Great Small Farm Story (Bangor, Eliot: construction, living, shop)

[forest beekeeper]

Originally Posted by BrokenTap

My brother just graduated this year as a home schooler. I guess I was surprised when he was one of only 13 seniors that graduated from home school. I kind of figured there would be more, but I guess they really drop off at the high school level.

Association of Homeschoolers of Maine

I responded in the 'Off-topic' thread.

[BrokenTap]

Originally Posted by forest beekeeper

Way ahead of you, BT.

Already planted apple trees.

Two groups; one group of summer-fall harvesting, and one group of fall-winter harvesting. Both groups each have three varieties. Two tarts and one super-high sugar content sweet variety. So I should be able to produce two large batches of blended hard cider each year.

[A sailor dont go nowhere without thinking ahead to provisions for alcohol.]

I used to brew a lot of lagers, recently been playing with the new breeds of 'Turbo-yeasts' that can run themselves up to 21%.

Now as that plan is in the works, it will take a few years to come into fruition.

Come on down, I got plenty of apple trees so you can grab all you want. I will say though, someone told me that older trees do not produce good apples and it may be true. These are probably 200 years old since that was when the Apple market was huge in Maine. I know in 1945 my Grandfather cleared this place (where my house is) of apple trees. Some were left though from that land clearing operation.

In fact I recently cleared a new section of land and when I got to the dozen apple trees that lay within the proposed field...I left them alone. Typically I don't cut apple trees as they are good for the deer, but in leaving them, it will mess up my nice big field I want to have.

Apple firewood pays pretty good money right now, so I supposed I could cut them and not feel too guilty, but then again they are quite old, kind of sad to see Johnny Johnson Apple Seed of the day's hard work be undone two centuries later. I'd be curious to see if they could produce good apples again. They are certainly hardy, heritage varieties and non-hybrid in any way, but they are pretty tall too, and like I said, someone said after 100 years old apple trees stop producing a good apple. (I have no idea if that is true or not).

The picture explains my dilemma quite well.

[forest beekeeper]

Originally Posted by BrokenTap

Come on down, I got plenty of apple trees so you can grab all you want. I will say though, someone told me that older trees do not produce good apples and it may be true. These are probably 200 years old since that was when the Apple market was huge in Maine. I know in 1945 my Grandfather cleared this place (where my house is) of apple trees. Some were left though from that land clearing operation.

In fact I recently cleared a new section of land and when I got to the dozen apple trees that lay within the proposed field...I left them alone. Typically I don't cut apple trees as they are good for the deer, but in leaving them, it will mess up my nice big field I want to have.

Apple firewood pays pretty good money right now, so I supposed I could cut them and not feel too guilty, but then again they are quite old, kind of sad to see Johnny Johnson Apple Seed of the day's hard work be undone two centuries later. I'd be curious to see if they could produce good apples again. They are certainly hardy, heritage varieties and non-hybrid in any way, but they are pretty tall too, and like I said, someone said after 100 years old apple trees stop producing a good apple. (I have no idea if that is true or not).

The picture explains my dilemma quite well.

Generally fruit trees produce more on young wood. Heavy pruning is needed year after year, to keep most of the wood in a tree 'young'.

An old tree that has not been husbanded for many years, may likely decrease it yield.

Heavy pruning should bring such a tree back into heavy production.

I grew up on a commercial almond orchard.

[Maine Writer]

Video presentation by Eliot Coleman & Barbara Damrosch Part I Part II

[tankratt]

Nice link M.W. I watched part one and will watch part two later tonight.

[mollysmiles]

ok.... one more thing to remind how little I know about some things!! (it's good to be humbled, it's good to be humbled, it's good to be humbled....)

[BrokenTap]

Originally Posted by mollysmiles

ok.... one more thing to remind how little I know about some things!! (it's good to be humbled, it's good to be humbled, it's good to be humbled....)

Maine is a very humbling location in which to farm Molly Smiles...no matter what the commodity. We all just do the best we can no matter if we agree or disagree.

[boonelsewhere]

thanks MW, that should motivate me to get my garden going.

[Maine Writer]

I'm very interested in the movable greenhouse on wheels in part II. He explained the system in detail while we were there last week. It's a 1,000 sq ft greenhouse that covers 6,000 sq ft over the course of a year.

[boonelsewhere]

I am not follow on the movable greenhouse, since the greenhouse is use only in the winter, i can see use it to keep chickens/turkeys and rotate for they feeding area and provide fertilize.