Not a lot to report about the garden, or the bees. Things are trucking along quietly, everything is taking care of itself, it requires nearly no fussing from me, which is great. We harvest strawberries, blueberries, peaches, greens (romaine, collards, kale, chard, various other Asian braising greens), and tomatoes every day now.
There is an abundance of fruit, so while much of it gets eaten fresh daily, more of it gets peeled, cut up, and frozen in small batches.
I eat greens daily and Tom and Adam almost daily, so the greens are welcome. I don't know what good organic greens cost in your store; in our local Whole Foods, it's $5 for a small clamshell. I can pick that every day, sometimes twice a day, right outside my back door. This is truly a huge cost savings.
When I planned the garden, I read a lot about planting 'high value' foods. I didn't exactly get what that meant at the time, but I guess I get it now. I simply planted what I knew we would eat. (I didn't plant even one summer squash, because I won't eat them.) I'm already planning my fall/winter garden and it will continue to include greens, as well as peas, beets, and broccoli. I'd also like to plant cover crops in the beds I will not be using. I will probably plant red clover so that the bees can get some advantage from it, on warm sunny winter days.
The bees are also quite happy, at last building one bar of just honey, instead of brood mixed in with honey. This means there might be surplus. We'll have to see what their supplies are, come fall. Right now they are heavily foraging the two Chinese Tallow trees on our street, for both pollen and nectar, and an agave blooming around the corner, for serious quantities of nectar. When those dry up, I'm not sure what they'll eat.
Since I notice the bees drowning in both the local pool and my various buckets/barrels that I have placed around my downspouts and water spouts, and they can't seem to find the water in the fountain (perfectly safe) or in the small dish I left near the hive, I made yet another bee watering station, which I hope butterflies might use as well. This is a piece of crockery that we inherited from the Boegel side of the family, which we weren't using, and some beach stones as well as some old marbles and tumbled crystals I found in Adam's room.
I put it in an entirely different place in the garden, hoping that the bees would find it. We'll see.
I walk around the garden both morning and night, pulling stray weeds and harvesting ripe produce. I notice that we are close to harvesting other things, like basil and peppers.
It seems I have failed to produce any bush beans this year, but the pole beans are doing great. I'm not sure whether to pull the bush beans out, or just hope a miracle happens.
We've got beautiful things blooming in the flower garden too, sunflowers and Russian Sage.
The weeds are honestly hardly a bother, and with all the organic matter and compost we laid down, easy to pull up. Some weeds end up being wonderful volunteer plants, such as the wild strawberry we have growing under our oak tree. I tend to let weeds go for a little while, just in case they turn out to be something good.
No mushrooms sprouting from logs yet, but you can bet I'll post the minute that happens.
There is an abundance of fruit, so while much of it gets eaten fresh daily, more of it gets peeled, cut up, and frozen in small batches.
I eat greens daily and Tom and Adam almost daily, so the greens are welcome. I don't know what good organic greens cost in your store; in our local Whole Foods, it's $5 for a small clamshell. I can pick that every day, sometimes twice a day, right outside my back door. This is truly a huge cost savings.
When I planned the garden, I read a lot about planting 'high value' foods. I didn't exactly get what that meant at the time, but I guess I get it now. I simply planted what I knew we would eat. (I didn't plant even one summer squash, because I won't eat them.) I'm already planning my fall/winter garden and it will continue to include greens, as well as peas, beets, and broccoli. I'd also like to plant cover crops in the beds I will not be using. I will probably plant red clover so that the bees can get some advantage from it, on warm sunny winter days.
The bees are also quite happy, at last building one bar of just honey, instead of brood mixed in with honey. This means there might be surplus. We'll have to see what their supplies are, come fall. Right now they are heavily foraging the two Chinese Tallow trees on our street, for both pollen and nectar, and an agave blooming around the corner, for serious quantities of nectar. When those dry up, I'm not sure what they'll eat.
Since I notice the bees drowning in both the local pool and my various buckets/barrels that I have placed around my downspouts and water spouts, and they can't seem to find the water in the fountain (perfectly safe) or in the small dish I left near the hive, I made yet another bee watering station, which I hope butterflies might use as well. This is a piece of crockery that we inherited from the Boegel side of the family, which we weren't using, and some beach stones as well as some old marbles and tumbled crystals I found in Adam's room.
I put it in an entirely different place in the garden, hoping that the bees would find it. We'll see.
I walk around the garden both morning and night, pulling stray weeds and harvesting ripe produce. I notice that we are close to harvesting other things, like basil and peppers.
It seems I have failed to produce any bush beans this year, but the pole beans are doing great. I'm not sure whether to pull the bush beans out, or just hope a miracle happens.
We've got beautiful things blooming in the flower garden too, sunflowers and Russian Sage.
The weeds are honestly hardly a bother, and with all the organic matter and compost we laid down, easy to pull up. Some weeds end up being wonderful volunteer plants, such as the wild strawberry we have growing under our oak tree. I tend to let weeds go for a little while, just in case they turn out to be something good.
No mushrooms sprouting from logs yet, but you can bet I'll post the minute that happens.