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.

tonite's dinner

i love it when i can walk out to the garden and pick something for dinner. the garden does not flourish during the heat of summer. we have much better luck in spring, fall and winter. tonight i walked out into the garden and picked some broccoli and shiitake. i cooked pasta and tossed it all together with a cheese sauce.

tonites veggies

a look at the rest of the plants in the garden

cabbage

and his little friend, parsley

kolrhabi

russian red kale

brussel sprouts, almost there!

broccoli

shiitake logs nestled under the broccoli and brussel sprouts

for my birthday, darry built me a hoop house for my raised bed garden. it is full of greens-both salad and cooking greens.

salad greens-arugula, salad cress, butter head, deer tongue and more awaits the next salad.

baby pack choi and japanese mustard-can you say stir fry?

things are surprising in the herb garden too-i still have basil! this is tiny purple basil

african blue basil in the front, valerian-back left and sweet fennel-back right

one of the true treats of fall-american persimmons. this little tree in our yard is chock full of fruit. today i gathered a small basket and after washing it, i will run it through the food mill and save the puree for a cake.

this week in our garden

the shiitake logs are sprouting!!! we have been eating them too!

another log in bloom

broccoli

kolrhabi-this is the first year that we have had them in the garden. both the bulb and the greens are tasty!

habaneros-more than we can handle!

brussel sprouts-they come out in the space where the leaf meets the stalk. hopefully we will have some for thanksgiving.

the latest, greatest garden in nashville + a bee update

things are a bit quiet in the bee yard. the girls are gearing up for winter and not much is going on.

and then we opened the lid and saw just why it is so quiet outside. the girls have been busy building comb all over the place!!!

a close up of the girls and their mess

and one of darry cleaning it...he is fully dressed this time, last time he was stung twice

darry set all of the comb he scraped off to the side to let the girls reclaim the honey. two days later, they had stripped that comb of every bit of honey-only the comb was left.

bees need to be treated preventively for things like mites. we placed some medication in the hive-it is mainly menthol and it smells like vapor rub. we will go back in to remove it in a week.

in the mean time, this is what is happening in the vegetable garden:

cabbage and kolrhabi, we've also got broccoli and brussels sprouts but i seem to have lost the photo...next time

a close up of the cabbage

tomatoes

kale from long hungry creek farm-home of the barefoot gardener, jeff poppen

peppers, lots of peppers

banana peppers-sweet of course

okay, i definitely had technical difficulties! i lost my photos of the serranos-hot peppers

eggplants

over in the raised tomato garden, things are sprouting. in the half at the bottom it is all salad greens. in the top half it is all asian greens like pak choi and japanese mustard.

see you soon, with all of the photos, i hope!

the latest news from the yard

i am glad to see the intense heat of summer dissipate but i am not thrilled by the upcoming cold weather. as much as i dislike the heat and humidity, i would rather sweat than shiver. this is what is going on in the yard:

our little fig tree is gearing up for its first ever crop of fruit. we have a dozen or two of figs and we hope to have a chance to try them-squirrels, take that as a warning

remember last year when darry went shiitake crazy? we had some rain recently and he discovered that his logs fruited!

the scourge of the tomato garden-horn worms!!! there is one that is covered in parasitic wasp eggs and he will soon die and in front of it is a young one. he didn't last long after the photo shoot-we squashed him before he could do any damage.

we found two of them and here is the second one waiting to die as well.

bee update, 8/8

today was a hot and sunny day and we entered the hive a little late in the afternoon. there were too many bees inside and they did not appreciate the interruptions! darry was stung twice as a result and more than once, i had them divebombing me-good thing i was covered with my bee suit and long pants! at today's beekeeper's meeting we asked an experienced beekeeper who is also the man who sold us our bees about some behavioral issues and he told us to add another box of frames-the girls are crowded! boy is he right on the money, just look for yourself:

the outside frames in the top box are full to the brim-no more room to build comb and store honey and pollen. we should have another box of frames tomorrow; we also ordered that while at the meeting today.

just look at all of those bees!

the view from the top down into the next box, crowded as can bee

darry looking at the frames, they were getting agitated and he was stung on the arms, twice

cleaning up the mess. the girls will build comb all over if you let them. darry scraped some off to keep it manageable.

all of the frames in the top box are full and capped, we really need to add more frames!