Lady Henevere: Year in review

[Lady Henevere]

I have been around this site for a couple of years and I have never done a journal, thinking I'm not the "blogging" type, and who really cares about reading about my life anyway? Now I regret it, since I have learned so many things in the past few years and I have utterly failed to keep track of them. From this site I have become interested in and learned to can, ferment, make yogurt, etc. In this journal I hope to keep track of that kind of thing for myself and anyone else who is interested.

There's no way I'm answering that long, crazy list of starter questions! Suffice it to say that I'm the mom of one (DD, 13), a wife, and I work full-time (and then some) in a high-rise in downtown L.A. I don't like being in an office building all day without fresh air and sunshine, but that's the career I chose and I can't really turn back at this point, so I do my best to find things I like about it and sometimes I succeed and sometimes I don't.

I live in the city on 1/3 of an acre, and I'm working on incorporating food forest/permaculture concepts into my backyard to make my property as edible as possible. (Permaculture is basically about working with nature and gardening as nature itself grows things, rather than doing rows of single plants, roto-tilling, fertilizing with chemicals (even organic ones), fighting weeds, etc.) So far here is what I have growing (though many of the plants are young and have yet to produce): Apples, figs, pear, jujube, avocado, oranges, tangerine, lemon, pomegranate, peach, plum, pluot, basil, tomato, sage, mint, thyme, oregano, strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, raspberries, boysenberries, grapes, artichokes, brussels sprouts, ginger, potatoes, nasturtiums. Other annual veggies are sprouting. I've only gone beyond the traditional veggie patch in the past couple of years, so this is a learning process for me. I will add stuff about this process later and as I go. I also have chickens.

Anyway, today I am going to try making kombucha from a store-bought bottle to see if I can get it to take off. I'm using the instructions from this thread. We'll see how it goes.

I also bought some soap-making supplies (well, just lye because the oil I already have at home) and will be trying that out when the lye gets here.

Thanks to everyone for all the great info on this forum, and hopefully I will offer something worthy to the discussion. Thanks for reading!j

 

[justusnak]

Hey there Lady. Welcome! Sounds like you have a great hold on your property. Lots of fruits and such. I dont journal as much asd I used to, life got busy...but I try to read all I can on here. I can't waite to hear more of your place. Sounds NICE!

 

[framing fowl]

Glad you started a journal. It is fun to look back and see your progress. I was hesitant about starting one too. I love finding out how others fare on small acreage. And seriously, LA County lets you have chickens? I thought they didn't let anybody do anything.

Now... on to business photos??? I'd love to see how you have that many trees and berries in 1/3 acre. And of course we want to see the chickens and your coop .

 

[Lady Henevere]

How silly of me to post without pics.

It's pretty easy to fit all those fruits and berries on the property when everything is young and new - many of my trees are currently about the size of twigs. I'm hoping to keep them fairly small with pruning, and most are dwarf and semi-dwarf varieties. Hubby wanted to keep a lot of the yard as grass, so I have done all my planting around the edges. Here it is:

Mature orange (with a grape growing up it), potatoes, young plum, pluot, peach, avocado, and a bunch of berry plants:

Baby apple trees, herbs, artichokes, blackberries, nasturtiums, along with cover crops of clover and vetch:

Chicken coop, another orange tree, and chicken run (BTW, my city allows a certain number of hens (Ten? Twelve? I forget), and the coop can't be too close to a house. No roosters allowed.):

Sheesh, it's only May 1 and everything is already losing that fresh, spring green. We only get rain in winter (it's a "Mediterranean climate" here -- cool, wet winters and hot dry summers), and it won't be long until everything is parched. Part of my plan is to help the soil hold more moisture (using the shade of trees, lots of mulch, groundcover plants, etc.). The trees aren't big enough to be much help yet, but they will get there eventually assuming I can keep them alive!

 

[Denim Deb]

How old is your peach tree, and have you shaped it yet?

 

[Lady Henevere]

I don't know how old the peach tree is -- I have had it for just over a year. I have not shaped it yet -- any specific advice about the best way to do it? The tree is about five feet tall and covered in peaches this year. I think I will have to take some off before they get too big because the tree is too small to hold them once they get heavy.

 

[framing fowl]

Thanks for the pictures! What a lovely place. So what got you started on your SS journey?

 

[Denim Deb]

It's probably too late to shape it now. They should be shaped when you first get them. (I used to work on a fruit farm [peaches and apples], and did a ton w/young peach trees.)

But for those that want to know how to correctly prune young peach trees, I'll post the info. I think, but I'm not sure that it's the same for apricots, nectarines and cherries. Look at your young tree at about knee height. You're looking for 3 or at the most 4 small branches, or if it hasn't put out branches, leaf buds. Chop off the rest of the tree. If you look at peach orchards, you'll see this is how they're shaped. As the tree gets older, you want to keep the inside clear. Do not cut off all the new growth, that's where you get your fruit. If you have a peach orchard near you, go and look at the trees after they've been pruned. You might be amazed at how few branches are left. Apple trees are done differently, and to a point, it depends on the variety of apple as to how it's pruned. I don't recall now all the different ways. We didn't grow as many apples. They had a saying around here, apples for health, peaches for wealth. They got more for the peaches than the apples.

 

[Lady Henevere]

Thanks, Deb. I took a look at the tree and it looks like it was already shaped that way before I got it. (I ordered the trees from a place that specializes in heirloom fruit trees, and it looks like they know what they are doing! Lucky me.) I will keep an eye on that shape and be sure to keep it up. I appreciate the info.

FF, I don't know the answer to that question, though I though I had asked myself that before you even asked (after DH asked why I wanted to make soap and I didn't know the answer). Now I'm curious though, so I'll keep thinking about it. (I also need to go check out your journal -- I want to see what you're doing with your 1/4 acre!)

Made yogurt way too late last night so that by the time I had to leave this morning, it hadn't been out long enough to set up, or ferment, or whatever it us that yogurt does. I took the whole cooler packed with towels and mason jars to work with me, so mid-day I could pop the jars in the fridge at work. No one saw me do it, thank goodness, because I would really rather not explain mason jars of homemade yogurt to the people at work. They already think I'm a crazy hippie chick.

There's something slimy looking floating in my kombucha jar, which is either promising or simply gross.

I choose promising. For now.

 

[freemotion]

There's something slimy looking floating in my kombucha jar, which is either promising or simply gross.

I choose promising. For now.

It's your scoby! It is promising!