Spring 2024!

Peaches in Full Bloom

Hello, greetings and happy Spring to all! Always a great time of year, amazing to see things growing when it started to seem like dormancy was the permanent norm. The hills over here are green and the flowers, wild & domestic, are blooming profusely. We had a good Winter with a few exceptions, but good to take a break from all the farming chores. Weather wise there wasn’t much snow and we had some very cold temperatures, the coldest we’ve had since we’ve been here in 35+- years. For many locales in Eastern Washington minus ten isn’t that unusual, but here in the Lake Chelan valley it is. That’s one reason we can grow many of the things we grow, like many of the soft fruits. ( I’m mostly referring to the areas away from the main agricultural zones in the lower elevations, close to the big rivers). Anyway, it was much to our surprise when we discovered that the cold pretty much wiped out our peach/nectarine crop and many of the apricots and still yet to be seen what else. Some plums, apples, pie cherries and Asian pears look to have decent blooms on them, so now to wait and see how pollination goes.

I mentioned to some folks at the market that last year that we weren’t going to be bringing the amount of tomatoes and green beans and other various garden crops we had been, we are scaling back some. I still plan on continuing with the tree fruit and what garden produce from our reduced production. Without the peaches this year, I’m guessing my presence at the market in late July and August will be less than what has been normal. Our farm has always surprised us with what we can come up with to bring over after smaller setbacks over the years, the diversity has served us well, so we’ll see..

Most of the trees look like they weathered the cold well, with the exceptions of the blooms. Some trees don’t look great, so we wait and see how they do. Actually, the peach & nectarine trees will probably do very well without the burden of a crop and grow abundantly, so maybe next year.. The next few weeks will be critical for pollination, hopefully we’ll get some warm weather and let the bees get out to do their work, this is always the way it is!

The Burbank Plum Bloom

I hope to see you all in early July. Thanks again for supporting us all these years!

Fall 2023

Greetings All –

Just a quick note to let you all know that I won’t be at the market this weekend, the 28th. But I will be back on November 4, next Saturday. That will likely be our last market for this season. I’ll have apples, pears , Asian pears, and hardy kiwis.

We got our first frost last night, we almost had our first snow a couple of nights ago, it came down to about 300-400′ above us. So grateful it didn’t snow here, too early! Last year the first snow came on November 6, almost a foot, very much too early. Hopefully we’ll get another month before it sets in this year. There’s always a lot to do to clean and get things ready for the dormant season, Thanksgiving is our usual ‘traditional’ first snow date.

We didn’t have any serious bear issues this year, thanks to our bear dog Zora, and the movable electric fencing. The skunks were another issue, somehow post fire and..? was the right conditions for the skunk population to soar. No major issues, but an occasional smelly dog.. No major fires too close and not as smokey as it could’ve been, yeah!

Another season finishing up, I am looking forward to the break. We sincerely thank you all for your continued support, and coming to the market every week. We couldn’t do it with out you! Thank you! See you on the 4th.

Last Market (For the Season) November 2022

Greetings All.

A quick note to let you know that this Saturday (November 5) will be our last market for this season.

We’ll have a variety of apples, Asian pears, European pears (Bosc), walnuts, honey, and some plums.

It’s been a busy year and good season for us. The gardens did well and the orchard was quite productive despite the weather challenges in the Spring and post fire and all. Being as diverse as the farm is surely helps, a few crops didn’t work out, but having a mix of varieties contributes to having enough for a market week after week.

AND Having the support from all our customers and friends makes it possible. Thank you all so much!

Also want to give a nod to the dog: Zora our Karelian Bear Dog has pretty much kept the bears out and protected the fruit. Along with us figuring out the movable electric fence, we had very little loss from our Ursine neighbors. She is most always keeping watch and moving along whatever animal comes through. And she’s a good time too! Thanks Zora!

Take care, have a good Winter and I look forward to seeing you all again next year. Thank you!

Last Market – 10-23-2021

Newtown Pippin Apple

Greetings – I’m pretty sure this will be our last market, for this season. The apples and pears had a light bloom last Spring, and a lighter than usual crop as a result. It’s been a challenging year all along and I’m not too sorry to be at this end of it. Next year…

Hardy Kiwi Fruit

• -This week we’ll have Bosc Pears and A-Ri-Rang Asian pears. – Belle de Boskopp, Spitzenburg, Prairie Spy, King David, Spartan and Newtown Pippin apples. -Italian plums and hardy Kiwis. It’s a good time to stock up, most of the apples are excellent keepers.

We had some rain last night, with more forecast. It’s so nice nice to be getting some moisture over here on the east side of the mountains. Thank you all for supporting us all these years and I hope to see you on Saturday.

Update – October 13, 2021

Spitzenburg Apple

Greetings – Things are going well here, we’re still adjusting to the charred landscape all around, but I guess we are getting use to it. We’ve restocked the electric bear fencing that was burned and have been using it to good effect. Our perimeter fence is back up, and we think the last deer has been chased out, good news as they’ve been hard on plants in the weeks since the fire. Some big news for us is that we found an insulated, refrigerated shipping container to use as a cold storage! It’s a very nice unit, clean and well set up. It’s a big check off on the list of things to do. After it was delivered and a little bit of wiring it was go. Much more convenient then driving 30 miles to the storage we were using. With that said; a BIG THANK YOU to Scott and Ky at Jerzy Boyz Farm for their generosity in giving us the space in their cooler for the nearly two months our fruit was there.

Our New Cooler

Cool

I took last weekend off from doing the market, but will be back for a few more to finish the season off. We’ll have apples, pears & Asian pears, Italian plums and Kiwi’s. See you then.

Thanks!

Looking up valley, it was still on fire a couple weeks ago (up high), it snowed a bit up there last night.. Our place is about half way up the pic, on the right

Fresh For October 31, 2020

Greetings – We’re getting close to finishing our market season for this year, more then likely I’ll have two more weeks to go. I like to have something new each week to add interest to our table, but these weeks will be the same as I’ve had.

I was surprised when I got up last Sunday to see the snow in our orchard and on the hills above us, a definite turn of the season! It’s slowly melting off and probably will all be gone in the orchard (hopefully) before too long, we’re just not quite ready for it..

This week, Apples and Pears @ $3.50 a pound, sweet to tart:

• Nicajack
• White Winter Pearmain
• Spartan
• Prairie Spy
• Macoun
• Mc Intosh
• Jonathan
• Newtown Pippin
• Spitzenburg
• King David
• Tydemans Late Orange
• Coxs Orange Pippin
• Belle de Boskoop

Pears:

• Ar-ri-rang Asian Pear
• Mongolian Red Asian Pear
• Bosc
• Honey, 1 pint-20oz. net wt. – $20.00

If you’d like to preorder, email us at: grousemtfarm13@gmail.com I will send you a Square invoice through which you can pay online, and then pick up your order on Saturday at our booth at the market. Please send your order by 9am on Friday.

I’m going to continue the box sale, $55.00 for 20 pounds, stock up!

The Walnut Tree

Thank you all for supporting us through this and all the past seasons. Besides being able to eat as much fruit as I want, it is a huge pleasure to have you all as customer/friends to be able to get to know yous or just rant about whatever, and for your appreciation for what we do. It means a lot to us. See you Saturday.

Fresh for October 17, 2020

Hello-

No mistaking it, Autumn is here for sure. We received about two inches of rain since last weekend, which is quite a bit for over here. The ground and everything else sorely appreciates it, it was dry. And snow a couple thousand feet above us, Winter not far off.

A few new additions to our apple selection this week: Spartan, another McIntosh cross. Nicajack, Spitzenburg and Newtown Pippin, the latter two reputed to be Thomas Jeffersons favorite apples. They’re all good, multi-purpose fruit. The Pippins are exceptional keepers, getting better as the Winter wears on.

Newtown Pippin

We’ll also have Walnuts this week. The pears and apples are $3.50 a pound. From sweetest to tartest (approx.):

• Swiss Arlet
• Nicajack
• White Winter Pearmain
• Spartan
• Prairie Spy
• Macoun
• Mc Intosh
• Jonathan
• Newtown Pippin
• Spitzenburg
• King David
• Tydemans Late Orange
• Coxs Orange Pippin
• Belle deBoskoop

Pears:

• Hosui Asian Pear
• Ar-ri-rang Asian Pear
• Mongolian Red Asian Pear
• Abbe Fetel
• Bosc
• Seckel

• Walnuts – $8.00#
• Hardy Kiwis – $5.00 pint
• Honey – $20.00 pint

I you’d like to preorder, send an email to: grousemtfarm@gmail.com , then I’ll send you a Square invoice through which you can pay online, then come pick up your order at our booth at the market on Saturday. Please order by 9am on Friday.

King David Apple

Thank you for supporting us and coming out to the market. Stay safe & healthy.

Grafting – 101.1

I’m going to try to do a fairly complete series about grafting fruit trees, step by step throughout the spring and aftercare through the summer. For a quick read on grafting, what it is and why do it, check out this link of a blog entry I wrote a few years ago: https://grousemtfarm.wordpress.com/2010/04/23/grafting/ and look up other resources where ever they may be .

I’ll be working with common fruit trees: apples, pears, peaches, plums, apricots, cherries and walnuts. Some fruits are easier to graft then others. Apples and pears are probably the easiest, with the soft fruits a bit more finicky (mostly timing) and difficult to get a good take. Walnuts are the most difficult for me, I’ve only had scant success grafting them, but we will try… The techniques are similar with other species then those I’ve mentioned, mulberries and persimmons are fairly easy. If you want to try something else, I recommend looking up the specifics for the species on the web or library etc.

The first step is to collect scion wood (pronounced sign or sine). The wood must be collected when the tree you’re collecting from is dormant, mid to late winter is good. If early is the only possible time, as long as it’s dormant and you provide good storage it should be fine too. If it is collected too late in the winter/early spring, the scion will begin to grow after being grafted before it has fused with the tree you’ve grafted to and in short order exhausting  its reserves and drying out. When all goes well, the tree and scion form a connection then as the wood comes out dormancy it’s tapped in to the tree to provide the energy it needs to grow and survive.

Gathering Scion Wood

Moderately vigorous one year old wood is optimum for scion wood. That means a branch that had grown in the previous season. Sometimes called suckers, generally upright growth about the size (diameter) of a pencil or slightly bigger, much bigger just makes for more difficult cutting when we get to the knife work. I’ve marked (rather crudely, I admit) an approximate point where you could cut scion wood from, on this particular tree (this tree was grafted two years previous, note the tape and paint on the trunk).

 

 

The second photo shows, in my opinion, optimum sized wood. The piece to right and apart from from the grouping of three is the top of the piece cut, this is usually soft and pithy, it may work , but I usually discard it. The others are firm mature wood ready for storage. I wet a few pieces of newspaper and wrap the scion wood in it, place in plastic bag and in to the refrigerator. Not too wet, but you don’t want it to dry out either, and protect from freezing. AND, remember  to label as to what variety it is, it all looks the same when grafting time comes!

I usually begin grafting cherries in late march or early April because cherry wood doesn’t keep well and begins to sprout while in storage. Apples and pears in April here, and the other soft fruits the third to fourth week in April, during a bit of a warm spell, if possible. The walnuts I’m still trying to figure out, but more towards the end of May when the weather has warmed up. I’ll write about tools in the next post.

Walnuts – They’re here !

We will have walnuts at the University District Farmers Market in Seattle, this Saturday, October 22. These walnuts have quite a following, we have people asking about them all season. They are good tasting, easy to crack with a well filled nut and good sized. There is a limited quantity, so we recommend being at the market early. We will have more walnuts in the following weeks, some smaller ones and our bigger BIG  nut as well.

Walnuts on the tree, the cracking husk indicates a ripe nut

A couple of years ago we made a short video about part of what we do to harvest and process the walnuts. Here’s a link: http://youtu.be/arpGitU-S6o

When the husks on the nuts begin to crack is a sure sign that they’re ripe. In a vacuum the nuts would all fall from the tree as they ripen and we could pick them up minus the hull. But with squirrels and Stellar Jays getting the jump on them we have to shake the trees and gather them, husk and all before they all disappear. Once gathered the nuts need to be de-husked. With a nut whose husk has begun to crack the nut pops right out but since I shake the tree, not all the nuts are as ripe so those not need to be put aside for a few days before the husk will  release itself from the walnut. After husking the nuts are quite wet and need to be dried for three to four days in a food dehydrator. If they’re not dried fairly quickly, the nuts will mold inside. We’ve found that if we remove the husks and store the nuts, still wet, while waiting (more then a few days) to put them  in to the dryer they’ll mold. But storing for up to a couple of weeks in the husk they won’t mold. Once dried, then at last: ready to eat!

Walnut Exposed

Also this week we’ll have:

Nickajack, Prairie Spy, Gala, King David, Belle de Boskopp, Macoun (not many), and a few Coxs Orange Pippin Apples.

Hosui and Shinseiki Asian Pears,

Bosc and Abate Fetel European Pears,

Elephant Heart and Italian Prune Plums,

Hardy Kiwis,

Concord Grapes,

and O’Henry and Honey Nectar Cot Peaches (Last peaches of the season)

See you Saturday.

Belle de Boskoop Apples

Walnuts, not yet…

 

Everyone is waiting for the walnuts, but they won’t be ready until next week. With a shortened week due to rain, there isn’t enough time to pick, husk and dry the nuts by market time. Next week for (almost) sure.

Hardy Kiwi Fruit on the vine

We will have this week:

Hosui and Shinseiki Asian pears, Italian prune plums, Elephant Heart plums, the last of the Fantasia nectarines and Honey-Nectar-Cots, and new this week the O’Henry peaches, Abate Fetel European pears, (next week: Seckels and Boscs). And apples: Gala, Prairie Spy, Swiss Arlet, Jonathan, Nickajack, Coxs orange Pippin. We’ll have the little Kiwis again this week and next as well, a few green beans (Romano)

                                                        Shinseiki Asian Pear

Everything is a couple of weeks later then it was last year, which was five to seven days later then is or was usual, due to the late spring and cooler early summer weather. As a result everything is later then we’re accustomed  to. ( Fresh Peaches in mid October?!)

See you Saturday.