Sunday, April 25, 2010

Update on our Outdoor Projects

BEEKEEPING:

We’ve got four beehives now!  One day when Mike and I were both at work the beekeeper left a message on my cell phone that he was going to go to our house to “check on the bees.”

Well, when we got home we found he had not only checked on the bees in the first two hives, but left two more hives!   We now have two white, one yellow, and one blue beehive, as you can see in the below photo: 20100423_0093 Here’s a closer look at the two newest hives:20100423_0081 In this next photo are the original two hives, now with an addition.  The box on top, with the lid partially open, we believe is what’s called a “super.”  It is provided to give the bees more room to store their honey.20100423_0077 At the moment we have lots of flowers in our garden for the bees.  Here is a Pride of Madera plant in the cat’s garden – a honeybee favorite!  We dug this up, as a tiny plant, on Angel Island a few years ago.  Now it’s attempting to take over the entire garden!20100423_0094California poppies in our front yard:20100409_0052GARDENING:

Our Square Foot gardens are doing great!  In the back you can see the corn, peas and beans coming up.  On the right side second square from the back are turnips.  Other squares in that row are broccoli or peppers.  The front two rows are radishes, spinach, brussels sprouts, and lettuces.20100423_0067Spinach:20100423_0074A radish, peeking through, ready to eat!20100423_0070  Young swiss chard:20100423_0073 A variety of lettuces, with kale behind them:20100423_0072It’s going to be a great salad season!

How’s YOUR garden doing?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Your garden looks beautiful, Debbie. I am very envious, but then I am also a lousy gardener. Maybe you can teach me a few things the next time you come to visit. I might be able to handle a small area. Enjoy those veggies! Love, Mom

Rodrigo805 said...

the bee hives are really cool. It was interesting to hear about how fennel honey is the best honey and how the air quality can affect the quality of the honey. very cool