@@larrypollman5243 if you order through our link, it won't matter what you buy we get a small commission on it. I believe it's only for the first item you put in your cart, but once you hit our landing page you can search for anything from there and we'll get credit for that first item. Here is the link and we always include it in the episode description as well; www.amazon.com/shop/edgeofnowherefarm
Duane and Lori, your farm is enchanting, all the trees, plants, the goats, the animals, chickens and ducks and everything just so much LOVE there. May God continue to bless your LAND. I used to follow you guys before you got this new farm and it is just amazing. No shade cloth and well water and sprinkler irrigation, just amazing. Thanks for including the overview of your farm on the intro of your video! --I have a very humble and tiny fruit orchard in Tucson and get a LOT of my info and ideas from your channel Edge of Nowhere.
I always said instead of Wittmann it should have been called Windmann. We had an F5 dust devil roll through yesterday that almost blew the 5th wheel over. We had stuff blown all over the property.
Adobe wind breaks would be a good idea.. Gather your rocks and gather your brush and build a 4 foot break wall ... And from the wall you can then build up bushes and trees from that break Wallis shade it casts .
Your basil looks beautiful. It is such an awesome plant. When it is growing too fast to eat, dry, freeze, etc, my wife will just prune off a branch and put in a vase with water and it makes the house smell amazing. She even puts it in the bathroom sometimes.
It's getting there for sure. We haven't had a chance to sit back and enjoy it yet, so hopefully we'll get a taste of that after the Spring projects are done and we slow down a bit for Summer.
Well that's a bit of a bummer. This wind has been no joke this season. Cant wait for the rain to start and the wind to subside. Rest of the farm is looking awesome! 👌
Just an observation: using sprinklers during daylight hours loses a lot of water to evaporation from both the air & ground. You could still do a 3x sprinkler dousing but early/late evening & or overnight, &, have a lot more absorption using a timer.
@@EdgeofNowhereFarm And, if you don't already, run the whole system on a solar + battery combo. Batteries don't have to be the latest & greatest, lead acid will do; although Lithium Iron Phosphate or LFP, will last much longer & can be fully charged & discharged with any real battery degradation. RU-vid is full of people who've set up their own systems by researching which components are needed & safe method of assembly & operation. Energy independence is important in the farming game; helps to make it actually pay. If you're having to pay for the wet stuff, evening & nighttime watering will save you 🤑 💰.
@@EdgeofNowhereFarm Have you ever considered to put your fields below the surrounding ground level? This should also help with evaporation as wind is what carries the moisture away. Lowering the field by a few feet and using the soil wall in the area should shield it from the wind. If your pig/sorghum patches are too large, you could trial it in a garden patch. Raised beds help with drainage but lowered beds should be better at retaining moisture. In any case, cool channel and great work!
@@G4r0s you have a great suggestion and we have considered it. One of our primary pests here are ground squirrels and they destroy many different crops and even young fruit trees if they get to the roots before the tree is large enough to withstand it. That's one of the primary reasons we have raised beds (fully enclosed both bottom and top) for squirrels and birds. That being said, that would not apply to fields we would like to keep in either irrigated, or natural pasture. For those your suggestion is spot on and something we need to consider. In fact, the plans for the back of the property include swales and other below grade options for growing. The challenge for us will be the excavation, so testing on smaller patches is a great option.
We just had a solid week and a half of very gusty winds. Had to harvest some peaches a little early to avoid losing branches. One nice thing about the desert is the lack of humidity... over here those squashes would have all had powdery mildew if we caged them like that.
The wind has been crazy here as well Sean. Usually we see the same weather you guys do, just a day behind, so I'm not surprised you're facing the same. I remember well the powdery mildew in my dad's garden in LA. Even in the middle of Summer! Unless you're over watering here it just never happens.
Question about the cover crops, there's wood chips down for the pigs, then you plant crop right on that and let it mature. Then fold that to the ground and cover that with wood chips again, correct? And the same with your garden beds? I think we need to get that peach cobbler recipe displayed over on the healthy living channel please.
Good question and I should clarify. We start with keeping the pigs in a pen (no woodchips, at least not many). Once they're moved we flatten the ground that they've tilled, plant sorghum and keep that over the Summer. In Fall we cut that back and covered with a heavy layer of woodchips and "seed" that area with 4-5 shovels of composted pig manure that has a lot of worms in it. Then we plant into that area in the Spring which is what you're seeing in today's episode. We don't do the same with the garden beds, but we do plant cover crops that we work into the soil at the end of the season (the daikon in this case). I'll see if Lori can whip up another round of that cobbler!!
Hey Nick. Technically the fruit trees are the windbreak for the crops we're growing/planning on growing in the center of the farm. With the need to irrigate any tree we plant, we wanted to use fruiting trees as opposed to non-fruiting trees to help keep the wind off some of the other crops we plan on growing. It was a bit cooler on Saturday, so we wanted to make sure they dried quick, but that's a solid suggestion. We need to continue that harvest this week and it's going to be plenty hot and dry to get that job done outside!
Hey James! We do have the Early Amber and Earligrande Peaches that are both freestone. Other types, we have apricots, apriums and pluerry's that are freestone as well.
so sorry about your tree. i use wood pallets around my trees, because they wind and sun are so strong. it has really helped prevent sun scald and all my trees have doubled in growth.
That definitely makes sense! We see folks out here doing the same with their shade trees, not only for protection against the elements, but also the free range cattle!
My wisteria also planted last fall fell over from the wind. It had staking but obviously not very good. My new fig also almost blew over. The stake blew off. I think we had above 60 mph winds in NM. Well that was the official but I think it was higher gusts. Felt like a few microburst happened. Crazy night.
Hi friends! you have a great attitude for your loss. we lost our Florida Prince Peach this season due to root rot from over watering. we are super bummed but we know we can plant another tree and start over again. we learn as we go as we grow our trees and plants. another great informative video! Hey Lori! do you have your fermenting recipe available?
Oh bummer on your peach tree! After growing trees for as long as we have, you have to just roll with it lol! We have the fermented zucchini on our other channel, I will link it for you here; ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-aS_ndrbHTv4.html
@@EdgeofNowhereFarm exactly, we defiantly trust and use you as reference and advise when we have questions regarding trees and growing in our desert climate! thanks for the video link! sounds yummy and we're going to try the recipe soon.
@@AbidAli-bv2gl ah yes, the bubblers for the fruit trees are working out really well for us. It seems we're seeing stronger growth in the trees here than we did on the old farm with drip.
Hey Emily! You'll definitely want to wait to prune any fruit trees until we start to cool down in the Fall. Your deciduous trees, like figs, are best pruned when dormant. For us that's January timeframe. Right now they're all just trying to survive the heat, so you don't want to add any additional stress which pruning would cause.
My squash here south east of you has been blooming, but, the 🐝 population is extremely limited. No squash development. We also have high winds & winds much more often. I have Sweet Acacia trees around the west & southwest which makes for filtered shade & some wind break, shade for the dogs. My Wolfberry bushes were wiped out quickly by tiny, flying bugs. The Aprium here is ripening, the cherry-plum hybrid from Reed did not produce, but, the Nectaine has 3 fruit & Pom is producing well. Small yard production
Hey Christa. We feel your pain on the challenges we face out here. You didn't mention how old the trees are, but if they are from Reid, hang in there. His trees have done really well for us, but they may take a couple of years to really kick in. I'm surprised you're not seeing some bee activity. You mentioned SE of us. Are you in town?
@@EdgeofNowhereFarm Reid's Aprium, from which I just harvested my first fruit after I saw a bird started to peck it, grew 5 fruit in it's 1st harvest here. The Nectarine I bought b4 knowing of Reid & the cherry-plum is older, but, just planted here in the yard in late winter 22. Yes, we live in town.
Bummer about the tree. I had a small apricot break off at the ground due to a silly goof on my part so a couple years later after attending a scion exchange I grafted the Tomcot variety to the rootstock. It grew so fast I was afraid it was gonna break too, so I cut it back really hard. It’s doing the same thing this year but that graft union is almost impossible to make out now so I’m hoping it’s safe now. I only ever had that problem with an elephant heart plum I grafted to an old plum rootstock. It’s crazy how some varieties are so vigorous that they grow the top out faster than they can completely heal at the graft. I’d be curious to know if Read uses scions or if he chip buds his trees. Wonder if one is stronger than the other when the tree gets bigger. I pretty much always use a scion because for me it’s easier and I get a much higher percentage of success but maybe that’s the weaker graft union?
Sounds like you know the drill on this one Jared. We do not have any experience grafting (way back on the to-do list right now!), so I really can't speak to the details. I've seen Reid's grow house and I think he does it a few different ways. This one was pretty obvious and I'm kicking myself for not staking the tree. The other apricots and apricot hybrids are all still staked on the Windward side still, so I know better. Now to figure out a replacement, because I think we're going to go the nut route with 2 spots still open adjacent to each other on that side now.
Maybe Reed will replace your tree, hmmmm. Dry your basil outside and save on the electricity. I tie mine in bunches and hang it in the shade. I'm next door to you in Santa Fe, NM. It is wicked dry here right now, since last year, when I dried my Tai basil by hanging it upside down in the shade. It took about a week, but now I have gallon bags of the stuff. All I did with it after it dried was crush it into a paper shopping bag, then took out the little sticks and viola! it was done.
Great suggestion Mark. We're very dry and hot this week, so we'll take a similar route. We have plenty of space out there to hang these guys out there!
I don't harvest 'cots until they are oozing nectar. Flavor/sugar is at its peak. You can't buy good 'cots at the store because they get too soft when ready to pick and can't be shipped. But they can be dried or frozen or cooked. I used to put them on the roof on cookie trays in triple digit sun in Sacramento and they came out black & brown in 3-4 hours, dry, but not too dry, just enough moisture to make them chewy and still storable. I wouldn't buy potted trees, the roots are warped, and the trunks are too small. A thick trunk is best with much more growth under the ground than above. To get this shield the sapling with the correct tube, one that filters the light for root growth, not green growth. (Blue-Shield co., Sacramento?) You will find trees grown from seed do better. There is a cold tolerant avocado, a fruit unmatched in nutrition.
That's been our challenge with apricots when it comes to picking as Lori has a very hard time with texture on fruit. A bit mushy and she's not a fan. Our compromise has been apriums which tend to be a bit firmer with very similar flavor. I remember driving through SAC over summer break as a kid. With the exception of more water, very much like our weather here.
We get down to about 20 degrees (Fahrenheit). The gala will set fruit for us just fine, but it doesn't survive our summers to get fully ripe in the Fall. We're still trying to figure that out!
The wind over the past few weeks here has been crazy. Half my sweet corn got knocked down, and I had to jury rig up some supports from trash in the garage. None of my trees have been snapped at least, though the weight of my pomegranate fruit is weighing down those branches. Lost an orange tree to something eating the root system though.
Man, this is a bummer Rob. You know the winds are strong if you're losing corn stalks to it! The pomegranate should be fine as they tend to bend really well with the wind (at least in our experience). Do you think the citrus was lost to ground squirrels?
Gotta get a lot of water above the ground sooner or later either in tanks or oasis .. Get you a bunch of different ways to pull water outta the ground that wont fry in emp like scenario . ASAP
Yeah, solid suggestion and we're still working on that. A secondary tank at minimum. Our well guy suggested one on the back of the property as it slopes naturally from North to South. Especially with the additional livestock we're starting to keep.
So the daikon basically rots there over the Summer months and the worms come in and feed on the decaying roots. We did the same last year in 3 of the 6 Fall beds and those 3 beds are still completely full of worms. We're hoping to do the same with all 6 by the time we get to Fall this year. Fingers crossed...
@@EdgeofNowhereFarm haha thx. You guys have done an amazing job bringing life back to the desert! And showing the natural circle of life. Even for a plant to grow, something has to die to provide nutrients.
Lori, cool shirt! Basil is great for cramps, as is mustard seed. Good squash plants. I hope they thrive. Darn shame about the apricot. That happened with a tree here, the wind broke it. We get a lot of nasty winds here, and as you said, trees do need to be cut back. Can you root cuttings? I know almonds are pretty easy, and almonds are apricots bred for sweet seeds. Are the goats OK? I know they can handle the cyanide in the leaves, but it worries me (yes, I need to get a life :) Hasta, kids!
Hey Martin! I'm not sure whether you can root cuttings on the apricot or not. We've never tried that before. The goats seem to do ok with those leaves. We did some research on those and peach tree leaves and it sounds like they do ok with them as long as it's not their sole diet.
@@EdgeofNowhereFarm I know you made certain they'd be fine, but it worried me. I'm old and a grampa and that's my job, kid! :) When goat herders take their stock into areas to clean out toxic weeds, they make sure the animals are well-fed on hay. The girls would have been well-buffered beforehand. Goats are blessed with an abnormally large liver for their body size, and that is good. More, if they didn't like the leaves, they would avoid them.
Maybe you should try straw checker board on your ground. Like china is growing in gobi desert. It will help you to fight against dust. Best part is they don't need water.
I have watch quite a few of your vlogs off and on. And liked the one on the hardware cloth (which I use too) but I still don't see how you're keeping the prairie dogs and pack rats (if any) from getting in the beds, knowing that they can climb and chew thru bird netting. I live in Eloy and have them all over.
Hey Stacey. I can't speak for everyone, but we don't have the prairie dogs in the beds. My only guess is they are too busy munching on everything else we have growing around here as opposed to chewing through the bird netting. Either way, they are a total menace and we have gone to great lengths to knock down their population on the farm. Including chemical warfare when necessary.
Hey William. All of the homes out here in Wittmann are on well water. The borehole is 600' deep and water is very consistent from year to year and stays level at about 420'.
Stone fruits, be cognitive of graft, they are mostly chip budded, so that means it is inserted into a existing trunk, most strong winds come from a certain direction, so orient the tree when planting so that when it blows the chip would be pushed into the trunk, it is much stronger, Almonds, Pecan, Cherry .... are all that way, especially in high wind areas, be aware it came happen yo a 5 year old tree too, I learned that the hard way in my 20 acre stonefruit orchard in BC Canada. and here with my best Fig last year, 6" trunk, snapped at graft union, didn't pay attention, til I lost 3 trees, same storm, then remembered my lesson 20 years ago.
Ugh, that would be frustrating with a 5 year old tree. At least this one was only a few months old. Our winds are very consistent out of the West/Southwest, so we have the other apricot trees staked on that side to make sure we don't have issues. Good call on the orientation of the graft union. We pay more attention to facing the union North to keep them out of direct sunlight.
@@EdgeofNowhereFarm I helped, to learn, volunteered, at Scnepts, planting apple, peach, nectarines, a couple years ago, they do that there, as well helped Jimmy Compton do dead out Pecan replacements, same there, and when cutting the central leader off, same thing,make the bud facing the wind. I just didn't know that our strongest gusts here are from SE, it was always from W when here in winters, now re Covid we spent a hot summer, due to Border issues, and the strongest gust come SE, Monsoon times, even have a few trees that don't put out enough canopy roots, as I dug the holes with a Backhoe, amended with decomposed granite, manure, let the composting go for a year, and then planted bareroots, so mistake, roots don't need to go looking, now I have roots go SE as that's where I feed them, roots go looking for feed. I have to summer prune, to keep heights down, and made a brace set up that hangs from a fork and when it blows it props it. I'll send you a renet recipe, it's a bit TMI to post here. For when you get milking. I have a 25 gallon batch of LAB ready to dump on my 25 cu/yd manure pile, see how it does with smells. Tried to water my corn patch, 50/50 and see, they say to dilute 10000/1 , I haven't been able to find studies, just RU-vid stuff, so not sure if it's all Snake Oil I just know I have dark green leaves, after trusting soil, leaf sampling, they just slowly fell on their faces, took 5 years, especially the Citrus, as they just started giving 20-30 lbs, and got yellow leaves and crashed, all the Mg, Mn, Mo went to the fruit.
@@EdgeofNowhereFarm tree wraps, plus paint, I staple shade cloth on over top of paint, as take a infrared heat gun, before I wrapped I still had over 100, even the Devil howled, let me out of Arizona, He got sent here to get him to back off being such a jerk by his minions, and us too, seriously, wrap them too, at least for several years, go visit a Citrus orchard, stonefruit orchard, all wrapped, and you'll get less suckers down low, tree does that to help shade and cool, they wrap even in Washington state, the better growers anyway.
Hey Ken. The Jujube trees are doing really good. We did a harvest video a few weeks back that I'll link for you here; ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-A191ULwAweU.html Since then, they all have new fruit set on them, so we should have another harvest this Fall. Amazing trees.
@@EdgeofNowhereFarm by the way IPM, integrated pest management. this includes your crop rotation, importance of lady bug introduction, not putting crops in continuous years that have the same pests, not using any chemicals as pesticides, rotate and move fallow land in a seven years cycle . etc.
@@kenkiekens7746 solid notes there Ken. We try to do that wherever we can with our annual crops and we're starting that with our livestock that will be on pasture.
I would tape that tree back together cut some branches and put in the fridge so you can graft back onto a sucker if the taped tree don't make it it should send you a sucker branch to graft onto if you save a couple old ones in the fridge
Great suggestions here, but I think we're headed a different route with that particular spot. Probably a completely different kind of fruit or nut tree. Haven't decided yet, but probably not a stone fruit.
Hey Thomas! Yeah, they started showing up pretty regular a couple months ago. They're smart as they are usually in Spanish which most of us in the Southwest understand, but probably not as obvious to the moderators who look at that stuff.
@@EdgeofNowhereFarm yeah, not sure if you’re just handling it manually, the “Linus tech tips” channel recently covered a program that can scan your comments for you and delete most of them. I’m not sure if you let us post links here, searching “Linus tech tips spam comments” gets you there
@@thomasa5619 I'll check that out. We catch most if not all with the way we sort comments. We try to answer everyone's comments and keep the filter set to see all unanswered comments which helps.
Glad you're enjoying the content Joseph. We have a son named Austin. He's 25 and has been on his own for several years now. He helps us with several things here on the farm, mainly our website and when we have big projects that need to get done.
Hey S G. We bought those from Tractor Supply a couple of years ago. I'm not sure whether or not they still have them, but they are on Amazon. I'll link them for you here; amzn.to/3G6TPUu
I am having trouble with the rabbits digging under my chicken wire. I see your mulch is high on the inside. I think I may have just enough mulch to try that.
Well, we have ground squirrels that do a pretty good job of rooting around everywhere, but I don't think they move much down there that winds up germinating!
Hi: In moving a volunteer little avocado, I think I damaged the root. Now the little guy is dying (drying up). Should I cut the leaves (trim it to reduce evaporation?); I need to rehab her. If you want to see it, here it is: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-Uhh1jhlMqrM.html
I had a chance to take a look at the video and it definitely looks like stress which is common when you transplant a tree. It's going to be tough on this little guy as it's a bad time of year for a move on any tree, but especially tropical trees like avocado. The extreme dry heat is hard on those trees more than most. For now, you have the right idea to keep it shaded and out of the extreme temps. Avocado is an evergreen, so I wouldn't remove any leaves. In fact, the leaves are what would give this tree the ability to grow the roots back. It also wouldn't hurt to add Vitamin B-1 as this will help it regenerate roots more quickly. You can find that at Home Depot or Lowes in the garden center. Either way, it's going to be really tough to rehab this guy, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed for you.
Bottle babies have a reputation in many species for being A LOT when they grow up because they missed the education from their mama on species appropriate boundaries. With that being said it's fortunate goats don't seem to have too many boundaries to being with. You probably aren't imagining that she is a bit of a sass lol.
That would be me (Duane). I will continue to work full time off farm until it can easily replace my income. We replaced Lori's by the end of last year, but it will probably be a while for me.
@@downbntout we have not done a marketing video yet, but we have had production back up and running on the new farm over the last several months (and sales have followed, hence Lori's ability to be on the farm FT). Livestock has and will be the backbone of the production part of the business with limited fruit and very limited veg, but it's definitely multi-faceted. I'm a big fan of diversification to spread risk, something most traditional farms have historically done very poorly. Not necessarily by their own choice, but it has been the way of things for decades. The notion of go big or go home has run it's course in my opinion and it's high time we return to small scale ag within communities. It's a healthier option for everyone (the planet included) and much easier to accomplish with technology the way it is (we market solely via our customer email list). Our goal is to show that it can be done under less than ideal conditions, which equates to viability nearly everywhere.
@@EdgeofNowhereFarm solid business thinking. Many will plop something in the grocery cart at BigBox, or do a drive-thru for the convenient and hyperpalatable, but there is a hunger for better food from people you know. Online links will help
