Happy Farming . com

Now that I’m selling the house and not being able to take my trees with me I got the idea that I wanted to grow a new peach tree from seed. I did save a peach stone last year just for fun and wasn’t planning on using it for anything, but now the situation is different:

The ripe peach fruits on the mother tree were very delicious, so I expect a stone or seed from this particular tree would grow up to produce similar fruits:

I decided to give the seed an easy start by using a water pump plier on the hard stone surrounding the soft seed inside:

And this is were the disappointment kicked in:

The seed inside the hard shell was completely dried out. I tried two different stones, but both were dry and lifeless. I won’t even bother planting these as I don’t believe they’ll germinate at all.  They look a lot like the squash seeds I tried to save earlier, which I gave up on too because they dried out too.
Now what is going here? Is it really too late to use a seed saved only 6 months ago? I don’t think so. What I think is that the company who developed this particular type of peach tree focused on building its resistance to peach leaf curl and forgot all about its ability to reproduce. The funny thing is though, that this particular tree is NOT resistant to peach leaf curl after all.
And me? I just feel stupid for buying this unnatural crap. I’ll go look for a heirloom peach seed instead. If you know where to find one please leave a comment below.

In about two weeks a new garden adventure will begin for me, as I’ll be moving to a new property together with my girlfriend and our two small kids. What’s new for me is that this time it’s a rented place compared to our current house, which I own myself. We had a brief talk with the landlord, and it turns out that the former renters were allowed to put up a greenhouse,  and we’re free to do what we want in the garden as long as it “appears cultivated” as he put it. I’m still a bit unsure about what I can and what I can’t do, but maybe it’s better to ask for forgiveness instead of permission in this case Of course I’ll leave any old trees alone, but I’m certainly planning on converting part of the lawn into vegetable beds. Whether I’m bringing in a truckload of concrete slabs to be used as paths between beds I’m not sure, but I guess most of what I would like to do in the garden can be cleaned up and removed in a matter of weeks. The ultimate garden dream is still to have my own land to play on. I’m looking forward to that.
I’m leaving five old wonderful apple trees behind, but luckily there are two old ones on the new property and according to the owner they produce loads of apples and they are free for us to use. I’m glad we bought a high quality juicer last year, perfect for apples too. The apple trees provide shade in the garden, but it also has an open space with lots of sun. To the south west there’s even a small stream running by, and across the stream there’s a field with grazing horses. Very nice scenery.
Unfortunately I’ll have to leave my 30 sq m (320 sq ft) garage behind and cram most of my stuff into a much smaller, unheated shed, in like only one fifth of the area. I’ll have to sell or give away some of it, but that’s okay, this was never meant to be a high tech operation anyway. I’m keeping the shredder though – that is just an awesome piece of equipment, a Bosch AXT 2500HP. I’ll post some pictures and videos of that beast later on. It has helped me produce great composting ready material, so I’m seriously considering moving my three compost heaps with me to the new location, if the content is not too gross. Gotta feed the soil, right?
Speaking of feeding the soil – sometimes I get carried away and just go on and on, talking about  soil and manure and homesteading, and somewhere along the road my girlfriend somehow convinced herself that rabbits running freely around the garden is a total win-win situation. When will I learn to shut the hell up? I’m not sure I agree entirely with that But at least neither one of us talks about chopping them up for meat like good old John Seymour did. That’s just too old school for us vegetarians. I’m sure the kids would love to play with them though. We just need to convince them that it’s NOT candy that’s scattered all over the lawn