of our two Carpathian Walnut trees. We planted them in the backyard to provide shade, and they're coming on wonderfully.

Isn't this a beautiful shot? this is the Wolf River apple tree(at least, we think that's what it is) that the previous owner planted. Its in full blossom this year, so we might just get some apples!

And this is a cluster of blossoms off of our 4-on-1 apple tree that we planted last year. And is also the reason we might get some apples off the wolf river. It's nice knowing we have a tree that will pollinate that one! We'll have to pinch these off once the blossoming is done - the tree is definitely too young to be letting fruit.


So there you have it. A walkthrough of what we have growing here this year.

Springtime at Three Lil' Acres

Well spring has arrived in startling fashion here in Western NY, and we're double-timing it trying to keep up. Over the past two weeks we've planted:
~Two apple trees
~Two pear trees
~Two Plum trees
~A sweet cherry tree
~Two heartnuts(one a seedling, one grafted)
~Three PawPaws
~One seaberry(more on the way)
~One Elderberry bush(more of these on the away)
~2 blueberry bushes
~50 willow starts(for a living fence)
~100 strawberry plants(two different varieties)
~25 asparagus plants(all male, so all will produce spears)
~25 red raspberry plants

We've also transplanted the peach tree, peashrub, cranberry and gooseberry to more suitable locations. Still to come are more seaberries, more elderberries, a corkscrew willow, and a buartnut.

Yes, we're planting like mad! And thankfully we're almost done with the permaculture additions for the year.

Last weekend was a busy one. I took Friday off, and it was devoted to the strawberry tower. After losing most of our strawberries(and plants) to deer and rabbits last year, when Mike found a plan for a strawberry tower, we were both gung ho to go that route this year! It took alot of scratching of the head to figure out all the angles, but we finally got it! So, Friday morning we moved it out to its permanent location and filled it with dirt and composted rabbit manure. That evening, after the heat of the day had passed(and yes, surprisingly, it was warm enough in April to be concerned about that!) we got the 100 strawberries planted.


Pretty cool, huh? They've been in for five days now, and are leafing out wonderfully! So far we're really happy with the way it's shaping up, and a nice side effect of the tower is that the base is merely 28 inches square, which makes fencing out chickens, rabbits and deer very easy and economical. Oh! And we're proud to say that all of the materials for the tower, like our coffee table, are recycled from pallets!

Today we're working on the garden. So far we've three 11 foot by 3 foot beds built and ready for dirt - that's next on the agenda, that and fencing the chickens out of both the new garden area and the asparagus.

Yes, I've taken today off, because we've a lot to get done in the next two weeks. On May 14th Mike is going in for knee surgery. It turns out that he did a lot more than just tweak his knee back in January, he tore the meniscus. That's the pad of cartilaginous tissue that acts as a shock absorber in your knee. He'll be laid up for six weeks after the surgery, so we're trying to get as much done between now and then as possible, so that hopefully it's just a matter of watering and weeding while he's recuperating.

So, that's that! I'll do my best to post pictures of the garden this weekend, but I can't promise anything at this point.