June 30, 2015

garden work

My sister helped me in my garden today! What fun. In two hours we got so much done. We transplanted lots of little pots of seedlings that I grew from seed, petunias, dianthus. Also some purchased thymes and basils. Then we attended to my tomato plants: we removed suckers and lower leaves, and added support strings. We weeded several beds sparing a rogue tomato plant, as well as scattered cilantro and dill plants. Thanks Sis!

June 28, 2015

again, I think they’re going to swarm soon

A couple weeks ago, I was very worried because I thought my bees were about to swarm and had foul brood. After lots of advice, it turns out I had seen a row of drone cells and a few uncapped queen cups. I had also noticed that the bees were beginning to store food in old brood frames, which surprised me and I thought there was something wrong like foul brood or other nasty disease. My beekeeper friends probably got tired of reassuring me that my hives were OK. And,…

June 28, 2015

where do my bees go?

I’ve been watching which flowers my bees are on. In May, I saw them on wild phlox, violas, crab apples and Carolina silverbell. honeybee on wild phlox, May 23 honeybee landing on a viola, May 23 honeybees on ajuga and honeysuckle, May 23 In June, black locust, beauty bush, Nepeta, wild rose and clover.

June 28, 2015

new compost bins

About a month ago, my husband made me a pair of new compost bins. They are beautiful!! A big improvement over the 5 little round plastic ones I had before. The photos show how he made them. Slats are spaced 1 inch. The front panel sits in a slot at the bottom and it then held in place with a removable screw and bolt. In the spring, I will remove the front panels to turn and use the compost. A really nice feature is that he made a step on…

June 27, 2015

record keeping

I’m trying to figure out the best way to keep a record of my bees. First, I had Siri transcribe my observations, then just transferred that to a word document. But Siri doesn’t understand me very well and see certainly doesn’t know words like “brood box”. So now I have an excel table with lots of information. I jot down notes as I inspect the hives, then transfer it to the table later. I suppose this is OK, but I’m still working out what information I really need to record.…

June 10, 2015

netting over blueberry bush

I was pleased to see that one of my blueberry bushes, the one farthest down hill, has berries. It escaped the gread mummy berry disease. Yeah! I covered it with a plastic netting called “cicada netting” that was available locally in Home Depot. It has small holes and I’m hoping will not tangle birds like the netting with larges holes. Does anyone have better suggestions for blueberry netting?

June 10, 2015

fall planting

Fall planting season has started and it’s not even summer! I haven’t done any fall planting yet, but I’m noticing on my FALL calendar app that it’s time to plant collard greens. I’d like to give this a try this year. I might even try seeding a couple fall cabbages, even though it’s a couple weeks late. What worries me, though, is that I haven’t gotten my popcorn in yet. My calendar is telling me I only have a couple weeks left to do this! A good job for tomorrow.…

June 10, 2015

visiting my parents garden

My parents gardens is especially beautiful this year. I am envious of their garlic. It is beginning to form scapes. The plants are big and deep green – no yellow leaves yet. My garlic has suffered from my under-watering and, though it is also beginning to scape, has yellowing leaves already. A friend has a recipe for garlic scape pickles that I look forward to trying soon.

June 9, 2015

are they getting ready to swarm?

Yesterday I inspected my two new bee hives. It’s the first time I’ve gone two weeks between inspections so I was really curious what I would find. One hive looks perfect and just as I expected. It’s 70% full, ready for a mite treatment and then a honey super. Maybe both at once. The other hive – well, not so good. The top box looked nice: I saw the queen and lots of eggs and larvae she had laid. Lots of stored food. But the bottom box was different. Pulling…

June 7, 2015

today’s garden work

My husband got me two nice plastic boxes that I filled with garden stuff, one for each of my vegetable gardens. The boxes are black so they won’t detract from garden beauty. The stuff: Twins, clippers, plant labels and pens, gloves (which I never wear), sunscreen, tissues, wire for hoops, fertilizer. I added a few leftover bags of topsoil (I don’t know why we had these, I hate plastic bags of stuff) to my 6th bed, turned it, raked flat, then planted 1 row green beans (Maxibel) and 4 rows…

weeks and counting until my last spring frost

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garden work

again, I think they’re going to swarm soon

where do my bees go?

new compost bins

record keeping

netting over blueberry bush

fall planting

visiting my parents garden

are they getting ready to swarm?

today’s garden work

My garden this week

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17 years of archives!

Skippy’s vegetable of the month – Egyptian walking onions!

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My garden this week

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17 years of archives!

Skippy’s vegetable of the month – Egyptian walking onions!

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