When most people think about the food garden, they think about annuals like tomatoes, cucumbers, and broccoli. But there are many perennial vegetables, fruits, and herbs that will grow in all but the very coldest gardening zones. Every year we try to plant edible perennials in our garden. Our goals is that over time we’ll […]
Growing Mulberry Trees {and how to use mulberry leaves, branches, and berries}
A mulberry tree is a must for your homestead or backyard. Mulberry trees are fast growing shade trees and provide food for your family and fodder for chickens, ducks, goats and other livestock. The mulberry tree leaves, bark and berries are all edible. When we moved to our property we were so happy to find […]
Planting and planning a family orchard
Since the day we moved here (even before that really) we knew we wanted to grow a family orchard. When we bought this property there was a mature lemon tree that gives us over 200 pounds of lemons each year and two mature pecan trees that really need to cared for better so they will produce. Since […]
Six fast growing fruit trees {and one vegetable}
Aww, fruit trees! It’s been said that the best time to plant a fruit tree is yesterday – because they take so long to produce. And while it’s true that you won’t get fruit the first year you plant a fruit tree it doesn’t have to take years and years to get fruit either. There are […]
In the Garden….growing pineapples
Of all this things we’ve grown, I think I’m most excited about the pineapples. I’m not really sure why but I am. We planted a couple of tops in the spring of 2011 and a couple more last spring and summer. One of the ones we planted in 2011 is making a pineapple. So now […]
Growing Fruit
I’ve teamed up with some bloggers from The Prepared Blogger’s Network to bring you 30 Ways of Homesteading. You will find links to the other 29 posts at the end of this post. Since buying our property a little over three years ago we have been adding fruit trees a little at a time. When […]
our little orchards
One of our goals for our little homestead is to have quite a few fruit trees. I really think fruit trees give you the most bang for your buck and for your time. We had 4 peach trees, 2 plum trees, 2 apple trees, a grapefruit tree and an orange tree that needed to be […]
In the garden…growing citrus
Right before Christmas last year I went to the feed store to buy chicken feed and I saw a sign that said “all fruit trees half off” I really thought they would be half dead, but they were actually great trees, the store was just trying to reduce inventory before the end of the year. […]
In the garden… blueberries
Have I mentioned that we have blueberry bushes? Well, we have three. I bought them last year (as in 2010) on clearance at Walmart. They didn’t really do much last year, in fact, I wasn’t sure if one was going to make it. But it did. This year they had beautiful white blooms on them. […]
In the garden…melons
When we planted our Roma tomatoes this year we put some of last years compost in the bed. For all the other beds we used aged hay from a friend’s horse and goats. By the time we planted the Romas we were out of farm “stuff”. I had started my Romas from seed and a friend had […]