Monday, June 22, 2009

Pictures of the Garden


These are the pictures from last week the plants are even bigger!


















The beans are over the trellis now!




These are my homemade trellis with bamboo and blind cording!













These are the 4 o'clock I thought had died. They were brown and shriveled up.













My grapes, silkies, and hydrangeas!

Sunday, June 21, 2009

Happy Father's Day!

It is Father's Day. Hubby got his gift yesterday. An air unit for our room as our a/c has died it's final death. Something has had to be fixed each summer. We have not slept a full night since it broke because of the heat. Luckily the first floor a/c works.

He is wanting to spend the day working on projects. Makes me wish everyday was Father's Day. Of course the story below of Alice is why alot of the work did not get accomplished on Saturday. I am having one dozy of an allergic reaction to something my face is swollen and my eyes are slits so I am home alone on Sunday morning and have time to blog.

I have taken pictures of our activities with the intent to blog. When I finally found the camera with batteries that worked I could not find the cord for the computer. I got frustrated and did not blog. I now regret that as there were things I wanted to remember about the garden.

We spent yesterday chicken hunting then chicken waiting. Alice our favorite hen (don't tell the others) escaped while hubby was working on the coop. Usually the chickens I have seen fly just fly to a low branch and sit there. Alice decided to challenge the dogs in their fence area then fly off. She came back after hubby and son had searched for several hours to the dogs side of the fence. We had put them in the house as one of our dogs had killed our first batch of chickens.
She flew about level with our third story all the way across our acre and then some. Hubby decided she would come home at dark to be with the flock. I fretted because of neighborhood dogs and possibly someone else catching her and keeping her (not out of meanness just thinking they were doing good). Alice did come home.

Hive news! We are down to four hives from 12. Lessons learned never buy 2 pound packages do not buy too early in the season and research what type of queen bee you are getting sold. Also all because someone has been keeping bees for 40 plus years does not mean they are the best source. It is a shame as my husband loves his bees and it was tough to spend the money we did on the bee packages this year. We were hoping to just break even on those hives this year.
One hive however is a beautiful golden yellow. We are not getting much honey as the nectar flow was late.

Garden update- Everything is still alive. Some plants I thought died- didn't. I had decided to wait to and see as I was not ready to plant something else in their spots. The plants came back to life. One of the tomato plants is only about a foot high but it has blooms on it. Pretty good for a dead plant. I thought I had killed the four o'clocks and cloeme but they are back greener and blooming. I have been able to pick a few wax beans but there are plenty we are waiting on to ripen. The tomatoes, cucumbers, beans, and all the eggplants have blossoms! The cantaloupe and watermelon are growing from seed. The lettuce is about done. The spinach was pulled up and the broccoli never developed the heat came too early for our planting. In talking to gardeners around here most planted the broccoli, lettuce, peas, and spinach in Feb. That is another lesson learned. I am losing the war on slugs. My beer traps did not work-although a gardener at the hardware store told me they drink it and go off to die. I thought they would be in the trap. We will have to keep trying this method as I can not locate Sluggo (iron phosphate) an organic way to get rid of them except online. Someone said they learned in a class of organics to mix molasses and water and spread that down. It may get rid of the snails but I picture my bees moving into the garden in mass or swarming there which would not be good. I can only handle a few at a time in the garden. The raspberries are ripening I think we have very happy squirrels between the the strawberries and raspberries. I know I could place netting over them but the yield is so small this year I may wait til next. I made a trellis out of bamboo and string I am happy with. My hubby keeps telling me ways to improve it. It is getting the job done and is finished so I am happy with it. I think next year we will have his and her gardens. That way he can plant when and what he wants and I can plant mine. We like the same things but he is telling me plant more of this or do this. I want to do it my way and learn from my mistakes. He can do it his way and learn from his mistakes.

Hopefully soon I have all the parts of the camera together in the same place and can post pictures.

Followers

Search This Blog