By Their Fruits Shall Ye Know Them

This whole self-sufficiency thing is a long term project.  Sometimes we are reminded of just exactly how long by the kinds of milestones we celebrate.

This week, our plum trees are in bloom, the first time in the three years since we planted them.  You can't have fruit without first having flowers, so we consider this a pretty important event.  Of course, the trees are still only about four feet tall, so any fruit we actually get this year probably won't be all that impressive -- but it's a milestone event, nevertheless.

There are other projects around Myrtle's place that are equally long-term.  We moved roughly 1,500 pounds of dirt out of the catfish pond today, and the digging is still only roughly 40% complete.  Which means we probably won't have fish in the pond until next March at the earliest; given that we started digging roughly 18 months ago, that makes this a fairly long-term event.  That first fish fry is going to be a doozy, let us tell you.

Speaking of doozies, our corn crop this Spring ought to be fairly impressive.  In addition to planting in a couple of our traditional raised beds, we have this new 'S' shaped bed which marks the spot where we are putting more olive trees next year.  Since it was available and doing nothing at the moment, we thought "Why not?" and proceeded to plant more corn here.  Among other things, it will add to the privacy between us and the rent house you can see in the background here.  Corn, wild grapes, pomegranates and morning glories (on the trellis) ought to keep our Myrtle-related activities private from the sorority girls doing all their non-Myrtle related things.  Because really, who wants to see someone doing something non-Myrtle related?

It has also come to our attention that in our discussion of Forsythia, which we have never planted before we slighted one of our favorite plants by saying we never plant ornamentals.  Irises grow practically like weeds in our yard; they spread via rhizome, and if they are growing where you don't want them, you practically have to dig up the entire yard to get rid of them.

We, of course, don't want to get rid of them.  They don't actually produce anything to eat, which is our usual standard for whether we want something growing in our yard or not, but on the other hand, they don't demand any attention, and seem to take care of themselves under all kinds of circumstances, bouncing back even after harsh winters like the one we just went through.

So, if and when you eventually visit Myrtle's place, you'll see these beautiful white flowers in the odd irregular bed around some of our shade trees.  They may not be producing yummy plums, but they make us enjoy the wait for all our fruit trees to come into production.

Hopefully, for Myrtle's next update we can show you some sprouting spring veggies!  Until then....

Happy farming!

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