What have you done today in the Garden?

Oh, I forgot to post this pic of the courgette bed in Nettie's garden:

 

Sjoerd, what are you going to do with all those courgettes you'll harvest? I know there will be lots of them since you are growing them! The lavender in the foreground of the photo is lush and lovely. Oh, to have a green thumb like yours . . ..
I dashed out between rain storms and harvested parsley. Today was supposed to be "dig onions" day but the rain delayed that until perhaps the weekend.
I'm baking some rolls, making parsley butter, and catching up on the housework I've been successfully ignoring all week.

 

All those courgettes will be for the Food Bank. That lavender is beginning to look good, isn't it.
How are your bees doing by the way?


Here you can see a couple of honey frames from when we recently slung the honey. We are making creamed honey from this Spring's haul.

p.s. I whsh that I could sample some of your rolls, Jane.

 

Sjoerd, I wish I could say the bees are fine, but they are gone. Someone down the road got a bunch of bees from a water meter, and they were Africanized. Unfortunately they bred with our queen, and our bees turned vicious. We couldn't go to the gardens or mow without being swarmed, so we got rid of our bees. I miss them so much. We still have our equipment so if the guy gets bored with having bees we may be able to start up again.

 

So sorry MG.

 

the 100' rolls are much cheaper though.
I counted my maters today. 205 in the ground.

 

oh dear Jane. thats sad.
S, I love that new hoe.

 

Jane--that is terrible. I am sorry to hear that. Let's hope that he gets some different bees or stops...for your sake.
Thanks Carolyn...it's works a treat.

I looked in on the bees again today. All well there. I removed large strips of dar brood and give it to the tits.
The voles have begun eating the Brussels sprouts, so I planted some new ones. There are still some courgette plants left over and no one wants them. I may plant more in Nettie's garden...there is room. Watered the toms and peppers in the greenhouse. The toms were suckered for the third time already. More weeding.

 

S, do you ever pinch out the center of the pepper plant to make it bushier?

 

Picked more green beans, pulled turnips and carrots, and dug red onions. I had kitten help so it took a bit longer than usual.
I was tying the onions to hang in the barn, and Cali found how much fun a ball of hemp twine can be. I retrieved my twine, finished hanging, and then came inside to wash and store vegetables. That was about the only gardening task I did without kitten help/supervision!

 

@carolyn, I'll try that with the pepper plants.

 

we had a dog catastrophe here so our day was long and worrisome. I tossed some expired supplements in the compost and she ate them when nosing around. she spent 24 hours almost at the pet hospital.

moved the bees out of the garage last night. now I hope they reorient themselves quickly. I haven't closed the garage door for almost 3 weeks. there were nice queen cells in one frame so we left that in one box and made a split. I never saw the queen as it was pretty late and we didn't go through every frame.

baked bread for the market and today I go to market.

 

Made strawberry jam today. 1500 gms of strawbs = 7 jars. We didn't do all that we have frozen-in, as there will be more to harvest.

The weighing-in of the cleaned strawbs:


Boil baby, boil...


Well, all done 'n dusted. I have to keep turning the pots so that the strawb bits will mix a bit evenly., Ah yes, and over to the left--payment in kind for all the "hard" work...more short cake with toppings.


Yummy hobby for a rainy day.

 

Carolyn, I'm so sorry your dog got sick, but happy the recovery is coming along.
Sjoerd, that is a yummy hobby for ANY day, rainy or not!
Dug and hung two rows of onions, and harvested more basil to dry. The next batch of basil goes into pesto, and after that, who knows?

 

We have gotten a long weekends worth of rain after 3 weeks of triple digit heat! The veggies are looking so good. Banana peppers, bells and habs are going strong. Roma and cherry tomatoes are plentiful. Still got cucumbers steadily growing. Even the pepper bed has very few weeds and lots of new growth. One area of disappointment has been my jalapeno peppers which I have lost 2/3's of currently. Overall quite happy, though.

Very pleased and excited so far this season!