< click here to read the last Glamstead Update : 04/01/2026 >

It’s been a couple weeks since I did an update, figured you might be interested. Let me start off with telling you a good thing…the winter was very mild, the spring has been unseasonably warm, and weather has been wonderful to work in. Now, let me tell you a bad thing… the winter was very mild, the spring has been unseasonably warm. Yeah, that’s caused some problems.

Big Freeze Damage Update –

Back on April 3^rd we had an unexpected hard freeze. I wrote about it and the resulting plant damage < click here to read about it >. It does look as if I lost an additional 6 – 8 plants, mostly tomatoes. But I am not ready to give up on them just yet…I’m nursing them along. Problem is…I tried to nurse some freeze damaged plants a couple years ago and the plants, although they lived, their growth and production were stunted to the point where it was a waste of time.

Leftover ‘Big Freeze’ plants I am still nursing along. No, the nice big green plants are the plants I bought from Lowes to replace the Big Jims that froze out on me.

I had also started 10 Big Jim chili prepper plants inside as a back-up to the 4 I had over-wintered and lost. Yeah, well, I screwed that one up. I got so focused on the water line extension that I forgot about watering the Big Jims for a few days…all dead. I ate “humble pie” and bought 3 Anaheim chili pepper plants from Lowes and am nursing them along in the green house. They won’t go into the ground until June when the soil temps his 60 – 65degrees. They’re not Big Jims…but a good 2^nd choice.

Now, how bad did it hit the orchard…

• My 2 apricots (no, not 2 apricot trees) that were the size of marbles…gone. And the apricot leaves all turned brown and crisp. I’m worried that the branches might have died as well.
• The cherry trees were loaded…all gone.
• The 3 peach trees were absolutely loaded with BB sized peaches…they were amazing! All gone.
• I am not sure about the apple trees, a couple had just started to blossom so I’m sure they are gone, but maybe I will get some more blossoms later.
• The tiny itty-bitty plums…yeah, gone.

Raspberries & Blackberries were just barely coming on with leaves so they were not damaged at all. Actually, they have turned into an invasive species. The blackberries were all dug up…some transplanted to another area for us, a bunch went to neighbors. Well, the area where we dug them up…yeah, a whole new crop of little blackberry shoots are showing up. Another call to neighbors and friends…come and get em!

Bad news…the blueberries had come into blossom and had set tiny berries the size of BB’s. Yup, all brown now. And to make it worse…the new blueberry I had just put in…dead from the freeze. The good thing…the other three plants are everbearing so they are setting new blossoms as we speak. The bad thing…below freezing tonight for 4 – 5 hours. The roller-coaster ride of the glamstead!

UPDATE (the next morning): Yeah, liars! Again. It was only supposed to get down to 28 – 29 last night…and below freezing for as long as 5 hours max. Well, I got up at 1am to check on the temp…38degrees in the greenhouse…30 outside…about 3 – 4 degrees colder than it should have been at that time. While I was checking it dropped another degree in the greenhouse even with the heaters running. Dang it!! So I spent the next 15 minutes moving all the plants into the utility room and adding another quilt to the two butternut squash plants already in the ground.

I’m glad I did!!!!! It hit 21degrees last night. Way colder than the forecast. I could have lost all the rest of the plants that survived the first big freeze. When it hits 40 this morning I will get them back in the greenhouse. I have a feeling that I will have lost the two planted butternut squash plants, but I won’t know for sure till late today or probably tomorrow sometime. I can live with that, although I hate to; I’ve got 6 more butternut squash plants started in the greenhouse.

And while I’m at it…the blueberries that had come on again since the last freeze…gone. Dang! This weather is a real bugger.

The weather report shows 36 tonight, then 40’s from there on out. So, back in the utility room tonight, then I will continue to harden off the plants and get them in the ground this coming week. Yea!

Butternut squash plants are doing fine…they made it through the ‘big freeze’ and the ‘little freeze’.
The wire cages are to keep the rabbits from eating them and the dogs from digging them up. The dogs love the organic fertilizer…the fish-based organic fertilizer.

When I first started to garden here some folks told be don’t plat before “tax day” (April 15^th). Some of the old timers said don’t plant before Mother’s Day (May 10^th). I looked up the actual last frost date for this area…June 1^st. I’ve learned my lesson…although I will probably still continue to push it a bit. Problem is the length of the growing season here. So this year I tried something different…starting my melon plants and tomatoes in February. Give them a real good head start on the growing season. I actually have a cantaloupe plant with a couple of blossoms on it. Way good head start 🙂

“Spring Fever!” Okay, it’s a real thing…at least for me when it comes to gardening. When the weather turns nice I gotta garden. I’ve also have to accept the principle of “acceptable losses” in conjunction with “Spring Fever”. But ya know…I can taste those cantaloupes and butternut squash even as we speak 🙂

So all-in-all…no fruit this year…the mild winter + warm spring = early blossoms and fruit. Then hard freeze = dead = no fruit = serious disappointment. But hey, that is the life on a glamstead. Not entirely correct…strawberries are doing fine, blueberries will set more blossoms, and the raspberries and blackberries are just getting started. So no fruit from the orchard…should have plenty from the berries.

As it stands right now…started with 80 live, healthy plants in the greenhouse: 2 plants in the ground early and might or might not have survived last night’s freeze, 31 plants alive and doing well in the greenhouse and being hardened off, 8 plants questionable and being nursed. So the “big freeze” killed 1/2 of the plants I had started with. Most of the plants that were killed, and still might be, are tomato plants.And losing 1/2 the plants reduces are ability and desire to give away plants to other families. We will have enough for ourselves pretty easily; but helping others…yeah, that takes a hit.

Water Line Extension & Irrigation Installation –

There is a priority system on a glamstead…you can only do so much. Well, 6 years later I finally had the time and money to extend water lines for proper irrigation. 200’+ of 1-1/4”, 1”, & ¾” PVC in the ground. Mostly installed without a hitch…a drip or two but those got dealt with. Then came 700’ of ½” low pressure pipe…NICE! Then 100+ irrigation drippers installed using ¼” tubing. Sweet!

But the best part…timers! Yup, all of that irrigation is on timers. No more standing there holding the hose watching the water flow. It’s all automatic now…oh my goodness…that is a huge relief. Setting the timers up correctly with the right days, right time of day, and watering length was a bit challenging…all of the irrigation has to be coordinated. But I got it done. I had to make sure that I wouldn’t run the water tanks dry. Yeah…that’s a bad thing. The well can only pump so much water into the tanks. I gotta make sure I am not irrigating more than I am resupplying.

Wife says I am working myself out of a job. I’m not sure exactly how she meant that 🙂

Yard –

GREEN!!!! Yeah, the yard is looking incredible. In case you don’t remember, I wanted a yard…not a lawn…a yard. Couple reasons…I love to see green grass, I like to mow grass, I love the smell of freshly mowed grass, and I wanted to start improving the soil in case I needed extra garden space. And with the way things are looking in the world lately, I might be really grateful that I have that capacity to add 9,000sq’ or so of garden.

I added a soil conditioner and a 10-10-10 fertilizer a week ago and watered it in well. Man, it did it’s job! So far I’ve gotten to mow twice!! Sweet 🙂

Pine Meadow(s) –

The south pine meadow is doing great…lots of growth on the trees, everything looking healthy…even some buffalo grass coming up. Yeah, only about 10% of the grass that I planted but it sure looks good! I had to put chicken wire over the grass to keep the dang jackrabbits from eating it. Maybe one day there will be so much grass that I won’t have to protect it because I have grown a good “crop” and overwhelmed the rabbits. Or better yet…the rabbits are gone!

On the south pine meadow I was able to plant 7 new pine trees; Austrian Pine, Colorado Blue Spruce, and one I don’t remember. The shortest was 18”, the tallest just over 3’. All looks good. The soil is the stuff I built up from dead sand. It is now pretty healthy looking. < How to make dirt…Part #4 >

For both of the meadows I’ve started hauling in pine needles and oak leaves from the local “green recycling” place nearby. I try to make it about 3” deep to protect the ground from heating up, baking, and having the water just run off. The “pine straw” also covers the exposed irrigation drippers. Oh yeah…every tree in both meadows has its own irrigation set up on timers. I even ran irrigation to the 5 or 6 clumps of grass.

Strawberry Patch –

Dang! My pride and joy 🙂 I already wrote about planting the bare root and live plants…Albion and Eversweet. I am really, really hoping that the 80 plants produce even moderately well this year. If they produced perfectly to the maximum there would be about four 5-gal buckets of strawberries over the summer. We’ll see…I am hoping upon hope.

You can read about the bare root planting here < click here > and planting the line plants here < click here >.

But, here’s a quick video of how they are looking now…

Porch Project –

Oh boy…another project 😦

But, this is a pretty cool one really. We have a 15’ x 26’ screened in porch with high vaulted roof. It is a wonderful place to sit outside and just enjoy 8 months of the year or so. One side is a view of the orchard, another is the 200’ hill rising behind the house with the yard stretching out to the new lilacs. We did have two seating areas for conversation and eating off of plates in your lap.

That all changed when my wife found a table to refinish for the patio we were planning. But, when it she was done it looks incredible. And that got us thinking…put it on the porch! So we just finished putting the table with 6 chairs in one-half of the porch. We took everything else out and we are (well, ‘she’ mostly) putting the rest of the required accessories in the area to make, literally, an outside dining room worthy of HGTV.

We’ve been dreaming about this for a long time and we didn’t even know it. It will make our place much easier to enjoy a meal with friends and family. And we still have a very cozy sitting area with a couple of rocking chairs and…yup…outdoor Lazy Boy chairs 🙂

Deck Project –

So, it was actually going to be a “replace the existing DIY native stone patio project”. We wanted an outdoor eating area with the table I mentioned above. But, that changed…then so this eating area turned into a “deck project” for a BBQ grill and lots of seating. We priced it out with Trex and got excited as all get out. Then we decided why not cover the existing 336sq’ deck with Trex as well…making one continuous coordinated deck of Trex…on two levels. It would look amazing!!

Yeah, not going to happen! Have you priced Trex lately? I went to Lowes to get a price at the ProDesk. They know me well since I bought all the building materials for the house there. Well, I wanted 12’ Trex boards because that was the depth of the deck. Ah, no. They have 16’ or 20’ boards in stock. I could special order the 12’ boards…but man-o-man…HUGE price markup to special order. I mean $4,000 for the second choice, $6,000 for wife’s first choice. Yeah, no Trex for us! I will build the deck with 2”x8”x12’ lumber for about ¼ the cost.

But, that also now means that I have to repaint the existing 336sq’ of deck. And that my friend is a HUGE agonizing labor-intensive horrifying debilitating process. Scrap, strip, clean, apply intensifier, sand, prime, paint. Yuck! But yes, it will look good when done.

Garden –

It’s still pretty early for having accomplished too much in the garden. I did turn ½ of the south garden into the strawberry patch so that cuts down some of the on-going yearly work. The timing hasn’t been right to plant anything outside just yet. Well, other than the disaster of the Big Jims that I overwintered, planted, and froze em to death. Next week I start topping off the raised beds with compost and getting them ready for the greenhouse plants that are looking good.

And one additional task…remember I spoke about the raspberries and blackberries being an invasive species? Yeah, so far two of the larger beds have those berry shoots coming up everywhere. Seeds must have taken hold and gone crazy. I hope I can get out the tubers that must be spreading around the beds. I will have to turn all of the dirt over to make sure I get them all. More neighbors and friends will benefit…a bunch. Spread the love!

Most of the remaining greenhouse plants after the ‘big freeze’. The are getting hardened off waiting for transplant to the raised beds.
If you look closely you can see a couple of cantaloupe plants with blossoms.
And ‘no’, the Asiatic Lilly plants in the back-right are not my grown-from-seed plants…gotta thank Lowes for them. They go on the flower mound.

Wireless Float Switch –

Back in early December I wrote about replacing the mechanical float switch with a wireless float switch due to lightening strikes. < click here to read about it > Well, it’s doing fabulously! Due to its operational functionality it is keeping my water tanks much fuller and WAY easier to irrigate everything. I have done the math though and realized I’ve just about hit the limit on irrigating and household usage. The solar well pump can only pump so much water per day…and I am flirting with that capacity. < click here to read about the water tanks and see a video >

I have a trick up my sleeve I am going to try but not until things settle down a bit (i.e. the garden is in).

Summary –

It’s been a very busy winter and spring so far…really busy. But, so much has been done around here that it is incredibly beautiful and I love it so much! The “to do list” is still long but nothing terrifying or terribly intensive or expensive. And what else do I have to do, right?

Life on a glamstead, and especially on a homestead, is hard work and lots of it. There is always something to do, something to build, something to fix, something…always something. But, it is incredibly satisfying. At the end of the day sitting in a zero-gravity chair with my feet up, sipping on a Pepsi, talking with my wife and watching the grass sprinklers throw water around…NICE!!!

Enjoy your week ya’ll!

Personal Note: I have been talking a lot about orchards, berries, and gardens this year…more than any other year. Why? Our current situation:

1. Fuel prices are hurting all Americans…hurting us bad. But, there are two groups that are being hurt disproportionately; 1) farmers who need fuel for their tractors and trucks, 2) trucking companies who transport food from farms to stores.
2. Fertilizer prices are going way up…due primarily to the Iran War since the majority of fertilizer originates from that region. Farmers are paying substantially more for fertilizer right when it is needed most…planting season.
3. Interest rates are higher now than in January 2025 increasing farm operating costs.
4. More than 60% of the US is in drought conditions…that is 30 states…disproportionate to bread basket states vs state population centers. Drought is still present across parts of Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Missouri, Minnesota, and parts of Nebraska. The western “corn belt” is the biggest concern. More drought = less food.
5. The US has the smallest beef herd in 75 years, in terms of actual number of cattle. If you rank 2026 herd with percentage of cattle per person in the US…2026 herd is the SMALLEST in recorded history (126 years).

You probably guessed my point just about now…we could be looking at the start of a famine. What can you do? Plant some kind of garden somehow, somewhere of something. Obviously you can plant enough garden to supply your family’s food. But you can reduce your food dependency. A single tomato plant, a zucchini plant, a couple of butternut squash plants…anything! You don’t even need a garden…hang a pot from your patio roof…put a planter outside you backdoor. Anything…please, just do something.

Related Articles –

• GARDEN : Disaster Strikes !
• GARDEN : Strawberries – Planting Bare Root
• GARDEN : Strawberries – Planting Live Plants
• How to make dirt…Part #4

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