Salmon River land for sale by owner: 80-acre parcel near White Bird, Idaho.

~ For Sale by Owner: $1,490,000 ~ SWEET SPOT RANCH The Garden/Orchard Area
The land More about the land Outbuildings/corrals Sweet Spot Main Page	Third year for the orchard/garden. White thing is a sink for cleaning vegetables.
From the other direction, the whole thing.

Jane's greens: spinach and chards. Tomatoes in foreground.

We are creating a 64'X 80' garden about 100 yards from the house. The 6-foot deer fence around it has so far kept them out. I'm in the process of building an combination chicken house and garden shed attached to the garden. After we drilled the well we ran a line to the center of the garden, terminating at a frost-free hydrant. You can get water to any place in the garden by hose or drip system.

This flat patch of black dirt did well even the first year. We enjoyed peaches last year and this year all 13 of our fruit trees should bear: 4 peach, 2 apricot, 2 apple, 2 pear, 1 nectarine, 1 plum and 1 cherry. This year we'll also get watermelon, cantaloupe and kiwi. The White Bird weather is pretty amazing.

Second year peach, first blooms	We have 4 varieties, for peaches and ice cream from late June into October!

The garden building is half chicken house and half garden shed, which has shelves and houses my 4-wheeler. The chickens will roam the garden enclosure (to eat grasshoppers) after plants mature in summer, and in winter be able to use the smaller outdoor pen at the right of the main building. I built it with salvaged boards from an old wood fence on the place, and metal roof off an unused feeder. It looks as though it has been around for 50 years.

Next year the fruit trees will begin to shade some current planting areas so we'll expand deer fence by 16' (the length of a cattle panel).

Egg plant, beans, carrots and all the rest.	Impressive but friendly—and helpful.

There's plenty of fertilizer and mulch at the corrals, and as we work the garden it becomes more and more productive. I do the rough tilling with a 16-HP Kubota tractor that has plenty of attachments. This machine and my ATV allow me do a lot of other work around the place, as well.
Except for the early work, the garden doesn't take a lot of time. Just turn on the drip system and pull a few weeds. So far I have resisted putting a timer on the drip system because I just like to keep an eye on the growth progress, and maybe hand watering is some sort of Zen experience. Taking part in the development of seed into fruit seems to tickle a pleasure center in me. And there is nothing better than fresh-from-the-garden fruit and vegetables. Only ice cream can enhance it.

Almost all of it came from the garden.


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