Hi All,
Oh the bees. It looks like the South Hive may be going through a Queen transition. This morning I headed in to perform a mite test on them and found a Queen cell that had been capped, at least 6 other Queen cells with larvae in them and 4 other Queen cells that were empty. The mite test did not happen but that was my fault for not remembering to pack a piece of equipment for it. The week before, while checking in on this hive, we had found 2 Queens. The first one was moving rather slow and the second one we did not realize we had until after the mite test we had performed. You See, thinking we had found the slow moving Queen we moved on with what was needing to be done in the hive, which was a mite test. We found the second Queen when we dumped her back in the hive. I think the slow moving Queen was on her way out and the Queen we dumped back into the hive was probably killed due to the test. Sigh. They are on it though and we should have a new Queen laying eggs within the next few weeks.
In the rest of the garden last week;
SCIF was out and rocked it in the garden. They showed up and got right to work on getting 2 beds ready for Winter planting. Two of our longest beds, AB34 & N09, was gleaned, weeded, forked, fertilized, composted and then they did the shake and bake on it! It takes along time to get both those beds prepped so we were not able to plant it with them but in the future over 600 plants will be going in to provide produce to our local food pantries over the Winter!
Laura’s & Leif’s Crew were out and helped Kelly to start gleaning out bed K05. Kelly’s plan is to have the classes complete the entire bed by themselves to let them see how it goes from pulling the plants out to producing a couple of months later! Kaleidoscope lent a hand in finishing the gleaning with their first are out and the second crew added in the fertilizer! Friday’s crew helped get the compost on the bed to protect the fertilizer and the classes will finish up with the shake & bake and the planting of the bed!
We had Boy Scout Troop #888 out to help get another 2 longer beds ready for planting. The Scouts got to gleaning & weeding beds K06 & AB32 and then prepping them up. Mind you this week has been a hot one and they were getting this done during one of the hottest days this week! They were able to get it done!
Another 3 beds on top of the 4 already mentioned were also prepped for Winter; H02, M03 & M04. All our shallots are now planted into two bed, L04 & M01. There were 3 moms who sat together and took garlic cloves apart so we can start planting garlic too! Beets were planted as well as cabbage and peas. Hopefully the peas have a better Winter. When we planted them we gave them a really good watering so fingers crossed!
All the gleaning and weeding in the beds wasn’t the only places getting weeded out. Lance took out the trusty vinegar spray and continued getting the bindweed under a bit of control-it is looking SO MUCH BETTER in the garden, thank you Lance! The Orchard has been getting weeded as well since it provides the most shade during the hottest part of the day on Friday afternoons, thank you DW!
Looks like the Berry Patch received some help and CL cleaned up the grape plants along the Eastern fence line, over by the Worm Bin. The ground squirrels won out in eating up all the grapes this year so hopefully next season we will be able to send some in to the pantries!
Irrometer work continued, PB organized the box shed, batches of gypsum fertilizer were mixed up, leaks were fixed, tomato cages were stacked and labels were cleaned. One of our beds produced wonderful watermelons! Each year we plant watermelons in hopes that we get a few to share with our pantries but we have yet to find a variety that produces well in the garden…we may finally have found one but we do not have the name for it! Lance thinks it may be a Bozeman so we are going with that for now! We shared one with the crew on Wednesday and it was delicious! We are saving back the seeds from that watermelon and will plant it in the garden next year!
You guys, it was a long hot week but each of you still came out and contributed what you could in the garden to continue making sure our neighbors receive fresh produce. Over 500# of produce went to our local food pantries and filled many bellies!
Thank you all for what you do!
Take care
Lori