Weekend project

[emetzger]

Merle,
Hope you got a bird this weekend. I had one lighting up behind my barn as I was piddling with my planter Sat afternoon. Happy Easter everyone! This weekend knocked out a few things. I did the following.
1. Changed out my clutch and belt on my Polaris sportsman.
2. Went threw my bees to see how there making out. Saw a lot off eggs and spotted 2 queens out of 3 hives. Hope they continue to build.
3. Caged a graft and also top grafted some persimmon. Check out some new growth on my pear grafts. First time I've ever done top work on pears.
4. Worked on my planter/drill set up. The seeds aren't very even but they are working. Time will tell how well it does. The plan is to drill beans and corn straight into my cover crop and then roll. Should work out well, I've never used the fertilizer box on a summer plot yet.

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[emetzger]

Here's an update on the plum trees I mauled. No sign of blk scab yet.
Before and after.

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[lakngolf]

You've been busy as those bees. Good job

 

[Sam16]

I planted some fruit trees this weekend that I had grown from seed and grafted. Also planted some chestnut trees. 11 fruit trees and 4 chestnut. These are 2 year old trees grown in root maker products. Real impressive root balls. I caged some and tubed the others.

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What type of material do you use for those metal tree tags?? I need those

 

[emetzger]

Sam, I bought them. Probably will never run out. I got 500. They do work great.

http://www.benmeadows.com/aluminum-weatherproof-tags_36814289/


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[emetzger]

This weekend was a wash here in Nashville. Rained Friday - Sunday. I got the following done and noticed something worth trying.
1. Bought another 3 lb box of bees. I put them at work so I can play with them a little more frequently. I also bought a new queen to re-queen a weaker colony but she was laying good so I did my first split and made a new hive. Not sure it will take, we'll see.
2. Apple grafts doing well.
3. Cleaned and prepped my sprayer. Had a ton of ants in it. Those suckers don't wash down very easily.
4. Checked out my cover crops. I'm about to plant and roll in 2 weeks.
5. Was cleaning out some scion wood that I had thrown in the garbage and found them budding out. Made me think I could root these. I have a propagation box with misters but have never done apple scion wood without leaves. May be worth a try. Ends appeared to be preparing to throw roots. Anyway, pretty cool.

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[emetzger]

This past week I got a few things done. One cool thing is I shot a doe that I sent the teeth off for cementum-annuli analysis. www.deerage.com said she turned out to be 15.5. Man, that is old, I wish I mounted her.

2nd thing I got done was to crimp my cover crop garden. Learned this from DGallow. I now do this on most of my food plots. It makes a big difference in quality food plots with much less inputs. And I'm building my soil each and every year.

3rd I went to Mercier Orchards in Blue Ridge Orchard. 300 acres of mostly apple trees. Pretty incredible place with some amazing apple pies. Check out this old apple house. They used to open the bottom doors at night to cool the barn and close it during the day to trap cool air.

4th an update on some moonglow grafts into some fire blighty kiefers.

5th I've had a tough time growing persimmons. This winter I walked some roads and picked threw some coyote turds. I threw them in a basket of media potting soil and covered with leaves. They germinated pretty good. I potted them in 1 gallon root maker pots.

6th I tested out my trailer cover crop roller. My covers weren't as thick as I wanted but it rolled threw the hairy vetch pretty good and crimped the stalk. I'm going to drill sweet corn into it and see how she does.

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[lakngolf]

Y'all make that grafting look so easy. Gives me ideas for my young pear trees if they don't perform well. Good luck with the raccoon persimmons.

 

[emetzger]

The latest list of projects and pick ups are the following:
1. Picked up a nice API climber for $50 on Facebook buy sell.
2. Planted a summer mix of sunflower, cow peas, sun hemp, buckwheat, soybean, milo. The tractor supply bag of black oil sunflower had a bunch of stem and also a lot of holes in the seed. I would suggest spending a little extras and not getting bird seed. At $18 per bag I had to try it.
3. Planted some sweet corn along with sunflower and cow peas.
4. Planted RR corn with RR beans from NWTF. I was really running threw seed in my fertilizer hopper so with this run I used a filler of lime pellets and some discounted grain rye. If I spray it will clean up the rye.
5. Changed my fertilizer tubes to a bigger size. It was clogging and I had some issues getting seed dispersed to each row. I hope this new set up will help.
6. Sprayed my NWSG with 100 gallons of water and 2 qts Remedy, 2 qts surfactant. I haven't had to spray since I established the grasses but lately, sericea lez and blk berry were really choking out the native grasses. So I cleaned them up a little.
7. Wrapped up a bee box project that my oldest and I are working on. We caught the idea on the web. We're hoping the bees make comb and honey in the jars.

Thanks for looking, y'all have a good week.

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[emetzger]

Finished planting most of my big fields this morning and was even fortunate enough to get some rain this afternoon. I'm hoping they come up well and feed wildlife while building soil. I did the following:

First, I planted half of a switchgrass field that wasn't doing very good. One side I had drilled and the other was my first attempt planting switch grass. It was covered in Johnson grass the first year and I struggled with sericea lez the remaining seasons. It wasn't as thick as the other side so this year I decided to hunt it and put in a food plot. First, I sprayed with gly and then after a week I drilled it with cow pea, soybean and sun hemp. In about 2 weeks I'm going to spray it with cleth and top seed with a combo of buckwheat, milo and pearl millet.

Second, I planted my duck hole with corn beans and sunflower. I'm planning on not spraying this field so I rolled it with a crimper. Check out the curly dock that got crimped in the process. Rolling and crimping also takes care of some native weeds that are growing.

Lastly, I put my second brood box on my hives. The goal this year is to not get honey, but to build the colony so they can survive the winter. If they make it, I will be swimming in honey next spring.

Thanks for looking, have a good weeks.
e

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[emetzger]

Happy Memorial Day y'all. Thank you guys who have served.

I got a few things done this weekend and took some picks. I got up early this morning to drop some trees but the chainsaw wouldn't crank. It needed a new spark plug. Here's a few things I've seen and experienced.
1. Got my first pick of a fawn.
2. Cleaned out my clutch box exhaust. Mice are getting in there and making nest and storing all kinds of seed. It is probably the reason I had to change my belt. I put some screen on the hole. Hopefully it will keep them out.
3. Duck hole killed pretty good rolling it. No herbicide. The dock weed also killed good but other smaller weeds where there wasn't covers were still pretty green.
4. I figured out my beans didn't germinate. The sunflowers did. I know old beans don't do well but I gambled and lost big time. I still have other seed planted but there's some gaps I don't like.
5. The converted fertilizer box to seed drill appears to be working. I'm looking into getting pelletized chicken manure to use as a filler next time.
6. Fire blight killing my kiefer pears. The moonglow grafted onto the other kiefers are doing well.
7. My NWSG I sprayed with Remedy did a great job killing the lez and blk berry. It's growing well.
8. Last but not least some quail observed in my orchard. Also the clover is doing well in it. Last year my plan was to add some white clover so I could run threw it once or twice a year and spray the Johnson grass with cleth. This way I don't have to worry about killing my trees and the clover will smother the weeds some what.

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[cutman]

Great thread. You've put in a lot of hard work.

 

[emetzger]

This weekend we had a baseball tournament in Pigeon Forge. I did get out for a couple hours on Thursday and planted some EW screens for stand placements. Also I found some time to flesh and dry some coyotes.

I tried a new idea that I had read from John O Brian on the FB Habitat forum. He adds a couple different seeds to his EW screen which acts like a foundation. I had some pearl millet and milo so I added these two seeds to my EW. The idea is that they will stand longer during the season. I don't get a lot of snow like he does but it sounded like a good idea.

I've planted EW before and love using it around stands to get in and out with the least amount of disturbance.

I also bought a pollen catcher for my bee hive. I have some bad allergies so lately I have been taking a spoon full of pollen each morning with a glass of water and it has helped so far. Pollen is expensive though so I'm going to start catching it myself.

I forgot my phone while planting the screens but I will post some updated picks later.

Have a great week!

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[emetzger]

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[dogghr]

Wow somehow I've missed this thread. What a great one. Everything from planters to bees to crimpers. BTW what is the history of the old barn? Sweet. Great stuff, I like your work.

 

[emetzger]

Wow somehow I've missed this thread. What a great one. Everything from planters to bees to crimpers. BTW what is the history of the old barn? Sweet. Great stuff, I like your work.

Thank you for the kind reply. The apple barn is at the Mercier Orchard in Blue Ridge, GA. I was there trying to sell some shopping baskets and carts for their gift shop. I asked if they could give me a tour of the orchard and we drove up to the old barn.

Bill and Adele Mercier started the orchard back in 1943 and like I mentioned earlier they used the barn to hold picked apples before they brought them to market. They kept the barn cool by opening up the sides at night and closing them before sunrise. It was a cool place to visit. They really have the apple trees stacked in there. They look like dwarf varieties, but I'm not sure. Here is the link.
http://www.mercier-orchards.com/

 

[emetzger]

Here is the barn again.

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[emetzger]

Very pic heavy update on projects this week. First pick is of my grow cage. I repainted it and am getting ready to fill it with persimmon.

2nd pick is of ladino clover coming up in my firebreak. Looks pretty good.

3rd I mowed my orchard. Apples are starting to pop and for the past 4 years I have lost a tree every year. When they start looking rough I'm going to try a new recipe of plugs around the drip line consisting of lime, osmocote and special sauce. I'm going to start with the one that looks yellow.

4. my bush hog bearing blew up on me. I replaced it Sunday and blew it up again because I left off the bearing cover. Live n learn.

5. I moved my trees over to the house to baby threw the summer. They consist of grafted apple, chestnut and different oaks like Concordia, Swamp whites and Maple reds.

6. I built a brush kit for some of my lock ons. I have a few stands that are on steep hills and the deer are about eye level on some spots. My idea is to put some cedars in these to break up my big heater body suit outline.

7. I caught a squirrel that was in my attic with my beefed up chip munk trap.

8. I found a dead fawn in a field I was planting. Hate seeing that.

Lastly I gave my father in law some reds to plant at his home in Wisconsin. I grew these in my sand box and they did well. Hopefully the tubes and super thrive will help them survive.

Have a good week.

e

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[emetzger]

I pruned and fertilised my high bush blueberries. I'm planning to build a trellis and net the next year. The wildlife doesn't leave me much to pick. My bride came out and helped me weed eat.

I'm also trying to save my apple trees. I tend to lose one about every 2 years. I'm trying a fertiliser mix that Dr Whitcomb has suggested. It's a mix of osmocote, lime and micronutrients.
You basically dig a small hole around the drip line and layer the ingredients. I will try to find the PDF and post it. Here are some picks of the two trees I'm trying to save and the process. Check out the roots reaching near the drip line.

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[emetzger]

I put in a banks water trough. Gave me a good excuse to fix my water spicket. I'm getting to old to dig threw rock. Think I will borrow a backhoe next time.

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