it’s spring! and a snow storm is coming in tonight
It’s the first day of spring and we have a snow storm coming. It seems like this winter brought hardly any snow and now that winter’s gone – snow! Tonight’s snow will cover the bed with my recently planted pea seeds. They’ll be ok buried in the soil. And my 5 inch garlic and daffodil sprouts are hardy enough to survive some snow. The snow is predicted to melt within a couple days. Maybe I’ll get some pretty snow photos to post tomorrow.
cold temps returning
I’ve been so lucky with a couple weeks of warm weather and my winter hoops have been left open. But our next five nights will go below 30F, so I’ll have to cover the frame. I’m even hearing that my newly planted peas may get covered with 6-8 inches of snow on Monday. OMG! That seems like more snow than we’ve had all winter.
today’s garden work
Happy St Patrick’s Day! It was my first day of garden work this season in my backyard garden! It was beautiful. – Inspect beehives (more…). – Re-install my two bird houses as they had fallen over. One is down by the pond and the other is on the new arbor by my garden gate. – Set-up tepees for pole beans in the back corners of my garden. It will be a long time until I plant beans on these, but I wanted to get them set up. – Label each…
brood!
It’s St Patrick’s Day. Another sunny day in the 60’s – hard to believe for March. I used an extractor yesterday to remove honey from three frames (another 15 lbs of honey for me). It’s the first time I’ve used an extractor. I rented it – $15 for 2 days from my local bee club. Pretty good. It’s a bulky piece of equipment to store at home. If the club location wasn’t a 40 min drive from me, I would surely rent it regularly. But I may consider buying one…
garden plans and bed preparation
I’ve finished up my garden plans. Just in time to start preparing the beds for planting. ROTATION: To make new garden plans, I rotate my root crops (especially onions, garlic and carrots), as well as my tomatoes and potatoes. I try for a 3 year rotation. I don’t worry about rotating things like squash, greens, beets, cabbage, corn, beans, basil etc, though they usually end up in a different bed because of rotating the roots and solanacea. It’s recommended to follow a rotation of heavy feeder, light feeder, legume (soil…
chickens foraging in the yard
They’re laying great now. I’m getting just over 3 eggs a day from the four hens. I think they like the nice spring weather. I have to do a spring coop cleaning soon. They’ve built up a nice layer of poop for my compost bins at the bottom of their coop.
peepers singing
The peeper frogs started singing today. They are so enthusiastic! From Wikipedia: The spring peeper (Pseudacris crucifer) is a small chorus frog widespread throughout the eastern USA and Canada. They are so called because of their chirping call that marks the beginning of spring. I’m hoping to make a planting calendar app based on natural events someday. I’m probably relearning what previous generations already knew. In any case, I think when the peepers sing, it’s time to plant eggplant and pepper seeds indoors. And it’s time to get ready to…
our seed swap was wonderful!
We had a really nice crowd of gardeners that came to our Seed Swap last Sunday. I loved the event. Thanks to everyone who came by. We had lots of seed changing hands. And everyone had fun. Victoria put together a super seed planting demo. I couldn’t even get a photo of it with the people always crowded around her table. Thanks Victoria, and everyone else. I think this will be a fun event to expand on and do annually. I’ll book mark here Mr Brown Thumb’s very helpful article…
hive check – “dewinterizing”
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At midday today, I opened my second hive, my remaining live hive. The bees were very active, bringing in lots of yellow and orange pollen. I see a few scattered crocuses around in my yard, but I bet they’ve found another yard with many early spring crocuses and snowdrops. Today is warm. 70F in the shade, but my thermometer is showing 94F on the sunny stone patio. Sunny and beautiful. It’s the first really amazing spring day. My bees have been a bit active in previous weeks, but now they…
This is a journal of my vegetable gardens. Skippy thinks the garden is his, even though I do all the work. We're located near Boston, in USDA zone 6. I have bees, chickens, fruit trees and berry bushes, too. I use all sustainable organic methods and strive to grow all of my family's vegetables myself. -Kathy
weeks and counting until my last spring frost
My garden this week
Skippy’s vegetable of the month – Egyptian walking onions!
