The Country Garden Showcase #41 Special Edition

Happy Monday!

It's been another crazy weekend... If you've read recent posts you know that we just started escrow on our dream homestead.  It's a fixer-upper on the Kaweah River with about 7 acres to farm and graze.  Things have been moving along so well, we cannot help but feel as if our heavenly father has been helping us.  

Well, Friday we called the local real estate agent that sold our current home to us, back in 1995.  She came by to look at the place at about 10am.  She came back with clients she thought "might" like our home just a few hours later, and by 5:30pm we were signing the contract for the sale.  It's SOLD!!!! Whew!  Thank you Linda Costelloe-Clough, you are the best agent EVER!

Things have been moving at the speed of light around here lately, and my head is swirling just trying to keep up.  I keep thinking I must be dreaming.  Things can't really be falling into place so perfectly like this, can they?  

Well, since we start escrow here on this place today and we will have to be out in 45 days... this will likely be my last chance to share pictures from my garden here because everything is staying.  The buyers liked everything, and even made the sale contingent on the coop, arbor, and three of our sweet laying hens.  Don't you just love that?  I did.  I am going to miss my greenhouse and raised garden beds, but we can build more later on.  I am so grateful to this nice couple.  I was really worried about  having to remove the raised garden beds and the coop if the buyer did not want them.

Here are a few pictures from my gardens from the last year or so...

Thank you for reading and for supporting me with your own blogs and ideas as I have taken my gardening and homesteading journey.  I look forward to sharing my next garden journey with you.

Okay, if you have a garden post you'd like to share... please get right to it!

The Country Garden Showcase- Week 16

This is a picture of some of my peach blooms yesterday afternoon...

 Can you see them underneath the snow? 

My main garden looks pretty sad too, though everything is doing well.

I have had lots of time to get caught up on my reading this week.  We've had snow, rain, and cold winds.  I didn't have an opportunity to get much done outside for my garden, but I did manage to get my second hive installed today and I re-queened my first hive with a Carniolan queen.  From what I have read, the Carniolans are much more winter hearty than the Italians I already have. Given the snowfall we keep getting... it can't hurt.

 That small plastic "cage" contains the queen.  It hangs inside the hive suspended for several days to protect this new queen.  She is new to the package bees.  It will take her some time to influence them via pheromones to accept her as their queen.  At the bottom of the small cage is a sugar candy insert that I uncapped.  Within a few days (hopefully not too soon) the attendant bees will eat through this candy plug and release her into the hive to get to work.  If all goes well, I will soon have an established Carniolan hive.

 My Carniolan package of bees.  This is a three pound package.  It is estimated to hold about 10,000 bees.  They all look very healthy.  Some got out before we took this picture as I removed the first of two queens from the box.

 I know it looks silly to have my jeans tucked into my socks, but it works better than rubber bands or duct taped ankles.  Behind me, the triangle yard that will soon be my hens playground when they're not free-ranging it in the yard by my side.  I may eventually need to move my bees though, we'll see...  I hope they can co-exist there.

 My new hive sits under the filtered light of a willow tree in the center of our property.  My hubby made me a ventilation super as an experiment.  I have been reading about folks eliminating most bacteria and fungus issues inside hives by improving ventilation and came across a picture of a hive with a homemade super that featured holes that can be kept open for increased ventilation or plugged by corks when needed.  Some are even insulated inside with strips of wool that may wick moisture from below.  We are going to try it.  I have also read that these passive ventilation boxes increase honey too.  It could be a win, win.  It's tough to see, but there are two corks in the front of this one for now.

 I am a new and overzealous beekeeper.  I failed to find my original queen during two thorough inspections, so I ordered the replacement.

Less than a week ago, there were no queen cells in my hive, and no new brood.  Everything flying around was young and new, but nothing cooking inside those cells... Today, to my surprise, three frames were FULL of new brood and there were five new Italian queen cells, so either my eyes are REALLY bad or she's there...

In desperation, I looked for her again to no avail then I decided that instead of adding the new queen, I would split the hive.  I gave half of the bees and new frames to the new Carniolan queen and half to the queen cells.  Maybe I'll get lucky and get three hives in the end... It's worth a shot.

I have been trying to detox the Italians because the home they came from was full of IPM chemical controls for mites.  They came to me from almond orchards in the valley.  I am pretty sure that they've been exposed to lots of toxins in those almond fields.

I am happy to report that one of my experiments seems to be working.  Not wanting to treat with chemicals if at all possible, I have been dusting them with powdered sugar every seven days to encourage them to groom and remove varroa mites.  The first time I did this, there were lots of dead mites under my screened pest management board.  I have been doing this for three weeks now and today I looked hard at the bees and could only see 3 mites among thousands of bees.   The numbers have dropped dramatically in the IPM board capture too, and I'll dust one more time before summer.  The Carniolans are my second IPM strategy.  They are very hygienic and groom themselves regularly.  That appears to be a great start for varroa control, so far. Fingers crossed.

What have you been up to in your garden this week???

The Country Garden Showcase- Week 15

Garden Magic

This is the garden's magic, 

That through the sunny hours 

The gardener who tends it, Himself outgrows his flowers. 

He grows by gift of patience, 

Since he who sows must know 

That only in the Lord's good time, Does any seedling grow.

He learns from buds unfolding, 

From each tight leaf unfurled, 

That his own heart, expanding, Is one with all the world.

He bares his head to sunshine, 

His bending back a sign

Of grace, and ev'ry shower becomes, His sacramental wine.

And when at last his labors 

Bring forth the very stuff 

And substance of all beauty, This is reward enough.

-Marie Nettleton Carroll

I hope this week finds you happy, healthy, and excited about your garden.  It's been a mixed bag of goods around here this week.  Strong sustained winds in excess of 45 mph for a few days, some wonderful sunshine,  and 20 degree nights.  My plastic covered mini hoophouses have been hanging in there, so far.

My greenhouse is struggling to stay warm enough for my tender tomatoes and cucumbers at night.  Even with a space heater.  Until we get time to go down the mountain and get new wooden furrow strips that go under the lexan, we'll have lots of gaps for wind and cold to enter and for heat to escape from.

Today, I plugged some of these spaces with quilt batting.  I know it's a temporary fix, but I just need a few more weeks before I can safely plant tomatoes and cucurbits in the ground.  I am crossing my fingers, but I hope it works for now.

Can you see our new pet in the picture above?  It's a plastic owl.  We got him today, an act of desperation.  I have been getting spoiled planting everything under cold frames and row covers for a year now.  

I forgot about little birds and how they like to eat baby plants.  

Yesterday I planted about 300 seedlings.  Cold hearty ones like onions, radishes, beets, and pak choy only to find that this morning the little birds I have been feeding with my bird feeders were now feasting on the leaves of my baby plants...   

We spent Easter morning hastily tying mylar tape to anything that would hold it safely.  

When that didn't scare them, we went and got some garden yard art that waves in the wind, and eventually the owl...  He scared them off for less than an hour.  

My last effort was to cover everything in straw mulch for the night.  I am going to make a scare crow tomorrow, but I have a sinking suspicion that I will lose this batch of tender plants to birds before the week is out.  Oh well, you win some and you lose some.  I'll plant older plants that can sustain some bird damage next time.  

 I pruned my new pecan and almond trees.  My wonderful husband made me a few spacer bars to spread branches and get a nice open canopy on this little almond

 The garlic, celery, and onions are hanging in there.  They did get a bit too cold the other night.

  My new berry garden is coming along well.  This is a raspberry cane.

 I finally figured out where all that bright magenta pollen is coming from on my bees legs...  my crabapple tree.

My little ladies have been hard at work bringing in lots of pollen as often as weather permits.  They sure are alot hardier than I expected.  They work from dawn until dusk when it's not raining or too windy.  I enjoy watching them fly in with full pollen sacks.  

Notice the bigger, darker bees in the picture above, they're the male drone bees.  Did you know that drones die after mating?  Really.  Their male reproductive organ and some of the abdominal wall are ripped off during mating, killing them.  They do not have stingers either.  Stingers are ovipositors or modified egg laying instruments, the males do not have them, therefore they cannot sting you.  

April Garden Planning Checklist...

Plant seedlings (in progress)

start warm season vegetable seeds indoors (in progress)

plant flowers (DONE)

plant sweet pea fencelines (DONE)

plant Scarlet Red Runner Beans (DONE)

natural varroa mite control- sprinkle bees lightly with powdered sugar on frames weekly (in progress)

prepare new beds and terrace (DONE)

make garden plans for new plantings (DONE)

start herb seeds indoors (in progress)

start bee friendly flower seeds indoors (in progress)

build chicken coop for new chicks... (hubby made plans, will be starting soon)

keep adding to compost pile (in progress)

What have YOU been working on in YOUR garden this week???