Fiddlehead Fern Homestead

Fiddlehead Fern Homestead Contact information, map and directions, contact form, opening hours, services, ratings, photos, videos and announcements from Fiddlehead Fern Homestead, Education, Victoria, VA.

We were away for a few days (again!) and now have a lot of yard and garden chores to catch up on (again!). After gettin...
08/10/2026

We were away for a few days (again!) and now have a lot of yard and garden chores to catch up on (again!). After getting home, I ran out to the grocery store and as I was coming home, I saw a double rainbow.

Since getting back I've picked some green beans, lima beans, tomatoes, cucumbers, and squash. Aaron made pickles and I've been freezing some vegetables. I've seen videos of people using these handheld turbo torches (sort of a lighter on steroids) to burn off squash eggs and we bought one at Sheetz on our way home. Good thing, since we have squash eggs on our squash plant leaves. It was pretty fun to burn them off, they sort of pop like popcorn. If you've ever popped amaranth, it was very much like that - little white kernels. The video isn't great, because I was holding the phone in one hand and the torch in the other.

We generally try to use what we have and make things by ourselves. We had walkways made from left over (untreated) lumber and Trex at our old house and they worked well. Over the years, the lumber had mostly decomposed and if we had stayed, we would have had to re-do them. But they lasted many years and kept the weeds at bay. We don't have scrap lumber or Trex here, so we decided to splurge and buy some cedar walkways for the upper garden.

I'm working on weeding, laying down cardboard, and "installing" the walkways this week. I'm not sure if the sun is more intense here, I'm just getting older, or some of both, but I can't take working in the garden in the afternoon with full sun. I spend an hour or two in the morning and again in the evening and hopefully I'll have a picture of the completed project by the end of this week.

TLDR: Burning squash eggs with a handheld torch is fun! We splurged on cedar walkways for the upper garden. I'm weeding, laying down cardboard and hope to have the walkways in by the end of the week.

I guess there were more tomatoes in the garden than I thought - I picked about 20 pounds. They're not all quite ripe, b...
08/03/2026

I guess there were more tomatoes in the garden than I thought - I picked about 20 pounds. They're not all quite ripe, but we have a lot of rain coming and I didn't want them to split. The darker yellow/orange ones are Woodle Orange and one of my favorites. They are a meaty tomato with orange flesh. The yellow ones are called Pork Chop and they have a softer yellow flesh. I assumed that the Roma's would all still have a fungus inside, but I tested 2 of them and they are good! I then sliced up the rest of the Romas, almost 2 sheet pans, and roasted them to freeze for pizzas and sandwiches, but somehow I burned all of them.

Dinner from the homestead - zucchini pie with our zucchini, eggs and parsley; our tomatoes; and our purple majesty potat...
08/03/2026

Dinner from the homestead - zucchini pie with our zucchini, eggs and parsley; our tomatoes; and our purple majesty potatoes with our parsley.

Potatoes can be stored for 6 - 8 months when they are properly cured and stored. They should be cured for 1 - 2 weeks a...
08/01/2026

Potatoes can be stored for 6 - 8 months when they are properly cured and stored. They should be cured for 1 - 2 weeks at temperatures between 40 and 60 degrees with high humidity. Even after curing, they are best stored in a cool, dark area with high humidity. We just finished curing our potatoes in the deer cooler, which we set to 50 degrees, but we forgot to add humidity. After curing, I gently removed the dirt, pulled out any that were soft, and stored them in the basement since we don't have a root cellar (yet?). It's not as cool or humid as it should be, but it's dark.

Our potato harvest was smaller than we had hoped - both in quantity and size of potatoes - but we get what we get and we don't get upset. We ended up with a little over 5 pounds of Kennebec, a little over 8 pounds of Pontiac Red, almost 5 pounds of Yukon Gold, a little over 3 pounds of Purple Majesty, and 2 pounds of Fingerlings. A little over 24 pounds in total.

Yesterday we were curious and decided to take a quick look in the bee hives, just pop off the lids and maybe move a fram...
08/01/2026

Yesterday we were curious and decided to take a quick look in the bee hives, just pop off the lids and maybe move a frame or two. Aaron decided he didn't need to suit up, and you can probably guess where this going - he got stung on his arm, just above his elbow. I immediately removed the stinger, and we put the lid back on the hive and got out of there. Today his elbow is swollen and itchy.

Only the worker bees, or female bees, have a stinger. The stinger is attached to the abdomen and internal organs, which are ripped out of the bee when it stings, killing the bee. The stinger will continue to pump venom for up to 2 minutes, even when detached from the bee's body, so it's important to quickly remove the stinger. When a bee stings, it releases an alarm scent, alerting other bees to the danger, which encourages them to also sting. If you're a beekeeper, you can use your smoker to direct smoke onto the area that was stung, masking the alarm scent. But, if you didn't suit up, you probably didn't bring your smoker either. Today we both suited up, used the smoke, and took a look into the honey supers. Everything is looking good.

We have a battery-operated electric fence around the hives and the way we set it up there isn't any space to the side of one of the hives, which isn't ideal. You really want to be behind the hive, or at least on the side of it when you open up the hive and disturb the bees. When you're standing in front of the hive, you're blocking the entrance to the hive, and I think it makes the bees more defensive. Aaron opened up the hive on the right first, which has space to stand on the side. The bees were very docile. Then he moved onto the left hive, which he has to stand in front of. They weren't aggressive, but they were definitely noisily buzzing around and filling the air around the hive. It was amazing, as soon as Aaron stepped away from the front of the hive, they instantly calmed down. We were able to shift the electric fence over so that next time Aaron can stand alongside the hive.

TLDR: Yesterday we decided to take a quick look in the beehives and Aaron didn’t think he needed to suit up and he got stung. When a honey bee stings you, even though it’s abdomen and internal organs are ripped out, killing the bee, the stinger will continue to pump venom into you. The bee also releases an alarm scent, which causes other bees to defend their home by stinging you.

Our electric fence set up requires Aaron to stand in front of one of the hives, which the bees don’t like. It was amazing how much they calmed down once he stepped away. We were able to shift the electric fence over so next time Aaron can stand to the side of the hive.

It was cooler this morning, 67 degrees and no humidity, so I decided to take the opportunity to do some tree trimming in...
07/30/2026

It was cooler this morning, 67 degrees and no humidity, so I decided to take the opportunity to do some tree trimming in the lower field before breakfast (and the warmer temps). I focused on the area around the lean to, which backs to the woods. I spent about 2.5 hours and it doesn't look that different. I cut several 20 foot - 30 foot tall trees with my handy bow saw and trimmed LOTS of branches with my clippers or bow saw. The trees had small trunks, so they weren't that difficult to cut down.

I cut the branches I could reach from the ground or a little step stool that was there. I need to go back with a ladder for the higher branches. My goal is to keep the branches off the roof and to keep the woods from encroaching. I also pulled a lot of trumpet vine, which has pretty flowers that attract hummingbirds, but it is also a very fast growing vine that will overtake buildings and other plants. It is also highly flammable?!?!? and it is not recommended to plant it near structures for this reason.

TLDR: A lot of effort to clean up the woods line and trim branches away from the lean to with little visible difference.

I went to the Blackstone Livestock Auction yesterday with my friend JoLynn and one of her friends and their kids. It's ...
07/30/2026

I went to the Blackstone Livestock Auction yesterday with my friend JoLynn and one of her friends and their kids. It's about 25 minutes away. I was surprised by how many animals they were auctioning in one day, since they hold the auction every Wednesday. Yesterday they auctioned pigs, lambs, goats, and cattle. There's a catwalk, which is where I took the pictures, that goes above all the holding pens so you can walk around and check out the animals and decide which you want to try to buy.

It was a bit smelly, which I expected. But it smelled like cat p*e and ci******es, which I didn't expect. Evidently there are lots of barn cats around. And the guy across the aisle from me smoked an impressive number of ci******es in the two hours we were there.

I'd never been to a livestock auction and it was fun and interesting. I don't know enough about livestock to know which animals were desirable and why, so I don't know why this goat sold for more than that goat. The pricing list below is from the auction website.

TLDR: I went to the Blackstone Livestock Auction, about 25 minutes away. They auctioned pigs, goats, lambs, and cattle.

07/29/2026

Here's a tour of the lower garden.

We were away for four days, so now we have lots of catching up to do on the gardens and grass cutting. I'm able to leav...
07/29/2026

We were away for four days, so now we have lots of catching up to do on the gardens and grass cutting. I'm able to leave enough food and water for the chickens and rabbits for that amount of time, so I don't need to ask someone to take care of them, but there is lot of p**p 💩 to clean up when we get back.

We flew into Raleigh-Durham airport, which is about 2 hours away, but it's a nice, easy drive. We got in around 4:30 pm and decided to stop in town for dinner, so we were headed up the driveway around 7:00, looking forward to hitting the couch and relaxing. As we approached the entrance to our property (the sign on the post in the background marks the start of our property), we found this tree had fallen and blocked the driveway. Luckily, we were able to push it somewhat out of the way and drive around it and leave it until the next day to cut it up.

TLDR: After a day of traveling we came home to find a tree had fallen across the driveway.

This week in alien vegetables:- I have no idea what is up with this corn, but it has it all covered - super large kernel...
07/22/2026

This week in alien vegetables:
- I have no idea what is up with this corn, but it has it all covered - super large kernels, no kernels, baby size kernels. I assume it's from the drought, extreme heat, and then heavy rains. This is the corner of the garden that I rarely got watered when I was dragging the sprinkler around. Unfortunately, several other ears feel like this, and I don't think we'll be getting any corn from our garden this year. Now I know why the raccoons haven't bothered climbing into the garden. 😄

- The Roma tomatoes have a fungus inside them, which is even more annoying because they look beautiful on the outside. I'd like to blame the clay soil, but none of the other tomato varieties have this.

- And, it's a boy!!! tomato

Address

Victoria, VA

Website

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when Fiddlehead Fern Homestead posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Shortcuts

Share

Category