Apple Seeds

We received two large gifts of apples from in-law's the end of September and beginning of October. I made 3 pans of apple crisp and froze 24 cups ( the equivalent 3 more pans of apple crisp) to use this winter for baking. Yummo! 

While we were prepping the apples for freezing I decided to keep out 25-30 seeds. These apples are from trees that have been growing on Jeremy's grandpa and grandma's property.  They are sitting above one of the curio cabinets for the next 4-6 weeks, until dried. Even if I get only 1-3 little apple trees to sprout from these seeds it will save us $50+ per tree! 

Currently we have 4 trees currently and I would love to have 8-10. Our property has a lot of Aspen, Tamarack, Pine, and a couple Elm trees but no other fruit bearing. So I will wait ever so (im)patiently while my apple seeds dry.





Only 1 apple tree produced fruit this year. It was enough for Cole to bring with to school 3 times for lunch!



Great Itasca

I did not dig in my garden, all weekend! We spent the weekend at Itasca State Park, Headwaters of the Mississippi. The park offers activities and learning opportunities for all ages, so we took advantage of what we could. I finished a book, relaxed by the campfire with friends, swam with the little boy and took a walk in the rain. Beautiful and much more relaxing than a trip to Mexico. Our own Minnesota paradise!

Close up - Moss

 

Lake Itasca

Dead Tree

Tree mushrooms

What can I say... I like dead trees.

Tree mushrooms

Non-edible berries

Wild flower (or weed?)

Loon

View from the fire tower. (Photographer: Jeremy)

Me and the Hubs

Cole and Jeremy climbed the fire tower!

Me and the Little Boy

 For some reason some of my photos won't switch to vertical... will have to work on that a different day!

Garden Happenings

So not including the zucchini wilt, I had a great night exploring the vegetable garden and one of the flower gardens. I don't get out there every night so when I do I'm out for a while fixing, weeding, pruning and peeking at everything.  I was happy with almost everything and even brought in some lettuce and onions for the next couple days. The lettuce leaves are smallish but perfect for my lunch sandwiches.

Grape vine in flower garden. These vines are so heavy they needed extra twine. Last year we didn't even realize this was a vine plant it was so small. I cut it back in the fall and here is what we got!

Two plants worth of these to look at tonight ~ Beautiful

I am not sure what these little guys are but they are so bright against all of the green in the yard, love it!

Large potted Roma tomato plants (3)

I tied these back from the metal rings, they were leaning against it too much.

Smaller tomato plant, Roma.

Peppers. Not sure how these will end up. Something was eating them when they were very small. We'll just have to wait and see I guess.

So very excited about the potatoes!

Lettuce. Slowly thinning it. This was my first year planting lettuce so they are a little too close but tastes amazing.

Nightly harvest!

Crab apples. We only have 6... darn deer at all of the lower buds!

Deer, me!

I love-love apple trees. I only have 2 but the deer think they are their trees. So I'm going to either have to set a chair and sit next to my trees all night or figure out a better way to keep the deer away.

Once again there are only a few options to deal with critters. Unfortunately I can't build a fortress around each one until the deer decide to leave them alone. But it is an option.  I had been sprinkling Cayenne pepper or Chili pepper on the leaves and around the base. Unfortunately it has rained twice since the last application and it looks like the deer were at it again last night! There is always the Invisible Fence spray but still not sure.

It's not that the deer don't have any food either, we live in the woods, in Northern Minnesota and there are thousands of flowers, plants and trees blooming at the moment.  I went out and sprinkled again and will put up a picture this weekend of what my poor, sad little trees look like naked.  Needless to say I am looking forward to October when everyone up in this neck of the woods are hunting deer. ;)

Realistically, we will probably end up putting small fencing around the trees and some extra organic mulch.  Will have to wait until next for apples I guess, bring on spring 2012!
 

A little terror on hooves!


 

Don't be fooled by the cute little face! That's a vicious apple-blossom-eater!


 

The family of culprits!



(Okay fine, I love the deer... I just wish they didn't love my apple trees!)