Timberline Homestead A self sufficient homesteading life

What a surprise after the cold storms late into the season to find this little guy on our dwarf nectarine tree while inspecting. I was certain after the late frosts that any fruit that had been growing would be frost bitten and die eventually. I guess its too early to …

Another naturally growing treasure.  Wild purple pansies. This being only the 2nd spring we’ve been living here and really only the first that we’re truly settled in we still find dozens of surprises. Treasure hunting is quickly becoming a favorite past time.

Another bulb update. These beauties have bloomed. They’ve since run their course. Tulips and daffodils sure don’t have a long blooming life but seeing them so early in the spring before most anything else has bloomed makes it worth planting them. The 2010 bulb catalogs have started arriving. Boy have …

Typical trip out to the garden with my camera and while walking past a large patch of ground cover I was forced to stop by the number of ladybugs everywhere! I counted 20+ in this picture and thats just on the tops of the leaves. I can only imagine how …

I took a specimen of the troubled apple leaves to the nursery for a diagnosis.  The pink lady was hit the hardest with minimal damage to the granny smith and almost none on the cherry trees. The diagnosis: a combination of earwig damage and fungus.

This year we decided to grow some peas, both sugar and snow. They were sowed fairly early in the season well before the danger of frost had passed. There were a few cold spells including some snow and hail and they faired quite well. Once they all sprouted and had …

The first apple blossoms in the last week of April! There were a few clusters of these pink and white fragrant flowers on our Pink Lady dwarf apple tree. The bees swarmed these guys and did their business. Hoping for lots of apples in a few months!

With the rainy season coming to an end it was time to protect our young dwarf fruit trees from the potential sunburn which can increase the likelihood of borer damage. Interior white latex paint was slathered on the trunks from soil level to about the height of first branches.

This is a project that I worked on during the winter months but forgot about until now. This was the first time picking up a crochet needle in oh.. about 12-13 years. It was a bit of a nostalgic project for me. I’d been taught many many years ago by an aunt …

We picked up 6 Dave Wilson Dwarf bare root fruit trees from our local nursery including : 1 Double Delight Nectarine 1 Pink Lady Apple 1 Granny Smith Apple 1 Black Tartarian Cherry 1 Bing Cherry 1 Craig’s Crimson Cherry

First year for fruit trees! We picked this Dave Wilson double delight dwarf nectarine bare root and multiple other fruit trees up before we had their permanent home prepared. They’re living temporarily on the enclosed deck in heavy duty peat pots until fall.

Most of the gardening we’ve done up to this point has been for a practical purpose- food. We’re at the point now that we’re beginning to add some permanent landscaping purely for aesthetic reasons. This project tackled a small area in the front of the house along  the driveway. The 3 difficulties …

While doing some brush clean up I found a few attractive ground covers which seem to be thriving with no human attention. I took pictures with the intention of later doing some research to identify them.  A few nights later while watching a TV show I stumbled on the answer- …

It is now the end of March and seeds are in the ground! Starting this growing season we’re still limited to 1 raised bed. The rest of the garden wont be prepared for another couple of weeks. Not wanting to miss out on valuable growing time the existing bed  was …

Our recent trip to the local nursery found us bringing something home that wasn’t on our list. These beautiful flowering Monrovia Jubilee and Misty Early Season Blueberries caught our eye. These varieties are southern highbush blueberries, which have been adapted to withstand the hot summer months in the south and grow well in …