BMR 2001 Gardens

2001 was our first spring/summer on the Ranch and we had not intended to do any real gardening. Our hopes were to get an area fenced, get some irrigation infrastructure laid in and possibly start some perennials including rhubarb, asparagus and a few herbs.

To our great joy we were able to get that plus much more done and reaped some fine and tasty benefits in the process. Here's a photo report of the year's highlights...

We got an area about 50' x 50' fenced with a combination of wire field fencing with chicken mesh buried 12" deep and up about 24". The yard hydrant (left pic.) and 2" irrigation line stub-up went well and we got great gravity flow from the water tank (right pic.)

We soon learned that some sort of wind screen was in order. We put up some temporary screening and then planted about 50 Cotoneasters which will, in a few years, grow into a nice windbreak hedge. We also planted a few Lilacs at the corners for esthetics.

After a false start, fooled into planting too early by a warm spell, and having to re-plant we still got a nice variety of veggies, herbs etc. producing well.

The asparagus, rhubarb and perennial herbs all got planted as planned and did great.

Despite the best attempts of the squash bugs to ruin the crop, we still got more zucchini than we thought possible.

We planted about 100 Walla-Walla onions plants which took to our soil and climate very well. Here it's fall and they're pulled and drying for storage.

In addition to asparagus, rhubarb, herbs, onions and zucchini, we also had good success with jalapeño peppers, red bell peppers, yellow summer squash, scallions, cherry tomatoes, leaf lettuce, strawberries and sunflowers. Our turnips, carrots, beets didn't do very well. Next year (2002) I'll do better in their soil preparations and see how that goes.

Here, in late summer, everything is growing like mad. We are very pleased with our progress for the year.

A typical morning's harvest basket.

The sunflower crop was terrific with some over 8' tall, having 18" flowers on them!

When we purchased this property in late 2000 it had the remains of a 1-acre orchard in an area near the Barn. The neat rows with dozens of dead and skeletized fruit and nut trees gave silent testimony of a previous resident's ambitions. While there was an elaborate 120-head irrigation system in place on half of the plot, the 10-plus-year absence of anyone to turn on the flow of water was more than the young (most pre-bearing age) trees could have been expected to endure in this arid climate.

Re-building the orchard was an early priority for us. A philosopher once said something like "The best time to plant a tree was 10 years ago. The second best time is today". We were anxious to get new trees into the ground here as soon as possible and start them on their way to productivity. Fruit and nut trees cannot be expected to reach true production for 3 to 8 years from planting so this is an investment in the future for us.

Our plan was to greatly reduce the density of trees from the way it was originally laid out, planting 1 tree for every 4 irrigation heads. This spaces the trees about 24' apart with about the same space between the rows. This lay-out will give us room for 21 trees plus two 200 foot rows available for berries, cane fruits and fruit shrubs.

Our first project was to take the 200' by 125' irrigated section (25,000 sq ft), remove the dead trees with the tractor and till under the accumulated brush and undergrowth. Normally, tilling would be a job for the tractor and attachments but with the PVC irrigation heads every 15' (and the fact we don't have a disc for the tractor) we went ahead and did it with our 17" walk-behind roto-tiller. It took a few days but the results were good.

Next we took a day and worked on deciphering the dozens of valves, gauges, filters, etc for the irrigation system and actually got water running through all sections of the piping with only minor breaks to repair.

Then came preparing the soil. We were planning on planting only 13 trees this first season plus one row of bush fruits so we laid out their locations and using the tractor's backhoe dug 6' diameter holes 4' deep for each tree. We picked up 11,000 lbs. (15 cubic yards) of enriched mulch in town with our trailer (no mean feat) and divided most of it between the holes (reserving some for later use in the veggie garden), stirred it up well with the dirt and re-smoothed the whole thing out again. We then, again using the backhoe dug small planting holes in the enriched soil for the trees. You know the old saw about putting a $5 tree in a $10 hole? Well, our $20 trees each ended up in $100 holes.

The last steps were the actual planting of the trees and shrubs, fencing the whole area and then doing some final grading and raking work.

First, we removed all the old dead trees.

We then worked on tilling the entire 1-acre area

Eventually the whole area was cleared and tilled. We got all the irrigation working (even figured out what MOST of the valves did!) and got ready for amending the soil for planting.

In preparation for planting we dug large holes for the trees and augmented the soil with 11000 lbs. of composted mulch.

We bought most of our trees locally in 3-5 gallon containers and planted them right away.

Finally the mail ordered bare-root trees arrived and we planted them too

We wrapped the based of all the trees with 1/4" hardware cloth (against rodent damage) and got the irrigation going.

Soon after planting the trees we put in 2 Concord and 2 Himrod grapes, 6 blackberries, 12 raspberries, 4 blueberries and 2 currant bushes.

We eventually planted 2 Newtown Pippin, 2 Jonathan, 1 Granny Smith and 1 Macintosh apple trees along with 2 Moonglow Pears, 1 Autumn Royal Apricot, 1 Casselman Plum, 1 Montmorency Cherry and 1 Stella Cherry . We plan to plant some other fruit and nut trees in the next few years.