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KW Homestead
Pasture Raised Poultry & Edible Landscaping Plants Since 2013
Category: our thoughts (page 7 of 13)
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Finally, despite the super summer heat this week, autumn is finally on its way! This means fall planting is just around the corner and most of our edible plants are back! They were taking a break over the summer due to the heat and hot sun, but starting this Saturday you can grab a greater variety of plants for establishing your edible landscape.
Also, we’re super excited about joining in the fun tomorrow at the State Street Festival from 2-7pm. We’ll be heading over for the festivities after being at our excellent Corner Farmers Market hangout in the morning. This means you can get a double dose of homestead life and KW Edible Landscaping Nursery plants tomorrow at our two Greensboro market locations.
At State Street Festival, we’ll have lots of fall plants—fruit trees like the delicious Asian pear, berry bushes like the fruitful and easy-to-grow thornless blackberry, and other unusual greenery like the self-fertile and quick-bearing Issai hardy kiwi vine.
Tell your friends and spread the word. Then come by and see us yourself! 👍🏼
Our Featured Fall Plants
Are you ready for fall planting season? If you haven’t yet thought about what you’d like to get in the ground this fall, now is great time to start brainstorming… And we can help. We have loads of fruit-bearing bushes and unique edible plants, some of which include:
—Blackberry
—Raspberry
—Dwarf Beach Plum
—Hazelnut
—Asian & European Pear
—Modern & Heritage Apple
—Hardy Kiwi
—Elberberry
—Blueberry
All of these babies are ready to go home with you! You have the option of planting now or of waiting until the weather cools off—and we can help you decide which works best for your busy schedule. Just check in with us this week, Saturday at The Corner Farmers Market or the State Street Festival, or anytime!
Your Fall Planting Options
When it comes to fall planting, you have a lot of options! You can either plant now, being sure to watch your plants carefully in these last, hot days of summer or plant as the weather cools off a bit. Planting now means that your bush or tree can go ahead and put on more growth before the dormant season, and planting when the weather cools off means that you don’t have to watch your plant for signs of drying out or being sunbaked.
Either way, if you’re anxious to get your plants in the ground before next year, you can definitely get it done. Planting before spring means that your plants can spend their dormant, winter season putting on a lot of new root growth. When they start budding out for spring they’ll be extra hardy and ready to rock!
Just a tip: Raspberries and blackberries should bear fruit for you next year, so giving them this extra fall and winter time in the ground is an added benefit in making sure that they have you enjoying fruits next summer.
Soil Preparation
Let’s talk about getting your property and soil ready for fall planting! If you already know where you’d like to plant your plants, you can prepare the soil by covering the ground with a killing mulch—a mulch meant to kill all the grass and weeds below. You can also lay down cardboard or black plastic under this mulch to help with that process.
If you’re not into this idea, you can lay down a cover crop… Plants like buckwheat, which adds organic matter to the soil, prepares the soil for later planting, and improves overall soil health.
Tips For Caring For Your Established Plants
Some of you may be wondering what you should do to care for the plants that you’ve already planted as we go into fall and winter… One great idea is to fertilize your plants with a mineral fertilizer or compost! Be sure that you do not add any high nitrogen fertilizer to the soil at this time. Also, if you haven’t already mulched around the base of your plants, now is a great time to do this. This extra layer will help to protect the roots in the coming winter!
Need more tips? Ready to pick up your fall plants? Come find our booth tomorrow at the State Street Festival from 2-7pm!
Not only are we an edible landscaping nursery, with loads of both classic and unique edible plants, Jason, our plant expert also offers on-site consultations to assess your land and help you determine the best place for your edible or fruit bearing plants.
He works with you to plan your future and determine what fruits and other goodies you would like your family to enjoy for the next decades!
During your consultation, he spends a couple hours walking your land with you and mapping out your vision, as well as realistically assessing what plants are best for your soil, sun exposure, and yard size.
Jason can also install, fertilize, and prune your edible landscape! This early spring season is a great time to start planting your fruit trees and berry bushes, so if you’re interested in working with us to make your land a more welcoming place, message us or speak with us in person on Saturdays at the Corner Farmers Market.
Check with us for help with:
🌿 Selecting the best varieties/species for your land
🌿 Planting
🌿 Pruning
🌿 Fertilizing
🌿 Troubleshooting and basic care questions
This little helper really loves what we do.
There’s a lot of watching and waiting to parenting, especially when they’re learning new laws of the universe like weight, balance, and understanding fragility.
Uhtred’s a really great listener, but doesn’t yet understand how fragile plants can be and what happens when you drop them. Luckily, no plants have been dropped as of yet—but plenty have been reorganized.
Just like all toddlers, he’s interested in what we’re doing—and since we’re usually caring for animals or plants, most of his self-directed play involves animals eating, riding on each other’s backs (because of how often he rides on my back), or running.
One day soon I sure we’ll find him planting sticks in the ground.
If you know someone who is planning on planting edible plants this spring, like fruit trees and bushes, why not help them plan ahead and feel prepared?
Sometimes it’s hard to know where to start when you’re looking at the blank canvas of your own backyard. Should the apple tree go here or there? And what about those raspberry bushes… How much sun do they need? These are all key questions when planning a successful edible landscape, and Jason can help you sort everything out with no stress.
We offer Edible Landscaping Consultations at any time of the year, and you can purchase a KW Homestead gift certificate for this purpose. The same goes for your spring plants… When we have those ready to be taken home, our gift certicates can be applied to those green babies, too! You can give your loved one the gift that keeps on growing! 🌱
With a landscaping consultation or the promise of fresh, fruiting plants in the spring, your Christmas gift will be a big hit with your green-thumbed loved ones! Gift certificates are available now! Email us for details at kwhomestead@gmail.com.
With Thanksgiving long gone and the Christmas holiday coming up fast, now is the time to consider gifts for everyone in your life!
We’ll be at the Corner Farmers Market each Saturday until Christmas with awesome Okra Ornaments made by Emma’s mom, Dena! Each dried okra was grown by Emma’s dad and has been painted and decorated with tons of unique bling. One ornament even has over 400 beads adorning it!
You can come by on Saturdays for your one-of-a-kind okra, or you can also order via email. Ask us for details about each okra!
Ethically raising meat is about looking beyond oneself to the greater health landscape: the health of our planet, our family, and the animals we raise.
Raising meat in an ethical way is about raising animals with respect and considering their instincts and innate needs as living things: room to roam, healthy and wild food to eat, social interaction and freedom from fear, and optimal health.
This is why we raise all of our animals on pasture, outside, breathing the fresh air—where animals belong! This is also why we are committed to feeding all of our birds and mammals non-GMO feed. Non-GMO feed limits the pesticides that burn our soils, and keeps us (and our animals) from ingesting harmful doses of toxic chemicals.
Raising animals in an ethical way also means that we raise our birds so that we actually rebuild the soil, rather than destroy it. Our animals are moved to new pasture frequently, allowing the old pasture to regrow and rebuild. We practice rotational grazing so that different species (including the cows) rotate over the same landscape and add their own microbial and micronutrient contribution back to the soil, making the soil even richer and alive than when we found it.
We strive rebuild our land, our health, and our relationship with nature one day at a time.
Consider giving the gift of ethically raised meat this Christmas, as either a KW Homestead gift certificate or a Chicken CSA package! Message us for details!
Sometimes it’s tough to think beyond this week, much less all the way to late November. We understand, and we promise that if you can plan ahead to Turkey Day, it’ll pay off—big time! There are 5 major reasons why reserving your heritage turkey early this holiday is a good idea, and the significant savings is perhaps the reason that’ll tickle your fancy the fastest. Your deposit also helps us care for the turkeys over the 7 or 8 months they free range our land, and you get special, exclusive updates about our turkey flock and the shenanigans they get into. Check out the video below for more information about why reserving your turkey early supports small farms like ours. We thank you!
Only 7 Weeks to Go…
If you’re not sure about if you’re hosting Thanksgiving or how many folks you’ll be serving, just know that you can still reserve your bird now and let us know these details later. We also offer frozen Christmas turkeys or turkeys that can be picked up after the New Year, if you just love turkey that much. Talk to us about your special circumstances and we’ll work with you to get your family fed!
The whole chicken is a wonderful and sometimes underrated portion of meat. It’s versatile and filled with all of those delicious bones that make your life a healthier one!
Join us for this brief video which features our favorite ways to cook a whole Red Ranger chicken, like oven roasted, made into a delicious soup, and more!
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