Spring turns to summer. Flowers bloom and plants grow.
We are fortunate to have this beautiful retreat to call home. We are hobby farmers, night planters who are fully employed and not forced to depend on the fruits of our labor for sustenance.
The chickens out for an adventure in the new pasture and orchard.
As of June 30, 2022, our company consists of 3 humans, 2 dogs, 2 cats, 8 hives, 10 laying hens (chickens), 1 rooster, 6 turkeys (4 broad breasted bronze and 2 royal palm), 3 ducklings, and 114 chicks.
The chicks are home hatched and from Cackle hatchery in Missouri. To date, in 2022, we have hatched 7 batches of chicken eggs and there are 23 quail eggs in the Nurture 360 incubator. UPDATE 10 hatched on June 23! We rehomed our rooster, Jubal, in May. While protective, his amorous attentions were simply too much for our hens. Good luck Jubal! We’ll miss you (a little). One of him progeny, Wade Hampton, has stepped up to the role – but we’re keeping him away from the hens (for now). Chicken math! Our four broad breasted bronze turkeys are huge at 11 weeks and will be delicious this fall.
The chickens gathered road a bucket for a cool drink in the hot afternoon.
The garden has improved vastly over last year. We have harvested new potatoes, squash, and a few beets at the beginning of June. The corn is now waist high and a second crop is ankle high. The centennial hops are ripe and the golding variety are close behind (it’s almost time to brew beer, again)! Two of the three muscadine grape vines are growing (one failed) and we have a new row of thornless blackberries – from Lowes and the Gilmanor chicken swap.
Our three peach trees are alive but struggling. The leaves are turning red and yellow and at three years old, they have not begun to set fruit. The two pecan trees planted in 2017 have finally gotten their roots. In 2022 they have almost doubled in size (hurrah!).
Our bees have been a trying experience but we continue to learn and will be extracting our first honey at the end of June. They are in a robbing mood as the honey flow is nearly over and the summer dearth is going to begin soon.
The pasture got a good start and the cool season grasses are growing dormant with the warmer weather. Last year we had a good stand of natural crab grass and are hoping for a similar result this year.
Stumping and clearing continues to the north. Almost 17 acres to date! As Diesel prices soar ($5.27 at last purchase) we’re glad we’ve been able to do as much as we have. Brendan purchased a new (to him) 1969 International Harvester 856 at the end of June. It’s been an action-packed month!
“It is (still) wonderful how much may be done if we are always doing.”
Thomas Jefferson
March marked the one year anniversary of these monthly blogs. I thought it would be nice to do a little progress check and see how far we’ve come in a year including land-clearing (establishing pasture), chickens (and chicken math), bees, apple trees, and the garden – among other things.
Land-clearing continues with the excavator and Buttercup, our D-6. At last count we had stumped about nine acres. Three have been drilled with a pasture mix (20 lbs/acre), limed (6 tons per acre applied over two years), tested, and fertilized (a mix of 40-130-40). It’s been a process but we have goals to build a shelter and fences this fall and bring Gus home sometime next Spring (maybe for our mutual birthday, lol).
After two years of trying, we had our first show of tulips. They benefited from about 100 lbs of horse manure applied last fall and some gypsum to amend the soil. Progress!
Drilled lines of new pasture!
In the garden we learned from last year that planting potatoes can wait until the ground warm up and sure enough, we had success!
This year brewing has taken a back seat to the birds and the bees. One year in, we have 84 chickens and 4 broad breasted bronze turkey poults. The chicken infrastructure includes an ad-hoc brooder house with pumpkin boxes and chicken wire (formerly the grannery), the hen house constructed last year for our laying ladies (currently there are 8), and a 200 square foot grow-out pen attached to the back of the machinery barn.
March 2022, view from the apple orchard towards the new grow-out pen.
Out of the eight hives we inherited last fall, two overwintered and both swarmed in early April. Thanks to good advice, we managed to catch the first swarm on the chimney ruins and set up a cedar tree as bait. From April 4 through the 20th, we caught another four hives. We have A LOT to learn about bees!
Early Spring and one of the overwintered hives.
The current state (at the beginning of May 2022) is seven hives, many of which are in need of repair or replacement. Five are small or weak and we’re working to keep them growing and healthy. Brendan ordered mite treatment and in April we took a trip to Scottsville Supply to buy new boxes (12).
In the garden, the permaculture area is now a year old. We have erected high tensile trellises for blackberries and grapes and last year’s grapes are beginning to grow. The centennial hops are growing vigorously and the Goldings are well, if a little behind.
For Easter, Coral and the Grouts came to visit. We planted potatoes and hatched a new set of 16 baby chicks.
“October had tremendous possibility. The summer’s oppressive heat was a distant memory, and the golden leaves promised a world full of beautiful adventures.” -Sarah Guillory, Reclaimed
Garden sentinels usher autumn’s glow.
Tis the season to set the garden to rest, stump the reclaimed land, pick apples and brew beer. The crab grass fades golden with the first cool nights. Old and rented equipment break in protest. Indefatigable, we push on to tackle new projects and set old familiar places straight. Highlights from the month included:
Stumping south of house with excavator 10/1-10/2;
Heavy equipment (Track Loader arrives) 10/3/2021;
Stumping and bulldozing south of house 10/9-10/11;
Plow, disk, and seed garden with oats (~50 lbs) and turnips (2 lbs) 10/17/2021;
Brew Cider and English bitter ale (total 9 gallons) 10/17/2021;
Widen farm entrance with culvert 10/17/2021;
Plant thornless blackberries (12) 10/20/2021;
Remove 30 more stumps from middle pasture 10/24/2021;
Repaired seed drill (ordered parts) 10/30/2021;
Drilled Valley Mix for pasture 10/31/2021
Eight chickens, 2 dogs, 2 cats, and four humans hold down the farm. Brendan continues to research the potential to bring cattle to the farm and Lilli dreams of the day she and Gus will gallop across the pasture.
Meanwhile, the apple trees produced enough ugly apples to make a delicious Arkansas Black and Gold Rush apple pie. An orchard specialist stopped by and gave us a quick assessment of the trees. More pruning and spraying are the order for next year!
Sometimes it’s what’s on the inside that matters!
The end of the month found us racing against the clock to get cover on the new ground and plant the pasture. We purchased 125 lbs of Valley Pasture Mix from Featherstone Farms (45% Orchardgrass, 10% Harvest Orchardgrass, 20% Perennial Ryegrass, 10% Timothy Grass, 10% Kentucky Bluegrass, 3% Landina Clover, 2% White Clover) and drilled the new pasture at a rate of 25 lbs/acre on October 30th and 31st.
The new ground received a mix of wheat (200#) and red clover (150#). Fingers crossed we have good germination and growth, despite the late hour of planting.
The old and new drill.
At the end of the month, with the fire ring complete, we welcomed family and friends to toast marshmallows and blacken hotdogs. Together we enjoyed the good feeling of family and campfires. Next week, we’ll be joined by a production team from New York and L.A. as the farm gets a temporary makeover for some TV magic.
A cool, dry Spring gave way to a hot, dry summer. Our new garden suffered but blueberries (transplanted from last year’s bare root plants) blushed purple and last year’s bee balm exploded in brilliant red and purple. We’ll take success where it comes and measure failures by lessons learned!
June Projects included:
800 lb of lime applied to garden (rate of 5 tons/acre)
6/16/2021
100# German millet drilled
6/17/2021
200# lime applied variously to yard
6/16/2021
2 additional bee hives on loan from P. Jones
6/18/2021
Hop poles erected
6/20/2021
Repaired trench left from running water to tobaco barn
6/20/2021
Hop dirt bed (5 tractor buckets of loamy sand from the creek)
6/21/2021
German millet broadcast seeded/Sudan grass on piles
6/20/2021
Hop bines planted
6/25/2021
5 acres treated with 1.5 tons lime/acre (8.3 tons)
6/28/2021
June 1, 2021
June 30, 2021
By all accounts, it’s been a challenging year for gardens in central Virginia. Note the new hop poles and a little more green!
Brendan spread 1,000 lbs of lime across the garden and Southern States delivered and spread another 8.3 tons across the newly cleared pasture (approximately 5 acres). This year bulk lime is $55/ton (delivered and spread), an increase of 10% from last year, but still a lot less than buying it by the 40 lb bag.
For small jobs of less than 1,000 lbs, a spreader and tractor do great!
The ‘giant’ pumpkin has gotten off to a slow start, our bell peppers have literally melted into the ground, and the garden squash have been attacked by vine borers. On the bright side, our spindly corn refuses to give up, our zinnias are blooming brightly, we have a fresh supply of sumpter cucumbers for our salads, and our onions are perfectly sized for cocktails!
We added three Wyandott pullets to our coop at the beginning of the month to replace three White Leghorns that Emily Jane adopted in Florida. It took about two weeks of pecking and squawking but the ladies are finally figuring it out and are getting along.
The new pullets investigate an egg laid by the Golden Comets.
I’ve decided to make the old greenhouse a bit of a project this year. In the past, it has served magnificently and variously to start daffodils grown by Brendan’s dad. It even has an old (and inefficient) propane heater. We’re now using it to start seeds and plants for setting out. My plans include setting up an automatic timer, fan, and mister. For now it’s a bit of a hot mess!
New things a-growing in the greenhouse
Outside of garden projects, we celebrated as members of the family announced their move back home to Virginia. How wonderful is is to reclaim the precious process of gathering!
In other events, Brendan and I hosted the Maritime Heritage Chapter (MHC) of the Archaeological Society of Virginia (ASV) for a Shipwreck Tagging Workshop. Started in Florida by the Florida Public Archaeology Network (FPAN), the program works with the public to tag shipwreck timbers and create a record of each artifact that can be used for future research. Each tag contains a unique ID that is part of a large and growing database. For the workshop, we cut, sanded, and glued more than 80 tags, which are now ready to deploy!
Past and future state underwater archaeologists John Broadwater and Brendan Burke work on assembling tags.
To grow hops in Virginia, you need rich, well drained soil, light, water, and structure. The structure, or hop yard, can be as simple as a trellis against the side of a porch, or as complex as a commercial yard containing rows of telephone poles and tensioned wire. At Glendale we’re walking the middle ground and have chosen to cut three cedar trees for a mini yard.
We ordered 10 bines (5 Golding and 5 Centennial) from homebrewing.org and in April planted them in several 2 gallon pots to sprout.
Our hop babies grew quickly and soon began to climb.
Meanwhile we began work on the Hopyard. We took high-tensile wire repurposed from the orchard (we decided the deer can share our bounty of apples rather than creating Fort Knox), two screw anchors, baling twine, and several scoops (3 1/2 cubic yards) of loamy sand from the creek to build a nice foundation.
Time will tell how they do. In general, hops take several years to establish themselves and produce a good crop of delicious cones for brewing.
In 2016, Brendan and I had a dream. We were living in St. Augustine working as maritime archaeologists and dreaming of a rural future one day . On the long drive up and back from Florida, we schemed a plan for an experimental apple orchard with different varieties for eating and cider-making.
The old cow barn and trees in 2016
Year 1… 2016 Welcome home little trees
Eager with our new project, we purchased twenty bare-root trees from Stark Bro’s Nursery. Having never ordered bare root trees, I was amazed at the slender box carrying our orchard to-be. Our original order included 20 trees and eight varieties: For eating: Granny Smith (3), Pink Lady (4), Arkansas Black (3), Winesap (2), and Golden Delicious (2). For cider: Orleans (2), Smokehouse (2), and Wagener (2). Each tree arrived as a 3-4 foot-tall whip ready for planting.
Apple trees contain a rootstock (semi-dwarf in this case) that determines the size and vigor of the tree, and a scion that once grafted to the stock determines the species. The year before we bought our trees, they were professionally grafted. In hindsight, it would have been nice to know the type of rootstock that came with our trees. It is most likely M-111, a versatile rootstock that produces a tree 80% the size of a full tree and that is well suited to a range of soil types.
Brendan purchased a 3-point auger for the Fergusen and excavated holes across a grid with vertices 16′ and 20′ apart. Each tree was planted with the graft several inches above ground surface. We used pieces of plastic irrigation pipe for tree guards and a stack of tobacco stakes and baling twine for support.
We planted our trees in March and by spring, we had a new flush of leaves. In May we treated with fungicide and by November, all had shot up to between 53″ and 96″ in height. We lost a single tree (an Arkansas Black) the first winter. The tree grew well but never woke up in 2017.
Year 2… 2017
The second year we learned that apple trees are delicious. Every bug, beast, and fungus known to man loves apple trees. The main problems are:
In addition, local rabbits and deer found them quite tasty and in late summer, hordes of Japanese beetle descended to feast on them. Understanding we would have losses, we made a day trip to Albemarle Ciderworks & Vintage Virginia Apples, to learn about some local varieties and fill in a couple of empty spots in the orchard. We brought back four new whips and two 2-year old trees.
The new varieties were: Albermarle Pippin (2), Black Twig (2), and Hewes Crab (2).
We replaced the tobacco stakes with T-posts and created cages from hogwire. Our newly expanded orchard grew and by late summer, many had trunks between 1/2 an inch and an inch in diameter. We lost one of the newly planted Black Twigs to fire blight but the other trees grew well.
Year 3… 2018
2018 was the last full year we lived in St. Augustine and watched our small orchard grow from afar. In February we came up for the weekend and pruned our little trees. The spring and summer were warm and wet, not ideal for apples. We saw our fair bit of rust and lost a Granny Smith from crown rot. Still too small to produce apples, our good neighbors, the Flippins, helped apply pesticides and keep the funk at bay. We couldn’t resist getting three Grimes Golden from Albermarle Ciderworks to ‘fill out’ the area and fill in a few holes. Two trees tried producing their first apples (way to go Pink Lady and Arkansas Black)! By Fall, eighteen of our trees were more than an inch in diameter and we cautiously awarded several a Grade “A” for excellent performance! Of the stars, Arkansas Black, Orleans, and Golden Delicious seemed well suited to their home in 6B, and all had trunks more than 1 1/2 inches in diameter. Of the less vigorous varieties, both Smokehouse got poor grades for slow development.
In October 2018, Hurricane Michael brought nearly six inches of rain and gusty winds to the area. Four of our star trees (two Arkansas Black, one Pink Lady, and one Granny Smith) were knocked over by the weather. All had larger diameter trunks and more branches which contributed to their top-heaviness. Looking back, it would have been better to plant the trees in smaller holes and provide stronger, long-term support.
When planting apple trees, it’s best to provide long-term support. Some full-sized trees do fine without stakes but most semi-dwarf and dwarf varieties benefit strongly from staking.
Don’t eat the apple blossoms, they’re pretty but not edible.(CHET TO BRENDAN)
Year 4… 2019
By now, we believed several of trees were large enough to remove their ‘cages’ and strong enough to support themselves. We provided treatments in the spring of Dormant Oil (February), and Copper fungicide and Eight (an insecticide) in June. The deer grazed and nibbled while a buck used three trees for his rub.
If you want to enjoy the fruit of your labor, some spraying is necessary. By June, all but one of the remaining original trees were over an inch in diameter. Last year’s early producers tried again and were joined by five new varieties. The trees trying for apples in 2019, in their fourth year since planting were:
Pink Lady (n=4) ,
Arkansas Black (n=27),
Winesap (n=15),
Smokehouse (n=4), and
Granny Smith (n=1). We were so excited that we counted the apples!
Year 5… 2020
During our first full year at Glendale, we tackled a huge stack of projects. Having once been center stage, the apple trees took a supporting role to the rest of farm happenings – from creating a new circle driveway, to stumping pines for future pasture and field, and creating new home workspaces from a former corn crib and tobacco barn.
Excited after last year’s first showing, we sprinkled a splash of 10-10-10 general fertilizer on the apples (turns out we didn’t need to do this and apple trees generally do better without any fertilizer during their early growing years) and watched the spring blossoms arrive! An early warm spring greeted us with butterflies and blossoms, a real treat!
The early bird gets the worm, but Mother Nature has the last laugh. On May 10th, the temperature plummeted and we had two nights with 28 degree lows. We jumped to cover our veggies and cloche the delicate spring shoots. While we were able to salvage most of them, the freeze toasted the tomatoes, our little pecan trees’ spring shoots, and most of the apple buds. The newly formed clusters of fruit blackened and dropped off. A warning not to count your apples before June! Despite the chill, our June count showed a few stubborn apples clinging fiercely to life. The year’s stubborn producers were (in number of apples):
Pink Lady (n=1),
Orleans (n=11),
Smokehouse (n=2),
Golden Delicious (1),
Granny Smith (n=1),
Winesap (n=7),
Hewes Crab (n=36). Hewes Crab is a biannual producer so we’ll see what happens next year.
Unfortunately, of the apples above, none made it to harvest. Thanks, deer! Another year to wait… During the summer and fall we kept the same treatment plan as previous years but began to struggle with blight in early May. We kept trimming and cutting, and purchased some Fertilome to spray next year. Each chemical has a special window of application – with bloom, wind, and temperature all needing to fall within the correct window. Too soon or out of sync and you waste the chemical and/or damage sensitive pollinators.
In 2020, we added the last new apple trees, a Red Delicious and Golden Delicious that were on sale at Tractor Supply and too good an offer to pass up. The orchard now stands at 30 trees and will likely stay that number until we learn which varieties produce and which withstand the rigors of time.
Our little apple orchard on April 5, 2020
Year 6 … 2021
This year, we purchased a 15 gallon sprayer and shared the pruning tasks in February. Several of the trees are pushing 10 feet and will need some more serious attention this summer. For Christmas, we adopted a 3.5 HP Hercules hit and miss engine (Merry Christmas Brendan) and in February found a apple cider mill for sale. Both require a little fine tuning but we’re hoping that the coming years will provide an opportunity to press both into service.
The winter was casualty-free and the spring has brought an abundant bouquet. By the first week of May most of the apples have finished blooming and started the process of setting fruit.
April 2021
The first harvest yielded ~3 lbs of Hewes Crab, 8 lbs of Gold Rush, and 9 lbs of Arkansas Black apples. The other trees produced a few apples a piece and we sampled them surreptitiously to see when and how they ripened. The sampling lasted from early September through the end of October and hints of harvests in years to come.
Voila! Ugly apples and beautiful pies in just five years!
April is drill season. Since last fall, Brendan has delivered drills across the Piedmont Soil and Water Conservation District. If you own a tractor of suitable horsepower, you can (for a nominal fee of $150 at time of writing) rent a 7 – or 10 – foot seed drill from the district to plant your legumes, grasses, or grains. The rental includes up to 10 acres and this year we slid in without about 8 acres that were cleared and ready for seed.
Preparation – On April 8-9, 2021 we finished stick picking the area to be seeded. The days before we purchased 200 pounds of oats and 150 pounds of Kentucky fescue. We calibrated the drill and then Brendan settled into the work.
We seeded the Kentucky 31 at a rate of 25 lbs per acre and the oats at 100 lbs per acre. We learned from trial and error that the drill wastes some of the larger grains and had to purchase an additional 150 pounds of oats from Southern States on the 9th to finish the work.
Brendan Burke feeding the hopper.
After a long two day’s work we crossed our fingers for rain and settled in to wait. With a little luck the seeds will grow, our soil will build, and the land will be ready for the big pasture planting next year. Stay tuned for a summer update on germination rates and establishment!
Early spring is a great time to move trees. The ground is soft and the trees ready to grow! At Glendale, we scouted the back field (planted in 2015 with pine) for Eastern Redcedar (Juniperus virginiana), between 4 and 7 feet tall, with the aim to create a natural, native border between Cheatham’s Road and the farm.
Juniperus virginiana (Eastern Redcedar) is a versatile, native tree grown in gardens and across landscapes for centuries, by George Washington (1732-1799) at Mount Vernon, Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) at Monticello and Andrew Jackson (1767-1845) at the Hermitage. It’s fast growing, disease resistant, provides natural habitat, and smells great!
Loaded with the afternoon’s forest finds!
We planted our trees about 6 meters apart (that’s about 20 feet for you non-archaeologists). Each tree has a tap root and root mass about 2 feet across and about a foot deep (not an extensive root system!). We gave each tree a couple of gallons of water, a T-post and a friendly, encouraging word.
Grow little cedars!
Settled in, we also found a lovely redbud and a holly in the woods across the road that Brendan’s aunt owns. It feels good to bring shaded trees out from the woods and into the foreground. Hurrah for the natives!
