summer update

it's been a while since i have put anything up here and a friend recently asked my what was going on in my garden-she actually told me that i hadn't put any pictures up in a while...well dar, these are for you!

we have an unsightly bunch of rogue tomatoes growing in our front yard.  they sprouted from the compost we put down.  we practice cold composting-we do not make an effort to get the piles hot because it can kill off the beneficial enzymes that the plants need.  my husband the wise guy decided to let them grow and see how long it took me to notice.  needless to say, i wasn't very observant and they got pretty big.  it will be interesting to see if they actually bear fruit.

 market more 76 grows nice straight cukes

 butterstick yellow squash

 cowhorn peppers

 my cukes grow on a sheet of plastic lattice work bent to form a tent and is held in place with metal stakes.  underneath, the soil remains cool and i now have lettuce growing-a major miracle in the south!!!

 asian long beans

 various shades of swiss chard

 the current belle of the ball is our little fig tree 

 it is covered in figs and they are beginning to ripen

 all that remains of our bees.  we were devastated by the loss-our colony split and the majority swarmed with the queen.  the remaining bees were overtaken by small hive beetles, wax moths and invading bees that robbed the honey.  we decided to wait until next spring and start all over and we may start two colonies.

 we do what we can to attract birds too.  here are some cardinals and a female goldfinch having some lunch.

 the yard is in bloom-native hibiscus

 foxgloves

 balloon flower

 rudbeckia-black eyed susans

 butter and eggs also known as toad flax is a native alaskan wildflower and it can be invasive

 echinacea-coneflower, magnus

 echinacea-conneflower milk shake

 native pink rose mallow

 sundrops-evening primrose

 rose mallow-white

 joe pye weed

 since we do make an effort to attract critters-we have added milkweed to feed monarchs.  we also have butterfly weed-annual and perennial varieties and bronze fennel and parsley for other butterflies

 honey bees and bumble bees love anise hyssops

native monarda, a favorite of bumble bees

stay cool in the garden!  come back and visit to see what we have growing in the garden.

signs of spring

peonies are one of the early signs of spring.  the crowns send out new growth and if you are lucky like us, the seed heads you left on the plants last year drop seeds all over and new plants sprout in your lawn.

darry gathered a bunch of them and relocated them to a different area of the yard and in a year or two, we may have flowers.

 grape hyacinth

 peach blossoms

 pink hellebores

 we have filled all of the garden beds with plants or seeds and now we wait for the chance to harvest the vegetables.  the large plants are those that overwintered.  from the bottom-walking onions, left-kale, top right-red cabbage and center right-red russian kale.

 on the top is the kale which was grown from seeds given to us by the folks at long hungry creek farm which is the farm run by jeff poppen, the barefoot farmer.  the bottom is a close up of the red russian kale.

 red cabbage

and one of our favorites, lilacs.

welcome spring!

we had a chance to get into the hive, it was also time to medicate the bees. it is important to treat them and stay ahead of the varroa mites and tracheal mites. varroa mites are visible to the eye and happily, we didn't see any-not a single one! however, tracheal mites live in the tracheas of the bees and are not visible so you have to watch behavior to find signs of them. we are pretty sure that they are not having issues with them either. we saw lots of stored honey and both capped and uncapped brood! we will be putting on the honey supers soon and come summer, we will have honey for our use.