Sticky month equals mulberry season

We've started off May with a bounty of strawberries and two weeks in mulberries plus a few cherries to add to the plums. We've are officially in our fruit season here at the homestead.

The greenhouse greens have been harvested and seeded again. The cucumbers are in mass production mode. It has become a morning and afternoon ritual Art to pick and graze from the greens and the cucumbers. And the tomatoes are ripening.

The garden transformation has been slowly moving along. Our seeded row is now producing arugula, spinach and a few sunflowers are popping up. The climbing beans nearly tall enough to tie the up and the tomatoes are doing well. The eggplants and peppers are starting off very slow this year. Art replaced several starter plants and it seems to be doing better. The melon row is doing well and starting to flower. The potatoes are doing well. We've been harvesting as needed. Art harvested the garlic and we're drying it to store it for the future. The spring onions had a bit of seasonal fungus but are recovering. Parsley, chamomile, cilantro, fennel, dill, mint, lavender, mountain tea, and basil are coming along nicely and even harvesting a bit.

The apple trees are full and weighed down with loads of fruit.

Our pear and quince trees are just as full. We have a few pear varieties that ripens in June and the rest in August with the quince. We did test a June pear and they are edible. We included them in a salad and they are perfect amount of sweet and crunch.

The vineyard is thriving. We have large clusters of çylek grapes already nice and plumpy. The mana i kuq grapes are flowering and the yellow and pink hafisali grape clusters are taking shape. And the merlot clusters are doing well. The hammocks are in full shade under the vines. We are looking forward to generous harvest this fall. If you interested in being here during vine to wine season book a stay or tour in the last two weeks of September or first week of October.

We have been busy hosting guests in our Orchard Guard Tower and few day tours. A few of them had never had a mulberry and were able to pick them fresh from the tree. It's always our belle of the ball in May. Art has climbed and shook the trees a few times and the last time we shook all four trees we squeezed eighty liters of juice. You can keep the juice as is but you can also cook it down to make pekmez aka mulberry molasses. We kept about 20 liters of juice and the remaining 60 liters were cooked down into a few batches of mulberry pekmez. And did another round a few days later of about 60 more liters to pekmez. It's been a very sticky month.

We've had an eventful chicken month. Three new mama hens had a total of 23 new chicks to add to the 11 from last month. And the protection cages over the little hen condos are working out well. No bird predator losses. But we did have the case of an open gate near the back side of the property. One hen was a little too curious early in the morning and a fox pounced on the opportunity. Lessons learned to double check the gates before bed. Our daily egg average has been impacted by the amount of hens now broody and we went from 17-19 down to 7-11 eggs a day. Three more hens are due next month.

Our chestnut, walnut and hazelnut trees have started to form and we definitely have more than our previous years harvest. On our third year maturation for the walnuts and second year with the chestnuts and hazelnuts.

Let's talk figs. We have two rounds, the first starts in late June with our sheen figs and then our honey figs. And the rest of the figs ripen in August through end of September. Have you had a fresh fig straight from the tree?

One of our favorite birds stuck around and showed off a bit. This is the Eurasian Hoopoe aka Hoopie in our house. It's migration path to us is usually mid March till early July.

Over all we've had many wins this month and the pomegranate orchard is for once on top of that list. A local farmer asked for the hay from our field and has been busy cutting and hauling the grass. This task alone can take weeks of long days and so much work for Art and I, but mostly Art. The new recovery from last years frost seems to be bouncing back. The bees busy with the pomegranate blossoms.

It was a beautiful month to visit, stay and enjoy. Are we on your list yet?

Homestead Albania