In the garden
This week I received an unexpected email telling me my blueberries had shipped! Whaaaa? I ordered from a company I’ve never used before. The company is based in Georgia. I left a note in the shipping information, “Do not ship until February”. I’m not sure if they didn’t see the note or they don’t have the capability to hold orders.
My other thought was maybe they only ship during winter because Georgia gets warm so quickly and the plants would break dormancy before they made it to me. Either way, I am rolling with it and decided to get into gear and finished prepping a 100 foot blueberry row for them.
Cameron had already loosened the soil back in the fall and that was a really good move because the soil is too wet to do any plowing now. I also added some sulfur in the Fall.
Sulfur needs at least six months to acidify soil. It’s been about three months but luckily the plants will stay dormant until Spring, at which time the sulfur will have started to work.
To finish preparing my soil right now, I went through and broadforked the soil to loosen it up. Then I added peat moss and mixed.
Next week when the weather warms up a bit, I will plant them and cover the soil with a thick layer of mulch. Since the plants are already dormant, the roots are the main thing that need protection from the cold.
Update: I received the blueberries today, opened the package and even though they are alive and large, they have Septoria Leaf Spot! I am going to call the company on Monday and see if I can return them. I hope they take them back, since they are obviously diseased.
Also you’ll note as I did, this plant isn’t completely dormant. But since it’s coming from a southern area that makes sense. I’m actually glad, otherwise I may not have realized how diseased these plants are.
I won’t share the company name yet until I find out how they handle the problem. It’s not looking good though because shipping diseased plants shouldn’t happen.
Luckily the majority of my new blueberry plants (high bush) are coming from a company I DO recommend buying from and that is Nourse Farms.
I have purchased from them many times before and have always been really happy with the plants. I am doing a row of rabbit eye blueberries in addition to the high bush and they don’t sell rabbit eye blueberries. That is why I tried out this new company.
Cows!
I always felt like cows would be one of the hardest homestead animals just because of their size. The Dexters are so docile and have been really easy so far!
The rotational grazing is also working out. It is much easier than I thought. We were going to do daily moves but because it is winter, we are letting them eat all the grass and then moving them. So far it’s been every 2-3 days in one area and then they are ready to move. They let you know too!
If we come and they are happily grazing, there is plenty of grass left. If we come and they start to follow us around, they are ready to move. We pull back the portable electric and they practically run to the next area. The grass really is greener on the other side. Haha!
We are also giving them some free choice minerals since the winter grass is lower in nutrients. It’s also interesting to note how they can sense and know when they need more minerals. They will come and lick up more as needed.
House Updates
They put on the soffit and fascia around the house and added some siding on the upper part of the roof. We are doing board and batten siding but because of the metal roof, both our contractors involved with the roofing and siding thought that the board and batten style would not be as water tight.
They convinced us to do lap siding just on the upper portion of the house where it meets the roof instead of the board and batten. We will still have board and batten siding on the bottom of the house.
It was only supposed to go on the outside gables (at least that’s what our general contractor told us) but instead they put it on the inside. I don’t think it looks bad but I will probably have them do the outer gables too just so it looks more intentional.
Building a house is definitely a fun test of good communication between everyone involved. Haha! Aside from that, I am enjoying the designing side of it and all the details that we get to custom choose and create.
We picked out flooring this week, found a steal on classifieds for a used Subzero refrigerator, and ordered our ranges.
A Very Local Christmas Tree
We had planned on buying a tree from a Christmas tree farm locally but they sold out very quickly. I told Cam we could go get a tree from our land and a couple days later the kids and I scouted one out and found a perfect size cedar tree.
We went and got it today and have it all decorated. It’s our first time using cedar as a Christmas tree so we are going to see how it holds up! It’s so exciting that Christmas is almost here.
I have had a real Christmas tree every year since I was a kid. I started thinking about getting a fake one for our new house because it has tall ceilings but I recently listened to a podcast about how it’s actually more environmentally friendly to have a real tree. That surprised me! You can read the blog post and listen to that podcast HERE.
