On 5/25/2014 7:38 PM, Terry Coombs wrote:
George Shirley wrote:
On 5/25/2014 4:36 PM, Terry Coombs wrote:
The berry patch looks like a a snowdrift ... They're blooming like
mad , and they're loaded with fruit . It looks like clumping them is
going to make it a lot easier to bloodlessly harvest them .
Actually , it's going to be a good year for all the wil;d fruits
here . Muscadines are loaded with fruit , blueberries actually
low-bush huckleberries for those who're anal about names are loaded
with fruit too . I'm watching the Mayflowers a mandrake species
too , but see no blossoms yet . Might be because of the late cold
snap - there are tons of these scattered on our land , and if they
do fruit this year we'll be making some jelly . And I'll be
getting our first beehive next week ... I'm so excited about our
garden/orchard/wild fruits this year I could just explode !
I've not seen a low bush huckleberry in about 50 years or more. I
reckon in my part of SE Texas the locals got carried away with mowing
and clearing. I used to love those things back in the forties and
fifties, we had never heard of or seen a real blueberry back then. We
used to harvest Mayflowers too. Muscadines are always good, we also
had a wild grape, rather small, that we called a Possum grape because
the possums were always in them. I'm jealous.

George

We have possum grapes here too , but I haven't seen any on our land -
doesn't mean there aren't any , just that I haven't seen 'em . I plan to
rectify that situation . The neighbor down the road has a nice patch at the
foot of his driveway , when the time is right I'll be getting a start from
him . Actually , I think I can clip a stem at any time and dip it in rooting
powder ... but right now I have my plate somewhat overloaded , with the
garden , the orchard , and building a house - plus running the machine shop
part time .

I got tired just reading that last paragraph. Many years ago I had the
stamina to work an eight-hour shift in a chemical plant, come home and
work another eight hours in my gun shop, get up the next morning and
take care of ten acres with goats, cows, chickens, ducks, rabbits and
about a three acre garden. Thought nothing of it then, would kill me
quickly at nearly 75 years of age. To many years sitting in management
chairs. Now we're gardening a small backyard with 128 square foot of
raised beds, two feet wide by 66 feet long along the fence angle, and a
small flower bed with Swiss chard as a backing in the front along with a
pear tree in front and a kumquat and a fig tree in the back. Sometimes I
miss all that work that kept me in fairly good shape and then I think,
"Nah, don't need all that stuff anymore, been there, done that." I'm
teaching the grands and great grands how to do all the stuff I learned
over the years and enjoying the hell out of it. I'll leave the heavy
stuff to you young people.

George