Garden Update - April 2010

[hsifeng]

Well, lots has been going on in the garden plot - but I have been a bit preoccupied with our cat Gabe and his health of late, so updates to my blog have been scarce. (BTW – many thanks to everyone who has posted their heartfelt wishes for his well being in response to the few posts I have managed since his surgery.)

But as they say, life does go on, most especially when you are dealing with a spring garden plot!

Since my garden report on April 12^th , saoirse42  and I have had quite a number of our seedlings come up and have managed to plant about a 1/3^rd of them thus far (with plans to put the rest in the ground next weekend). The tomato plot is doing well, although our Black Prince plant is looking a little ‘wilty’ around the edges, and the artichokes, radishes, green onions, and transplanted melons and potatoes (now in their new/used tire home ) are holding their own.

The big experiment this past week was the planning of our Three Sisters crops; yellow corn + a variety of peas and squash. We are using a variation on this method, but our rows are rather curvy rather than straight as they follow the edge of the lawn at the back of the yard. There will be more corn and pea starts going in the ground this weekend, as we need to make a big enough patch to ensure proper pollination. I am excited by the prospect of fresh corn, and the idea that we are using ‘ancient technology’ in our garden this year.

This weekend will see the rest of the beans, peas, squash, cucumbers, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, eggplant and other seedlings going into the ground in the garden patch. We will be ‘starting’ more seed (mostly the corn mentioned above) and working to get some more of the overhead branches cleared from the garden spots to ensure more sunshine on the plants.

I am hoping to hit a local stable to see if I can get some ‘raw ingredients’ for the garden next year, and possibly some yard sales to get pots for starting some flowers in. Because, bees like flowers…

The husband and I have been considering the addition of a bee hive to our garden menagerie. This comes after almost having to get a wandering hive exterminated when they chose the siding for our home as their new nesting site.
 
Thankfully a cold snap and the resulting rains demonstrated to the little guys that the west facing side of our house (where we get the most weather exposure) wasn’t the best spot. Before we called the Orkin man, we had already had a ‘hive saver’ come out to check the swarm and see if we could save them. He had confirmed that they were non-Africanized honey bees, but stated that they were not yet far enough established for him to be able to transplant successfully. Any attempt to move them would have lead to hive-collapse, so we were stuck until the weather helped us out.
 
With an MA in Apiology, our bee contact acts as a local bee reservoir for bee keepers, seeking out displaced wild hives and establishing them in wooden hive boxes as reserve stock in case the local keepers run into issues with ‘hive death’. In order to do this, he leases his hives (for free) to folks who have locations that are remote from most other bee keeping set ups.

So now we are looking into the legal issues, like permits, to keeping bees in our backyard. I would *love* to have a hive back there, for both my own garden and to help ensure a safe stock of bees (and HONEY) for the future.

With that in mind, I need to keep this site bookmarked (since there is no reason that I can’t enjoy the same flowers they do in my yard). It’s funny, I guess I am a ‘gardener’ now – but I never really thought about growing flowers until I started thinking about bee keeping. Now that I have started considering growing blossoms, I am trying to make sure I can still eat the final product! *chuckle*