Re-re-planting beans

It's early in the season here and I have had to replant the beans twice now. The first was my fault for trying to cheat a little and get them in the ground before tax day. The second was a frost that fell a week after our typical last frost. It was just enough to nip the tender bean sprouts and a pepper plant and a few basil plants. The odd thing about the basil is that of the 9 I planted, four succumbed to frost, but the others are fine. And only one tomato plant suffered any damage and  it was minor.
 So today I pulled out the frosted sprouts and put more bean seeds in the ground. I have one tomato fruited. It is a Mortgage Lifter.
 The strawberries are producing about a pint a day now. We've had them on pancakes and ice cream and just right out of a bowl with some sugar sprinkled on.

The roses are blooming throughout the property. I have a few David Austin Roses, I think the top one is Golden Celebration. I also have another yellow Austin called Charlotte and a yellow Knock Out rose. 

This is an antique rose called Marie Pavie.  It is a semi double rose with a light scent that blooms all summer long (when the Japanese beetles don't eat the blooms). It is very nearly thornless and is easy to care for.

This is my climbing New Dawn rose growing up a Crape Myrtle. By growing it this way, my 'tree' gets three blooms each year. The New Dawn will bloom in spring and again in late summer and of course the Crape Myrtle will bloom in summer.

This is the Oakleaf Hydrangea, just starting to bloom, and some pink Knock Out roses in the foreground.

The first of the peonies has started to bloom as well. 

Broccoli harvest

It's been unusually cold and wet today, so there is not much happening as far as garden work getting done. I planted most of our annuals yesterday. We put in several varieties of zinnia in the front bed and sprinkled them in the street garden as well. The side garden got some vincas and pink torenias. The pool bed got blue torenias and white zinnias.

 I also had to replace a hosta that was in a pot under the back deck patio. For some reason the dogs tore every leaf of the plant. I suspect a lizard was hiding in the foliage and my hosta came out on the short end of that. I transplanted it out into the garden, in a nice shady spot and gave it a dose of high nitrogen fertilizer to try to stimulate some new growth. I dug up another hosta that was in a spot with too much sun (I had a tree die and removed it) so I potted it up and moved it under the patio cover.

 I have a head of Atlantic broccoli ready for harvest and we'll be having that with dinner tonight.

I see from my notes that I transplanted the broccoli into the garden on February 18th, on seeds which were sown indoors on January 21st, which would mean it was just over 60 days from transplant to first harvest. I see no signs of heads forming on any of the other plants though. 

 I also have numerous heads of lettuce which are forming heads. One of which is ready now.

 And the Golden Acre cabbage is starting to head up as well. I'll be making some coleslaw, fried cabbage and sauerkraut soon!

 It is also peak bloom time for most of the iris in my gardens. I have too many to list them all, but here are some pictures of some of my favorites.

This is a Siberian Iris Caesar's Brother

This one is an unnamed deep purple one that I got in a trade with another local gardener.

The white ones in the foreground are a reblooming iris named Immortality. If you keep it watered and feed through the summer, you will be rewarded with more blooms in the late summer.

Strawberry season is here!

Strawberry season came a little early this year for two reasons. First it has been warmer than usual this spring, and second because my brother gave me some starts of a variety called Ft Laramie, from his strawberry patch. These berries are ripening before my patches of Chandlers. They are good sized berries and if one uses patience and picks them when they are completely ripened, they are as sweet as can be. I don't think I'd replace the Chandlers with the Ft Laramies (because the Chandlers produce more and bigger berries) but because they are earlier, they make a nice addition to the strawberry crop.
 Now if I could just keep the deer from browsing on the berry patches. I put hoops over the patches and deer netting over the hoops, but the deer still find a way to get their noses under the netting and browse on the foliage.

 Our neighbor has an new addition to his herd. Her pigmy pony had a foal. It is the cutest thing. That's the mother on the right and the foal on the left. 

This year's veggie garden planting list

From left to right, front to back, this is this year's garden:

Russian Cucs (pickles)
Early Burpless cucs  (slicing)
Honey Rock cantaloupe
Ambrosia cantaloupe
SnowMass honeydew
zucinni
Acorn squash
Butternut squash
Soyo cucs (B&Butter)
sweet potatoes
Clemson spineless okra

Next row:
carrots
beets
radish
simpsons lettuce
spinach
leaf lettuce mix
great lakes spinach
iceberg lettuce
golden acre cabbage
red danish cabbage
early sprouting broccoli
atlantic broccoli
kennebec potatoes
yukon gold potatoes

Next row:
red kidney beans
great northern beans
provider bush beans
blue lake bush beans
edible soybeans
snap peas
alaska peas
early frosty peas
blue lake pole beans

Next row:
pineapple tomatillo
Egg plant
basil
ancho pepper
serano pepper
anaheim pepper
jalapeno pepper
california wonder pepper
marconi pepper
Celebrity tomato
Amish Paste tomato
Mortgage lifter tomato
Early Girl tomato
Dixie Golden Giant tomato
German Johnson tomato
Better Boy tomato
Black from Tula tomato

I also planted a block of silver queen corn and have a bed of Chandler strawberries, and a bed of Ft Laramie strawberries, a bed of Martha Washington asparagus, a large bed of garlic, a peach tree, two apple trees, six blueberry bushes and some Italian oregano.

Today's blooms

Midnight blue salvia in front of Siberian Iris 'Caesars Brother'.

Jackmanii Clematis.

My peach tree, and it's peaches.

A Mojave Firethorne.

A climbing Zepherine Draughn rose and a faded clematis Nelly Moser .

 

In the forefront is a Carolina Moonlight Baptisia and in the background is an Amethyst falls wisteria ( a less invasive type wisteria). Off to the right is some columbine.

This is the Mock Orange.

This is a Diablo Nine Bark with some pink abelias serving a socks.

This is a french weigelia that I grew from a cutting that I brought with us from our last house. In five years is has grown to about 6' wide by 5' tall.

Tomato planting day

Yesterday was tomato (and pepper) planting day here. I got out in the garden early and mowed the grass/weeds in the garden and got started by stretching my first level of sting on my posts (which I had beaten into the ground a couple weeks ago). Then it was on hands and knees to start planting all 72 tomato plants. This year I am growing Black from Tula, Early Girl, German Johnson, Better Boy, Dixie Golden Giant, Celebrity and Mortgage Lifter.
 I have a somewhat simple method for planting my tomatoes. First I brush back the mulch, then I place about a half cup of Gardentone (from Espoma) on the spot where I dig the hole. I mix the fertilizer in with the soil as I remove it from the hole. I dig deep enough to plant the entire rootball a few inches below the soil line. Then I add a handful of worm castings to the bottom of the whole ( I feed my worms all sorts of things and include crushed egg shells for the calcium it gives to both the worms and my tomatoes) and put the plant in on top of the castings and then backfill the hole. After each tray gets planted I stop and give myself a break from being on all fours and water the transplants in.

 I started at 8:30am and finished at around 2:00pm and here are the results.

 Other than planting sweet potatoes and watermelons, I think I have everything in the garden planted. The beans I planted a couple weeks ago sprouted, and some of them got nipped by the late frost. I pulled those out and gave them to the chickens, and popped some new seeds in the empty holes.

 The garlic bed is growing well, and I should have a good crop this year.
The potatoes got a little damage from the frost, but the lettuce came through unscathed. And the Early Sprouting broccoli is starting to form heads.

Threat of Frost

Each and every year I fight the urge to plant the summer garden early. Our average last frost date falls roughly around tax day, April 15th, here in the Charlotte area. Every year we have lots of warm weather prior to this date and the urge to get out into the garden can be overwhelming. This year has been even more so, as we have had record high temps this spring. Everything has been blooming two to three weeks ahead of the normal time.
 I got out last weekend and planted some bean seeds. I am growing Blue Lake pole beans, Blue Lake bush beans, Provider bush beans, dark red kidney beans, Northern White beans and edible soybeans this year. I figured if we had a killing frost, I had enough bean seeds to start over. They have sprouted and I doubt wether I will bother covering them tomorrow night. The overnight temp is forecasted at 36.
 I also transplanted some cucumber, melon and squash plants. My thinking here is that I need to keep them covered to keep the bugs off them for a few weeks so they will be OK if we get a frost.
 My tomato plants will be going in the ground this weekend, and the pepper plants next week, well after the danger of frost is past.

A few more spring pictures.

These first four pictures are of my two carolina silver bells trees. I bought three of these 6 years ago (one year before I moved into our current house) and raised them from little twigs which were not even as big as a #2 pencil. Their bell like blooms are a lot prettier than my photographic skills indicate. One is planted with a lace cap hydrangea, a golden honeysuckle shrub, 

Catching a bee swarm

It's been a busy couple of days around here. We have a black snake that has made itself at home around here. On Friday I found it in the hen house with an egg in its mouth. It let go of the egg when I grabbed it by the tail and took it to the far end of the property. I like black snakes for the most part, they take care of any rodent problems and generally don't bother much. But if I find it back in the hen house, I'll make short work of it.

 Then this afternoon I found it out in the garden. If you look closely you'll see there are two black pipes there in the photo, one is actually the black snake. It looked like it was trying to molt so I just let it be. When I came back out in the early evening it was still in the exact same spot and I found that odd. So, I decided to take a closer look. It turns out the snake had managed to get tangled up in the deer netting as was quite stuck! I got out my pocket knife and cut it free (without so much as a thank you!).

But on to the more exciting stuff. On Friday evening we had a swarm of bees in the side yard…..again!. This is the second time in two years bees have shown up in the exact same spot.

It really is an amazing, and I imagine for those not familiar with bees frightening, experience to see a swarm of bees. It seems as if the sky is full of them. They are everywhere and make an almost cyclone like pattern flying in circles. 

 As you can see from the picture they settled on my electric meter. The last time they swarmed there, they were able to get behind the meter and into the space between my basement ceiling and the family room floor. I sealed up around the meter box with clear caulk so they could not get in this time. It was only two weeks ago that I had finally gotten around to fixing the holes I made in the wall/ceiling to get them out.

 I thought I'd try to capture this swarm and get a working hive from it.  I went out back and set up a hive box with some empty frames and a couple with some honey in them. I closed off the entrance to the hive as I didn't want them to get out for at least 24 hours. 

I got my bee suit on and went downstairs and mixed up a batch of sugar water and put it in a hose end sprayer. I sprayed the swarm with this (it prevents them from flying) and scraped them into an empty drywall bucket. I then took the bucket out to the hive box and dumped them in and quickly closed them up. I opened the entrance the next evening and I've been feeding them with a mixture of 1:1 sugar water. This weekend I'll open it up and see if I got the queen with the swarm and if she is laying fresh brood. If not, I may have to buy a queen for them.