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This Blog is a forum for an ongoing discussion of energy and politics. All political commentary is admittedly Libertarian AND Pacifist in its leanings in the extreme. If you have a particular bias to believe what you read in the Mainstream Media... this is not the Blog for you. If you are willing to question everything... read on!
8 comments:
Hi Greg, glad to here the farm is doing good. Just wondering which breed of rabbit you use for meat? Thanks Bob
Last time I checked with the largest tree nursery in the area I was told you can put fruit trees in anytime they won't freeze. I doubt it's too late to plant this Spring for you. I put an apple in two years ago as an end of season "didn't sell" from Menards and it actually flowered and has tiny apples on it now. Amazing I expected the poor thing to die over it's first Winter.
PP: I am on it!
Bob: Mixed breeds from the locals... they are pretty big, and the Buck appears to be half flemish giant.
While we leave rabbit feed in their cages, we feed fresh grass and clover (they prefer clover but in summer there just isn't that much of it) and have not had any "bunny hop" problems. Also, any and all garden left overs...
Rabbit and chicken livers, livers, hearts, kidneys are delicious and nutritious... but rabbits are far easier to clean/process and the meat is tenderer. We usually fry up the rear legs and stew the rest.
I would go ahead and plant the trees. A couple of tricks:
1. Insert a 3 foot section of pvc in the hole. When watering, fill this pipe. It is much quicker to get the 'deep' soak than running a sprinkler and waiting for it to soak through to the roots.
2. I am going to try this method next for planting. It supposedly makes them take off like a rocket:
Orchard expert planting method
3. Protect the bark and low branches from deer.
4. Learn the timing of spraying.
5. They need sun; mine are competing with older mature trees in the yard but the wife won't let me cut them down :-/
6. The tree's roots at the drip line hate to compete with grass. Permaculture solution is to plant a ring of flowering bulbs to act as a root block. I also use the chickens to scratch the grass down to dirt.
6. I had a caterpillar problem. But one year I scraped every nest into a bucket (careful because they may have poisonous hairs) and buried them 3 feet deep. The next year I had minimal nests. I guess those guys return to their home territory. That surprised me.
Back to the freezers... I have 25 bunnies maturing that I will process in early summer... right about the time the "free" feed availability heads south. Without the freezers, we would have to keep feeding until we needed them.
We let our old buck out early last year... and we could see wild rabbits hanging out with him around our barn... now it seems that some of the young wild rabbits bear a striking resemblance to him and are somewhat larger than normal... My buddy has a farm that backs up to some woods a couple miles away, and he harvests a wild rabbit every week via .22... now that's the really easy way to raise rabbits.
Thanks GardenerG! I will do just that... sounds smart.
We are heading to that way, solution must be found,
Hi Greg,
Good luck with the trees. It's certainly not to late to plant up here in MA, on in PA where I grew up. I don't know when hot weather his in Tennessee. Transplanted trees have a hard time in the heat because their damaged roots can't soak up water fast enough. Dig a big hole and amend the soil with peat or good mulch to retain water. Don't listen to anybody that tells you to protect the root ball by leaving the cover on. Take it off. Trees had a hard enough penetrating it when it was made of burlap. The plastic mesh they use nowadays... Sheesh. We've always had the best success planting in the fall.
Good to hear you are doing well.
Best Regards,
Coal Guy.
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