Yes, broccoli in January. I meant to post this picture a week ago right after I took it. There are more plants maturing as well. As usual our garden does not follow any conventional schedule. We have not harvested it yet. Hope for a bigger head before we eat it.
We started bee school this past Tuesday and ordered 2 colonies on Wednesday. We have decided to go with Warré hives. We’re taking a “natural beekeeping” workshop on Jan 28. We intend to do as little actual Keeping as possible. We just want to provide a good place for them to do their own thing, making sure that they are healthy, have water and enough food to get through the winter so that they are ready to be pollinating fools come Spring.
I’ve been wanting to keep bees for ages. It’s an idea whose time has come 🙂 In my life, anyway.
I learned a thing at the beekeepers meeting on Thursday. Lavender is a deer deterrent. The speaker, the owner/operator of Sunshine Lavender Farm, put lavender around an orchard that had been decimated by deer the year before and they haven’t been in it since.
She said that they don’t like the strong taste and they don’t like to get the smell on themselves because it gives them away to predators. 2 ways to discourage them. Yay!!
Lavender can get really large. They staggered them about 8 feet apart.
Cool things I have learned about bees:
The work they do in the hive depends on their age. The adult bees forage, the young bees keep the hive clean and feed the babies.
The bees in the hive determine what the foragers bring back more of by what they unload the fastest.
Queens are stupider than their children.
I renewed our membership last night. I bumped it up from dual to Patron. The difference is $60. This gives me 2 additional tickets to all the special events and we get to go to a holiday party at the museum.
My parents like to come visit us to see the extras, so the additional tickets are easily used.
We haven’t ever gone to any of the films they show because it’s always stuff we could get from Netflix if we really want to see it. And it is a bit of a drive to see a rerun.
I like supporting the museum. As a taxpayer in the state, I feel that I own a piece of everything there. So, I have some pretty great stuff in my collection, including a couple of excellent Rodins, some Wyeths and Monets and an O’Keefe. We have one of Audubon’s books, too.
I realized yesterday that my parents will be visiting on the last weekend of the Rembrandt exhibit, and I got a reminder in the mail that my membership had lapsed. And it was payday so I was flush. 🙂 Synchronicity rocks.
I have known people who have said, “I just don’t think I would go often enough to be worth spending that much money.” I feel like I have spent the money to support the museum and the other stuff is bonus to use if I want to.
Trees:
Red Maple
Prunus family ( apples, pears, plums, peaches, cherry, etc.)
Crabapple
Redbud
Holly
Tulip poplar
Locust
Sourwood
Chaste tree
Shrubs:
Oregon grape
Flowering Quince
Trifoliate orange
Blueberry
Winter Honeysuckle
Abelia
Hydrangea
Butterfly bush
Caryopteris
Sumac
Perenniels:
Winter aconite
Lamium family (henbit, red)
Dead nettle
Blackberry
Raspberry
Joe Pye weed
Echinacea
Salvias
Asters
Goldenrod
Herbs:
Lavender
Rosemary
Chives, allium
Borage
Horehound
Oregano
Mints
Heal-All
Annuals:
Soybean
Cotton
Smartweed
Poppies
Cosmos
Cleome
Clovers
Buckwheat
Sunflowers
We have the bold ones.
The grand experiment with raised bed gardening continues. It’s been a while since I posted. The summer veggies were a mixed bag. We had plentiful tomatoes, okra and cantaloupe, but the rest was slim. Put in Fall crop, arugula, three kinds of kale, spinach, red romaine, broccoli, cabbage and others. As usual for us they have been slow to mature, so I built cold frames for all the beds to see how long we can grow over the winter.
This is the lettuce and kale bed and it is doing well.
This is the broccoli bed and shows what it looks like when covered. It’s hinged in the middle, which makes it easier to open and water and harvest. I had to brace the corners of the frames today. We had a bad windstorm Wednesday of last week and they had some damage. Still working on a system to anchor them better in higher winds.
Romaine and arugula in the salad tonight!
I am the Audience 