What a week! We’ve been wrapping up the fall crop plantings with 4 beds of beets, 2 more beds of beans, 2 beds of carrots, another bed of kohlrabi, a bed of chard and spinach, more lettuce, and in garden 1 another bed of cukes and one of squash. We still have bins of kale, broccoli, and cabbage to go in. We like to wait until the possibility of rain since those last bins are dry root planted.
The first planting of corn has plumped up. As some of the ears enlarge and open up, it leaves an opening for bugs…picnic bugs. They get in and start eating from the top down. We just shuck the husks and break off the icky top. Corn is still yummo.
We’re getting some smaller tomatoes. The larger are taking longer but with continued good weather we hoping to really start picking. We’ll keep adding to the shelves by the cooler door if you don’t want to head out to the back of garden 4. There are some in the far row of garden 1 for easier picking.
Melons of varying types are rounding up…and we wait anxiously. The hard or winter squashes continue to grow. They will be ready into September. More potatoes are still in the ground, and the rather poor crop of garlic is hanging in the barn. They didn’t like the cold wet ground particularly well. Some folks lost their entire crop.
The guineas are working well. They leave their house in the morning when we open their door. Much of their time is spent in the garden. Later in the day they wander back and often “work” in and near the hoop house.
There are some blackberries (the tall plants held up by wire in G1) and still a few blueberries in G1 and it’s possible to find a few raspberries if you wander through the plants. Eat and enjoy! Or take a few.
We had a fun day with the bees last week. Bill, in his never-ending bug kill, found a swarm laying on the ground in the raspberries. It looked like a writhing log. Luckily we had one last super box with frames in it. So, it was moved into the garden and the log was shook into the box. We added a makeshift top and bottom giving us time to find and paint up new parts for a new hive. We’re sure this was a swarm from one of our original hives that left after they had over populated their domain. The old queen takes off with a majority of her harem looking for a new home so we provided one. Then we moved it to the back of the pack shed so as to not confuse the 2 old hives. Good news. Now we have 3 hives and lots of activity in all three. And oh, yes, the swarm doesn’t leave until they make a new queen to remain behind. Pretty smart on their part.