Spring into December

Our first measurable snow fall of the season.

Well, it is December already.

The new year is all most here, at least on paper. But, here at the orchard, 2026 has been here for more than a month. In late October, we started to plan and research for the next year. We are going through our records for the past years to see what did well, what did not do so well and what died.

 We lost several trees in the late spring freeze of 2024, but I always wait a year or so just to make sure it is all dead not just mostly dead as they say in The Princess Bride. We will replacing the dead standard trees with dwarf and simi dwarf trees. We are going with the smaller trees for several reason, we replace five standard trees with eight to ten smaller trees. Standard trees need to planted twenty-five feet apart and get up to twenty-five feet tall and don’t start to produce fruit for five to ten years. Dwarf and simi dwarf trees are planted much closer together just ten to twelve feet apart and get six to twelve feet tall. With pruning you can keep these trees even shorter and they will start to produce in just two to four years. I am getting too old to wait for standard trees to start producing plus, I don’t want to be climbing a ladder to pick fruit. We have ordered several plum and apple trees to replace the lost trees, this year we are sourcing all our trees from Montana producers, Montana Tree Company in Missoula and Orion farmstead in Ovando.

We have ordered more haskap, raspberry, strawberry and elderberry plants. We will once again be offering these for sale in the spring.  If there is interest, we will add some gooseberry plant to the order. Please contact us if you would like some plants.

We have also ordered our garden seeds. We are scaling back some things in the garden while expanding others. It is a never-ending fight trying to stay in our vegetable garden area. On the reducing side, we are planting fewer beans (just yellow and purple podded), one type of zucchini, cucumber, and a single winter squash. On the other side, we our increasing the quantities and types of garlic and onions.

Not everything planted in the garden is from seed. In the past we have started our tomato and pepper plants ourselves, this year we hope to work with our local high school’s horticulture classes. We will provide seeds for the types of tomato and pepper we want. They will start them as part of their class and we will buy back from the school a portion of the starts and they can sell the rest. It is a win-win, I am a failure at starting seeds and the school has a guaranteed sale.

Talking about live plants, we will be planting live onion plants again this spring. In past years we always planted onion sets. In 2024 a friend in North Dakota convinced us to try onion plants. We are glad we did. Not only are plants cheaper we are able to harvest onions sooner and larger than we did with sets. We were so impressed with these live plants that we increased our order. We will be offering onion plants for sale this spring.  

Montana is a seed potato state and is well known the quality for our potatoes.  Montana State University has a seed potato certification program. In that thought we are offering Montana sourced seed potatoes for sale this spring, but not the average russets, and yellows. We will have: German Butterball, French Fingerling, Norland Dark Red, Huckleberry Gold, Russian Banana, Amarosa, and Purple Majesty.

As Christmas approaches, we look back at our year with gratitude and look forward with the next with hope. We are reminded that we need to be precent for all of life’s gifts. 

Recipe:

Broccoli cauliflower salad

5 cups fresh cauliflower florets

 5 cups fresh broccoli florets

  1/2 cup dried fruit use your favorite

  1/2 cup sunflower seeds

  1/2 cup crumbles bacon

 Dressing

1 cups mayonnaise

2 tablespoons vinegar

1/2 cup sugar

I like to use some of the bacon grease and use less mayonnaise

I also like a lot of dressing, and usually double the amount, but start with a single and go from there it is easier to add more than try to take it away.                                                          combine broccoli fruit a large serving bowl

Whisk together mayonnaise vinegar sugar and bacon grease and add dressing to the veggies

Add the sun flower seeds and bacon right before serving so they stay crunchy

I also add blue crumbles to this salad usually when I add the dressing, I know blue cheese is not for everyone

Fell free to change this recipe up adding or subtracting most anything, it will always be delicious if it has what you enjoy

It is best after several hours or when made the day before if making the day before