While bringing the plants indoors, my daughter remembered to shake the blooming Wonderberry plants against each other, to give them a chance to pollinate. I still don’t know of they’re self pollinating our not, but we’re doing it just in case. Then my daughter commented that it seems to be working. We have berries.

What????

It turns out all three of the plants are starting to form berries!

Of course, my camera didn’t want to focus on the ones I was trying to get a picture of. After the photo was uploaded, I noticed more I hadn’t seen.

The instructions I found for these said to start them indoors very early, which we did. Now it’s looking like they were started way too early! I have no idea how they will handle being transplanted outdoors, which still won’t happen for at least a week and a half.

They are looking strong and healthy in their pots. Though we did pot them up into larger pots that can be directly buried into the ground, they’ve gotten quite large, and now those pots look so small!

There’s not much we can do about that for now. We’ll just have to see how they do.

While uploading the picture of the berries, I realized I’d forgotten another picture I took of something I FINALLY managed to get done, while tending the burn barrel. I cut away the trees that were growing around, under and through the old Farm Hand tractor sitting in the outer yard. My brother thinks it can be fixed up, so I wanted to make sure it doesn’t end up like so many other old and abandoned antique equipment lying around.

I was able to get most of it cleared with a pair of loppers, including one surprisingly large maple that was growing through the engine compartment. There was one large maple in the back that I had to come back with the mini-chainsaw to cut away. This one was not only larger than all the others, it had formed around part of the tractor.

The dents in the trunk piece are from growing around the bottom corner of the hydraulic fluid tank, and the hose attached to it.

Maple suckers will grow back, but it will be easier to keep clear, now that the big ones are out.

It’s a shame no one’s been able to keep this old crank-start tractor up. It’s been sitting so long, you can see lichen growing on the tank! There’s lichen growing all over it. As you can see, the hoses are degrading, too, and it’s all rusted. The front end loader attachment is so covered with moss and grasses, I can’t even tell which attachment is on it.

I’m glad I managed to at least get this job done. It’s been on my to-do list for three years!

The Re-Farmer