What have you done today in the Garden?

I gave another super to my bees today, harvested the first courgette and promptly ate it in a stirfry for supper. Yum.

 

ate a bowl of cereal for supper and then back to the garden. I sprayed the zucchini stems with malathion for the squash bugs. the cukes for cucumber beetles already! fertilized the beans, pruned back the roses and planted up the bed with annuals. got bit by mosquitoes!

 

There has been a littler break in the weather...so it was off to the lottie.

I harvested loads more broad beans, more Swiss chard and courgettes. Meant to plant the Amaranthus dubius, but it wasn't sunny enough. Ach, next time then...along with some green manure.
It was time to sucker the toms and tie the plants in. About half of them have flowers now, so I shall begin feeding them in a couple of days.
I had to cover the blueberries now as they are blueing-up.

We are making plans for the garden next year already.

Today was a good day to defrost the freezer and take inventory. The old list I used to make the new one. we could generally see how many of each veg was left over from last year so that we would know how many to save for this season. The trouble was that we did not always mark down the veggie packets when we took them out to cook...uh-oh!.

I noticed when I was making the new list that my bride and I had scribbled this years' beginnings at the bottom. You can see how lazy we were--we just wrote the words without removing the page from the freezer door. The poor angle made for almost illegible words. hahaha.


Sorry for the poor lighting and blurry text--the pantry is not all that well-lit.

 

Yesterday....had a market. Picked 9 pints of strawberries 7 pints of raspberries 3 pints of blueberries, cucumbers, zucchini, and lettuce and peas.


Came home and removed a super of honey from a hive and extracted it. Found a new queen cell in a box and took the frame to a new box and off to the neighbors with it as there are still bees hanging on their tree
I checked it last night and found the queen had emerged in the last couple hours... Now I am up to 6 hives. Need to get a few more hive bodies. The one I just used is weirdly sized. No bee space on the top. It is on the bottom.
Planted 3 pounds of beans. Burgundy, yellow and green. Used my Amish rototiller to weed the last patch. I was hot and stinky when I finished. 3 70' rows is a lot of pushing.

 

That is a super offering there on the market, Carolyn. Gosh, who wouldn't want to buy that stuff.

I wonder if a queen isn't still hanging in that tree. I wonder. It sounds like you suspect that that bunch hanging the tree are queenless. Why don't you shake it off real good and then brush the rest in. If you look close, you may see a queen should there be one. Or if the folks would not object, saw the branch off, that way you would get them all.

Congrats on having the queen emerge, BTW.
You know, if that group hanging in the tree really is queenless, I'll bet that they may creep into your hive with a new queen...because of her pheromones.

Also, you know, since there are no closed cells in that new colony, now would be a great time to give them a oxalic acid and sugar water spray to treat for varroa. There would be no better or more ideal time.

anyhow--chapeau for the great harvest and market offering...and puh-LEEEZZ keep me posted on that continuing bee situation.

 

Carolyn, do your customers bring back empty containers for you to re-use? I ask my friends to bring me empty egg cartons, and I also get plastic bags that the hair salon saves for me (some shampoo containers come in heavy, clear plastic bags that are ideal for squash/cukes/corn, and it looks like you use something similar for beans. Of course we don't have the variety or quantity of fruit and vegetables that you have, but still, the cost of packaging can be significant, even for our little bits.
All of your produce looks so marvelous--no wonder you have such a successful farmers' market, and stand at home!

 

Thanks S. I am just going down to have a look see at the situation right now. (been at the hospital all day with my FIL. no idea why he doesn't feel good but his blood pressure is very high.) the bees are fanning on the tree as if they are spreading her pheremones but there is no queen there. the one I took down in the cell emerged sometime during the day as her cell was empty wen I looked at the frame last night... not as if it was torn open but as if she emerged, so hopefully there isn't a drone layer over there with an attitude. time will tell. I have no idea how long to give this colony before moving it now.... clueless as I have never had this issue with bees returning to the same spot over and over... and now a queen newly emerged thrown into the equation.
Jane, thanks. I take back my green pulp containers if they are still clean... no stains or rips. bags I won't recycle bags as I won't take on the liability of cross contamination for the raw foods I put into the bags.... other than the people who bring their own bag to take back home. I agree packaging is expensive, but I am also selling it so don't think too much about the cost other than buying whatever is most economical at the time. I buy the twisty tie bags by the 100 from wal mart for my bagged produce.

 

So I went to have a looksee at the bees. There are only a few diehards left on the tree. The rest must have gone in the box. I pulled the frame to see if I could find the queen but what I found was a bitty lip of queen cell covering the end of the cell. I guess I didn't turn it up far enough to see into the cell. I will look on Tuesday...maybe... and see what it looks like then.

 

Wow! I have nothing to report as interesting as what you all get up to!

My community garden plot is progressing. Having trouble with asparagus beetles, and am trying a neem spray to see if that helps. I have a lot of self sown lettuce from last year. I have been digging them up and putting them in the same bed.

I am also trying to experiment with resizing photos so I can post them. The above is a photo of our rhodie maxima just coming into bloom. It is the last rhodie of the season to bloom.

 

Let us see if I can post more photos.
Darn, no

 

Do you think I need to thin out the plantings here?

Wow I think I did it!!!
(eg. post the photo)

 

only if you want room to grow weeds in there. as long as there are no weeds and the foliage isn't moldy from being too close... my thought is ... let it go unless you want or need something to do. it looks nice and lush like it is. or prune the shrubs up a little shape them and make them a bit more compact if you want.

 

Thx Carolyn. I plan on yanking out that hosta. It is actually a volunteer & is bigger now than its parent. I have daylilies behind it that are starved for light....and a more useful place for that giant hosta.

 

I picked our first corn (I was late getting it in), some cucumbers, and a nice picking of tomatoes. Three of the not-so-feral cats followed me around, examining what I had put in the basket, and being slightly upset that none of it was cat food. The other three laid in the shade of the barn, monitoring the proceedings.
Just what I need, more supervisors!