What’s Growing At Our House

The kids call it Poplar Farms.

Tacking such a name on our lovely, but decidedly humble little 1-acre plot is a bit much, maybe, but I told my children they could name our house.  Because, in the English classics at least, all homes have names.  And my girls insisted our house should rival the finest English manor, at least where a good name was concerned.

But let’s be real:  Names like Wuthering Heights, Pemberley, Longbourne, and Thornfield Hall are somehow a little stuffy for our modest Kentucky home.  I thought something with “cottage” in it seemed appropriate, but my kids kept insisting on Poplar Farms.  

“Poplar Farms?  But, guys, we haven’t even planted anything here yet,” I argued.  “And the only farm animal we have, (if you could call it that,) is a cat!”

Didn’t matter.  The kids wanted to call it Poplar Farms.  At least we did have poplar trees on the property, and so Poplar Farms it was!

That was over a year ago.  And while I’m pretty sure we still wouldn’t qualify as a farm in anyone’s estimation, we have done some planting and harvesting, and we’re finally pursuing some growing interests we’ve had for a long time.

We have a couple of apple trees now! 

 

 

Can’t tell you how excited Doodle is about that, since she has been asking us to buy her apple trees for as long as I can remember.  Of course we got these planted and sprouting big, beautiful leaves like crazy, only to walk out one morning to see the entire top of one of the trees gone.

Deer!  

They are beautiful creatures and we are delighted to live in a place where we now see them regularly, but we were not so happy with them that morning.  My daughter was devastated, like her favorite pet was in danger of dying, and so I went to work scouring the internet for ways to save her beloved apple trees. 

And before the day was through we had fencing around them both.  Doodle isn’t thrilled with keeping her “pets” in cages, but it is for their protection and they seem to have recovered entirely from the deer snack incident.  Now I think we’re seeing some cedar apple rust — something I didn’t even know existed until just a few days ago.  They say the best way to control it is to cut down cedar trees in a 2-mile radius of our apple trees.

Umm… okay, but we don’t have any cedar trees here at Poplar Farms.  Not sure how some of my neighbors are going to feel about me cutting down the cedar trees on their property, but I’m willing to try it…

(I’m kidding.  We’re actually looking into fungicides.  Who knew I would have to baby these trees like helpless little puppies?)

We also have mulberries!  

Now I can’t take any credit for planting mulberry trees because they were here when we moved in, along with the tulip poplar and wild cherry, oak, walnut, sycamore, and sassafras trees.  (Not sure how we managed to get such a variety of trees on our little spot of land, but we did!)  

We actually have two mulberry trees — one that is old and not-so-healthy and hard to get fruit from because most of it’s branches are very high.  The other is a younger tree where we’re doing most of our picking.  Mulberries are a lot like blackberries, and they’re ripening in waves, so we’ve been going out to pick at least every other day.  It’s taken some trial and error for us to learn the best way to pick, but we’re mastering it now!  When the berries turn black they will fall off at the lightest touch, so you have to be a good catch!  Or do as we’ve been doing and lay out a sheet to catch all the ones you miss.  Even a good shake of a branch will bring down lots of berries.  My kids have used our painting ladder to get up a little higher, but we usually just use an old cane to pull down branches so we can pick.  

We’ve used some of the mulberries in smoothies, but I’m freezing them as they come in and plan to make mulberry jam next week.  

Blackberries are the project I’m most excited about personally.  

We had a long row of thornless blackberries when I was a kid and I loved them.  It was a lot of work for my dad between tying up the branches and picking, but they were the sweetest, most enormous blackberries I have ever seen in my life.  I just remember sitting in the hot sun popping beautiful, big-as-my-thumb berries in my mouth straight off the plant, and I’ve always wanted blackberries like that in my own yard.  

I did lots of reading before deciding which variety to buy, but I got them in the ground and they are flourishing, including the one that apparently got trampled by a deer a couple of weeks ago.  My fencing for them is only partially finished, but the plants aren’t big enough to tie up yet anyway.  I won’t get any fruit this year, but maybe by next year my kids can sit in the hot sun, popping giant blackberries in their mouths straight off the branch.

I’ve done a container garden in the past with great success.  Last year was our first year to do it at our new home and I really struggled with the right placement for my boxes.  Except for jalapenos and banana peppers, nothing I planted really thrived.  With the other plantings we were doing this spring, I never got around to the container garden.

Maybe next year…

But I’m trying my hand at rooting some plants.  

I will confess I have no idea what the plants on the left are, but they come from a bigger plant at my parents’ house.  They have thick, rubbery leaves, so some type of succulent maybe?  Whatever it is, my cuttings are doing great! 

The center plants in this box are hostas that I divided from a bigger plant.  They seem to be doing well.

And that sickly little plant on the right there.  Yeah, I know it looks rough, but it’s actually looking lots better than it did a few days ago!  It’s a hydrangea.  I adore hydrangeas and I’m hoping desperately to root some.  I actually have four of these I’m working on and all four looked as good as dead not so long ago.  I really think this one is making a comeback, and I’m still hoping the others will as well.  We’ll see what happens.

My girls planted flower seeds their grandpa gave them.  No flowers yet, but I had to show you their cute little plants in our back porch pot.  

 

And I would be remiss to leave out my mandevilla!  

Hey, I didn’t even know about these plants until last year, but I love my mandevilla.  My front door is red and so I accent with red at the front of the house, but deep red flowers aren’t easy to come by.  I love red petunias, but I don’t mess with anything but the “wave” variety and I’ve never seen red waves at the local nurseries.  I’m sure I could order them, and maybe next year I will, but I have loved the mandevilla for it’s big, showy trumpet flowers and it’s winding vines.  I needed a plant for my trellis anyway! 

What’s funny, I placed the trellis, planted my mandevilla, and then two days later decided I wanted to paint my trellis.  I went to pull it up and, oops, the vines were already woven all around it so tightly there was no way I was pulling that trellis!

I’d still like to paint it, but oh well.  Maybe I’ll get around to that next year, too… 

So there you go!  A little tour of what’s growing here at Poplar Farms.  I’ll be sure to keep you updated as our “interests” grow!