How Does Your Garden Grow

Here is my most pressing project "the chicken pen".  I have the post in the ground, the gate hung and I'm in the process of reworking the inside of the shed.  Currently I have all the materials in hand, a plan and the chickens are ready for me to pick up.  All I have to do is finish.  

This was what I found a couple of weeks ago, sack worms and baby apples.  The sack worms are easy enough to deal with.  Soap water or tobacco juice have worked for me in the past.

 A late freeze got a lot of the apples this year but there will still be plenty for our needs with plenty to spare.

The blackberry plants are healthy and doing well.  This is one of the easiest crops to deal with. The toughest aspect is thinning the old canes out in the fall.  Painful work!

The late cold snap affected the asparagus.  We were able to get a couple of messes out of them I only cut them once because they seemed to be struggling, so I let them bolt. 

This picture is a couple of weeks old as seen by the date on the photo.  After the recent rains things have grown leaps and bounds the plans have doubled in size.  
Below are the tomato & pepper plants. Their roots have taken hold and are starting to grow with the rain and warmer days and nights.
The crows devastated my peas this year, so I filled the empty spaces with broccoli.  Don't ask me why, because I have way too much broccoli.  To the right of the photo below is the romaine which is doing nicely.
The lettuce is also doing rather well.  We are eating lots of salad and loving it.  We have also given to family and friends.

Ah, the collards have seen their day.  They bolt!  But not before suppling several good meals for me and others.  As soon as the ground is dry I will till this area in and plant more hot weather plants.

Growing Springing

This is a picture of one of my four blueberry bushes.  The nicest one, I'm still working on getting the soil PH right.  from the looks of this plant I'm getting close.

Early bee food, these are 2 of the early flowers that the bees feed on.  The hairy vetch is a very early bloomer.

The first blossoms.  When I was out working on my chicken enclosure yesterday I noticed one or 2 blooms.  This is what I found today.

 In a few days this will all be a beautiful pink and white landscape full of bees making me honey and apples. 

This was one of the things I was working on yesterday.  My daughter will be gone more this summer so I'm using more mulch to help me combat the weeds.  I stopped at the onset of the rain.  

In the foreground  is my asparagus and past the broccoli under the straw is romaine lettuce.  I covered these plants earlier this week expecting a freeze.  The cover is now so much mulch, I will add more to it.

These are freshly set tomato plants.  I will set more later as some of the early spring crops fail.

The cabbage, broccoli, and cauliflower are coming along nicely. As are some other things like the onions and romaine.

Hobby Bee Keeper

This is a trailer load of packaged bees, ready to be distributed to local beekeepers form K&K Bee Farm. 
This is a package of bees.  It contains 3 pounds of bees, a queen and a can of sugar water for food.
This is an existing hive the one I thought I had lost the queen from.  Next to it is the wood ware and the 2 packages of bees staged and ready to start.
A closer look at the wood ware and packages.
Done and walking away.  I left some trash, I will pick it up in 3 or 4 days when I remove the queen cages.

This is a queen cage with a queen and 3 or 4 nurse bees.  The white area under the penny is candy.  This is what the worker bees eat and feed to the queen.  When the cage is placed in a hive the workers will eat their way through the candy from the other end releasing the queen into the hive.  This takes several days allowing the bees to acclimate to each other.

My new bees came in today as seen above.  After doing some tilling in the garden and setting out a few more broccoli plants I ran to K&K Bee Store and picked up my 2 packages of bees, a queen and a few supplies.  I didn’t need the queen so I will try to return her or ask them to sell her for me. 

When I checked my hives earlier this year I failed to fine the queen in one hive.  Because I didn’t find the queen and although there was capped brood, I didn’t see any fresh eggs or early stage larva.  And because a mouse had gotten into this hive during the winter I thought she might be dead.  So I ordered a new queen.  Today as I prepared to insert the new queen I discovered a very active and healthy hive with lots of new brood and fresh eggs.  This is good, because it means I will get honey from these girls this year.

 

God is good,

Patience

The spring rains have set in and while I have seed in the ground, I whish I had planted other things.  This rain will bring things springing to the surface and beyond.  In the past I have worked some stuff in the garden while it was wet.  If setting plants it works well if you have raised beds but I don’t, so I wade though mud up to 8 inches deep sometimes.  

I have been enjoying our asparagus I love to just pick and eat it raw, on the spot.  But alas I have to put some on the table for everyone else.

We have finished the apple trees and they are now budding leaves out with some red showing.  

Waiting again!

 

I have cobbled together all the supplies needed for the new bees I ordered and again I wait for their arrival.  They should arrive this coming week.  I will try to get some pictures of them.  It is hard as I need a second person when it comes to getting pictures of them.  For some reason no one wants to be around when I get into them.

Yesterday I went to the nursery and bought some more plants; more broccoli and some tomatoes plants and some jalapeño plants (yes I still buy plants but I’m working on that, next year).  Sunday I will set the broccoli plants and after the coming cold snap I will set all the rest of the plants.  Yes I gamble sometimes but I think this will be the last freeze/frost. 

It’s Sabbath and what a relief it is to sit quietly and feel God’s arms around you. 

Almost finished

I took off from work today and pruned trees.  We almost finished.  We are down to about 5 to 8 more trees.  As I was pruning I noticed that some of the trees were starting to show some green. So at the end of the day I mixed some deciduous spray and sprayed the trees.  This will burn the green that was showing and cause them to be undersized this year which affects the size of the fruit but there wasn’t that much.  The benefit for the rest of the trees will far out weigh any harm done.

Esther and I will finish the rest of the trees this week.  I will move on to planting more stuff in the garden next week, getting 2 hives ready for the 2 packages of bees I ordered and reworking my chicken house and yard.  It may be a busy week. 

Late Again

Well, we have made the start. We are pruning trees or at least Esther is.  We started in December, continued in January with some of the hardest to prune trees.  In February we continued to work through the trees.  Now in March we must hurry and finish for they will start budding leaves soon.  As soon as I feel the last freeze is past and have a calm dry day I will spray with deciduous oil.  This is a substance that soaks into the bark killing boring bugs and that helps with fungi. 

    

I am planting; actually I began in February with peas, kohlrabi, salad greens and onions.  Now I have planted some flowers set out some cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, and brussel sprout plants.  I impatiently wait for things to sprout and grow as I decide what to plant next.

Chickens!  I will have some chicks soon.  Mike & Julie at Three Fold Cord are starting some chicks and will give me 12 of them.  I traded them some apples back in the fall for them.  They will not start laying until later this year so I will probably try to pick up a couple of older chickens to fill in the gap until then.  I have had chickens in the past but it seems every time I get some established someone’s dogs get loose and reeks havoc on them.  The last ones I had met their fate by a huge dog that tore under the fence and killed every one of them.

I haven’t written anything for a while for several reasons.  One I have been busy.  Work is one reason I have worked some overtime but generally I have been stressed about my future at my current job as I suppose lots of other people have been.  At least I still have a job.  Another reason is that it’s birthday season, starting with Esther in February, Ada, Amy and me in March.  Believe me that’s a lot of food.  And then I have also been spending time in the garden, orchard and with the bees.  The last reason is that it seemed every time I have tried to write something lately, it came out… well like… well my wife said it sounded like a terrorists rambling.  I have been so upset about the direction my country is going I can’t get my mind off of it.

Oh yes!  Did I mention I have with God’s support I've been losing weight… say about 20 to 25 pounds so far.  Like other things in my life that were harmful like smoking and drinking He has slowly positioned me to have the desire to accomplish an end.  GOD is good.