Irises are one of the most spectacular and most short-lived springtime flowers. While daffodils linger–they have a long flowering season and each individual flower lasts a long time whether it’s on the plant or in a vase–irises explode into bloom all at once, and plummet into a withered mess just as quickly.
We planted our irises several years ago, when we ordered a bunch of bulbs from Terra Ceia Farm, a huge flower farm in Eastern, NC.
Most of the fruit trees on the farm are coated with big white splatters, leading visitors to exclaim “What kind of birds do you have here?!”.
Much to their relief (or sometimes disappointment), the white stuff all over the trees isn’t bird droppings, it’s Surround, a safe, organic product designed to help protect plants from insect attacks.
Surround is a powder made of kaolinite clay, which is a white clay that is often used in pottery. To use Surround, we simply mix the powder with water to create a milky-looking liquid that we spray onto all of our fruit trees and rose bushes.
We’ve discovered that coating the trees with Surround goes a long way toward protecting them from Japanese beetles, leafhoppers and other insect pests. The only drawback is that the trees don’t look as pretty when they’re coated with the mixture, although they would also look pretty darn bad coated in Japanese beetles.
Several years ago, we converted about 40 acres of our organic farm from row crops (mostly corn), to pasture. Now that means that as the grass starts growing in the spring, we need to mow, mow, mow.
One of the most common questions I get at work is: “How much time do you spend mowing all of that land?” Well, the answer is — less than you might think. We mow all of the fields on the farm once or twice a year using a 72″ bush hog. At 6′ wide, the tractor mows about 3 acres an hour (Calculate how fast your mower can mow).
The rest of the time, we use a Caroni 71″ finish mower (read a review) to maintain walking and riding trails around the perimeters of the fields. For about 1/2 an hour a week, we wind up having a great path around the farm to enjoy seeing the wildlife.
The official frost-free date for our part of Chatham County, NC isn’t until April 26, and we’re reminded of that fact yearly. While our friends in Chapel Hill (frost-free date, April 15) are happily setting plants out on Tax Day, we try to resist the temptation to plant our tender annuals before the recommended date.
Of course, it’s the same story every year: we always set a few things out early, and they invariably get frosted. This year, we sacrificed a few basil and cucumber plants to a light frost on April 17. Arrgh! Will we ever learn?
