8.29.2013 Are you prepared for a bad day in your bee yard?
I wrote this entry a little earlier today as an exercise in maintaining alertness while coping with an allergic reaction. Thought I’d share just so you know life with bees isn’t always sunshine and...
View Article9.7.2013 Moonshot
On July 20, 1969, I was 4 years old, but really almost five. On that night, I stood in the front yard of my grandmother’s house. Like most people living in Florida, Mamaw White had a tidy, little,...
View Article9.11.2013 Queenless
The Blue Hive, the one that was trying to requeen itself at the end of August, the one that was cranky and told me to go away, was cranky and trying to requeen for a reason. It was queenless. When …...
View Article9.21.2013 Pick, Mash and Gulp
Today was apple picking day at my friends’ place, the Tangled Fig Farm. We had fewer people than last year, or at least it seemed that way. The four adults had been burning the candle at both ends...
View Article9.22.2013 How Not to Store Extra Honey Frames
Way back in January, two of my beehives died leaving behind several frames full of honey and pollen. I put those frames into the freezer for a good long while, and then because my barn freezer doesn’t...
View Article9.24.2013 The Hoop House Begins
So, I have it in my mind that maybe someday I can become a Lettuce Queen. Or a Lettuce princess, or maybe just a lowly greens monger. So, to humor these delusions of grandeur, I have decided I need...
View Article9.26.2013 Lettuce Experiments
So, I am still painting those darn PVC pipes that will be the ribs of my hoop house. PVC doesn’t like to be painted. In the meantime, I have two flats of lettuce hardening off in my shade house. One...
View Article10.7.2014 to 10.26.2013 How I Built a PVC Hoop House
There are many ways to build a hoop house, but none that I could find that fit my particular situation and design concerns. So my hoop house is an amalgamation of instructions I found on several...
View ArticleIn the Meantime: Part One – The Chicken Dance
During the build on the hoop house, there was a lot going on elsewhere on the farm. With regards to the chickens we have . . . The Hulk Something strange is going on in the laying flock. Feather drop...
View ArticleIn the Meantime: Part Two – The Harvest
I have to credit the weather forecasters. They gave me two week heads up on the first hard freeze. This allowed me enough time to sort through the sad remnants of the summer garden. First out were...
View Article11.5.2013 Just how much row will 8 ounces of garlic plant?
Garlic Planting Day A full two weeks before last year. I am so proud of myself. Still, my box of high dollar “seed garlic” has been sitting around for 6 weeks waiting for this day. Let me tell you...
View Article11.8.2013 Low Tunnels
Over the last week, the weather weanies have been wetting their pants about the possibility of a major winter storm in the mid-Atlantic next week. As of right now, they’ve called off snow (and...
View Article11.16.2013 Hoophouse Week 3 The Lettuce Report
Over the last week, we’ve had really cold and really windy. We’ve had warm and sunny and today, finally, we have rain. So it’s been an interesting week in the hoophouse, watching the temperatures...
View Article11.16.2013 What’s Up with the Spinach?
Roughly once a week for the last five months in the white room, I’ve been starting spinach in flats. During June, July and August, I was mostly trying to germinate the seed I had on hand to see what...
View Article11.20.2013 Lamenting the Loss of a Trusted Helper
I had planned on writing about snow peas today, but a minor tragedy occurred and I feel compelled to write an elegy. Come back another day, and I tell you what I think of snow peas in the fall. But …...
View Article11.23.2013 An Awful Start to the Weekend
Yesterday, I pulled a muscle around my rib cage while trying to improve my low tunnels. I felt it pop. I went ow! and everything. But I still had work to do, so I said ow again, and got back …...
View Article11.24.2013 Spinach and Chard Quiche
It was a cold, cold blustery day. Not the sort of day that encourages outdoor work. Instead, a much needed day of housework and cooking. The highlight of the day came at lunch. I had a refrigerator...
View Article11.27.2013 A Bad Week for Varmints
When you grow up in the burbs, pest infestations are normally rare and not very threatening. Got roaches? Mice in the cupboard? If a shoe and traps don’t work, grab a can of Raid or call the...
View Article12.8.2013 Iced In
For the last ten days, WxRisk and WxSouth have been forecasting a major mid-Atlantic ice storm. And for ten days, I’ve been prepping – more for an extended power outage than for the actual ice....
View Article12.15.2013 Watching Lettuce Grow
Yep. It’s just about as exciting as it sounds. On the seed packets, most lettuce varieties will tell you they grow from seed to maturity in 50-60 days. When I started transplanting lettuce starts...
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