Martin's Hillside Orchard

Explore the Orchard

Meet Wally!

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Tamra Ziems (Wally’s mom) and Alex

Wally is a 3-month old, Atlantic Giant pumpkin raised in Ewing, Nebraska by family members of our very own Sheila Ziems, Tamra and Larry Ziems, in preparation for a pumpkin competition in Rapid City.

  • At one point, Wally was gaining 23 lbs/day!
  • How do you move a one thousand lb pumpkin? With a John Deere, of course!

For more information on how to grow your own giant pumpkin check out this segment from “Backyard Farmer” featuring Wally and some other pumpkins Tamra and her husband grew this summer.

Tamra and Larry wanted to make sure Wally got to enjoy the limelight post-competition so we are lucky to have them choose Martin’s Hillside Orchard for his forever home. Come on out and meet Wally. Great photo opportunity!

Follow the Ziems on Facebook, Instagram and twitter – their handle is “craZpumpkins” for photos of the recent pumpkin weigh-in and more info on raising these giants

We can’t wait to collect a few seeds and try to grow one of these for ourselves 🙂

A BIG thanks to Tamra and Larry!

 

Butterflies Galore!

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The butterfly garden is in full swing these days with plants as high (tall) as an elephant’s eye. Plenty of butterflies around, including monarchs on sunny, warm days as they fuel up for their migration south for the winter.

Monarch on butterfly bush

We finally got around to adding signs out in the garden to identify some of the more unusual plants and fun facts about butterflies. They smell with their feet? Yes, indeed! Here are some pics of the winged visitors we’ve captured the last couple of years.

Bring your cameras!

Check out our Facebook page for additional photos

 

 

American Lady
Painted Lady, American Lady? Not sure

Apple Hand Pie

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Love this video tutorial that walks you through how to make hand pies. Just follow this step-by-step and you will have the most adorable and flavorful apple hand pies ever. Crimping is a cinch!

Ingredients:

  • Store-bought pie crust – you can make your own, but we took the shortcut
  • Butter – a bit of bacon fat* is an excellent addition. See note below
  • Apples – something flavorful like a Honeycrisp or Jonathan
  • Salt
  • White sugar
  • Brown sugar
  • Cinnamon
  • Water

*Bacon twist – We had some bacon drippings left from breakfast so we used them in place of some of the butter. Wow, bacon and apples are a great combination! We need to explore this combination in more recipes

Last Weekend of the Season – 10/27-10/28

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Join us for the final weekend of this year’s harvest.  We will be picking our late season applies – Pink Lady and Fuji. Pre-picked apples and apple butter available in the Apple Barn.

Cider too – We also plan to make our last batch of cider this week so should have plenty on hand for the weekend.

What to expect AFTER this weekend?  The orchard will be closed as we’ll be working to tuck in the trees for the winter, prune back the raspberries, oil & grease the tractor.  You know, the usual off season stuff.  And, of course we’ll be planning more fun for next season.

The touch of cold and snow we had earlier in the month is no problem for our late season apples. 

Storing apples – Whether you pick EverCrisp or another variety, follow these tips and you’ll have nice crisp apples well into the holiday season

Pumpkin Love – Don’t forget about the pumpkin patch. The pumpkins aren’t thrilled to have apples intruding on their time in the limelight.  I mean, the month of October has pretty much been their domain for a long time.  But, happily we’ve convinced them to share the stage with the apples. Show them some love and plan a trip to the pumpkin patch today

 

Favorite fall recipes – coming soon!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pumpkin Love

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Pumpkin Love – We kind of have a thing for pumpkins. We love poring over seed catalogs in the off-season and checking out new varieties. We carefully map out the patch each year, it’s always different because we are always trying something new. And, we have so many varieties, we end up planting them by hand. One year we used a pick because the ground was so muddy. This year we planted them at 5:30 am the Sunday of Memorial Day to beat the heat. 

Fast forward: The plants bolt from the ground and send runners carpeting the patch in a dense jungle of green.  We weed, water, repeat and the rich Nebraska soil and sun do the rest. Four months later, we peek under that green foliage and it’s like striking the mother lode but it’s not just gold, it’s orange, white, blue, green and pink.  

Why do we like pumpkins so much? We need to do a bit of self-assessment to answer that. I suppose just ‘cuz or just ‘cuz they are awesome doesn’t entirely answer that question.