What's happening around the farm.
Posted in Bees, Vegetables on Mar 18th, 2011
Went down to check the QuickHoops this afternoon. They were not on my radar screen since I assumed I couldn’t open them if needed, but this afternoon I realized that they were in grave danger of overheating and cooking the greens planted in them. I hoped the snow was keeping them cool. The plastic was [...]
Posted in Bees on Sep 27th, 2010
I think I’ve eaten at least a cup of honey this afternoon – evening. If I’m not real coherent, that is probably why. No, I did not open a jar of honey and pour out a cup to drink. I took honey from the bees this afternoon. Quite a trip it was. There are good [...]
Posted in Bees on Jun 14th, 2010
I realize we don’t have a “normal” American house. This spring the photo of the dining room showed plant stands. Now we have the indoor “observation” bee hive going. While checking the bees last week I found a couple “queen cells”, meaning the bees were dissatisfied with their current queen, or the current queen was [...]
Posted in Bees on Apr 4th, 2010
I checked the bees today. They had finished off the quart of their honey I had fed them last month so I took more down. They didn’t need it! I went ahead and left if for them because the weather will turn and bees frequently make through the winter but starve in the spring. First, [...]
Posted in Bees on Mar 6th, 2010
Well, not really. There have been little chickweed flowers, but those don’t count. The greens that were salad mix have started budding out, and the first ones have flowered (and have become “napini”). Bees love broccoli flowers, and these are related, so I pulled the plants, stuck them in a bucket of water, and took [...]
Posted in Bees, Vegetables on Feb 24th, 2010
I went down Monday while it was sunny and checked on the bees and the veggies that are under row cover in the field. First, take a look at the chard! I am amazed. After the snow melted and we had those cold temps I thought the chard would be dead. If this keeps up [...]
Posted in Bees, Vegetables on Jan 25th, 2010
I had a great time at the NOFA-NY conference. NOFA stands for Northeast Organic Farming Association. The rare forecast for sun tempted me to skip the Friday session by Sally Fallon, but I am so glad I went. If you have not studied the book “Nourishing Traditions” I encourage you to. Warning though, she does [...]
Posted in Bees, CSA, Vegetables on Aug 13th, 2009
I have one variety of heirloom tomato in the field that seems to be holding up. All the others are gone. I don’t want to jinx it by mentioning its name. I also haven’t decided whether to truly test its resistance and leave it be, or start treating it with the copper hydroxide fungicide to [...]
Posted in Bees on Jan 29th, 2009
Photo – on the left, the blue flags mark rows of onion seedlings, that are being nicely protected by the snow. The ridges/lumps on the right is row cover on hoops over arugula. Ours bees went into winter with very light stores. In fact, they went into winter with less honey than they had in [...]
