todays harvest

fast and furious with the zucs!

seems like not a good year for cucumbers

Today I harvested a very nice cucumber. a pretty Corinto cuke. But Sadly, i don't think it'll be a great year (or even a good year) for cukes. Not sure what's going on but the leaves on most of my vines are shriveling and vines are dying. I have about 20 plants, 6 or 8 varieties, and they're in the back of three different beds, growing up the fence. A virus maybe? Some leaves have a lot of beetle-like damage, but I'm not seeing any beetles. I did see some grubs and wimpy roots when I pulled up one plant. I don't know. Last year, cucumbers were my over-and-above crop. I will look up when the farmers market is open and buy my picking cukes. Some other crop will have to excel this year.

today's harvest

I pulled 25 heads of garlic and cut most of my broccoli today. The upper photo is what I collected at my community plot. The lower one from, my home garden (and the chicken coop). I haven't been to my community plot in a while I guess as those zucchini are enormous! Fortunately another gardener was glad to take three of them.

no queen!

I checked my hives today. 3 weeks since I last looked inside. I didn't do a complete check because its 95F and 12 noon. I think not the best time to check. (more ... )

today's harvest

me first bee sting

I got stung by one of my bees last Saturday. Ouch. It really hurt. It made me hurry to finish the hive inspection. (more ...)

today's garden work

- Weeding! of course
- Removed suckers and added ties to tomatoes
- Set up the last of the tomato support strings
- Transplanted escarole and broccoli seedlings

honey bee flowers

Today my sister helped me fill and plant flowers in four big "honey bee pots" in my vegetable garden. These fit at the end of the rows between my raised beds. I want to attract my bees to my garden to pollinate the vegetables. So I selected flowers at the nursery that had honey bees on them.

I enjoyed walking through the nursery and noticing how different flowers attract different bees. The honey bee pots I ended up with are not a mix of flowers I would have selected otherwise. Sort of an unusual combination.

An amazing plant is Campanula takesimana "Elizabeth". It is both beautiful and was just covered with honey bees. I've never seen this plant before. I bought two of these. Also a large-flowered upright chamomile, a couple deep blue Veronicas, snapdragons and a small-flowered orange zinnia.

nothing like big pretty tomato plants

I hardly dared hope for great tomatoes as I planted my tomato seeds this spring. Last year, all my tomato plants had leaves that shriveled up, plants that grew spindly, and very few if any fruits on the plants. (Here's a link to the sad posts.)

But  - Yeah!! - I have beautiful tomato plants so far. Big uncurled leaves. I planted in beds that did not have the compost that seem to cause the problem last year.

garden work

My sister helped me in my garden today! What fun. In two hours we got so much done. We transplanted lots of little pots of seedlings that I grew from seed, petunias, dianthus. Also some purchased thymes and basils. Then we attended to my tomato plants: we removed suckers and lower leaves, and added support strings. We weeded several beds sparing a rogue tomato plant, as well as scattered cilantro and dill plants. Thanks Sis!

again, I think my bees are going to swarm soon

A couple weeks ago, I was very worried because I thought my bees were about to swarm and had foul brood. After lots of advice, it turns out (more ....)

where do my bees go?

I've been watching which flowers my bees are on. (more ...)

new compost bins

About a month ago, my husband made me a pair of new compost bins. They are beautiful!! A big improvement over the 5 little round plastic ones I had before.

The photos show how he made them. Slats are spaced 1 inch. The front panel sits in a slot at the bottom and it then held in place with a removable screw and bolt. In the spring, I will remove the front panels to turn and use the compost. A really nice feature is that he made a step on the side of each so I can get up inside easier if I need to retrieve something or compress the compost.

a new blog for my bees

I've started a separate blog just for my bees. It's "kathy's bee's". I'll post just titles here with a link.

bee record keeping

I'm trying to figure out the best way to keep a record of my bees. First, I had Siri transcribe my observations, then just transferred that to a word document. But Siri doesn't understand me very well and see certainly doesn't know words like "brood box". (more...)