Memorial Day Weekend Plantings...Just Need Soil

Over the weekend we went to the Farmer's Market.  It was a beautiful sunny day and I was inspired by the plant prices as compared to Home Depot or Lowe's, so I bought a bunch of veggie starts.  When we got home, I planted the two varieties of broccoli and cabbage in the bed in the henyard, but ran out of soil for the rest.  I need to get the tomatoes (heirloom of course) into their containers, but I have no soil to put in the pots!  Greg is taking his truck to work this week, so unless I want to pay a premium for individual bags of soil, I have to wait until the weekend when we can take the truck to get a load of Tagro.  Boo hoo.  Hopefully, I remember to keep the little 4" pots watered all week so they make it.

Photos of the Ol' Homestead

This is what we call the "circle".   In the background you can see the hen yard and the coop is over to the left.  If the far background, in red shorts, is my husband toiling away at waxing his boat (no, that is not a euphemism).

The hens and their coop.  Notice that they are running toward me around the vegetable bed.  They think that I have food.  Nope.  Just a camera.

This is our broody hen named Oreo. We call her Mamacita now that she is broody.  When they go broody, they just want to sit on eggs and wait for them to hatch.  We have no rooster, but we got some fertilized Delaware chicken eggs and put them under her.  We are anxiously awaiting our hatchlings.  We will surely be posting about our new babies when they come!

The patio.  Yes, I lugged those columns here myself!  Sculpture on the table by Trisha Johannessen.

I will post more photos when I get some.   Meanwhile, I have to get back to work.  I can hear the weeds growing out there.

A Beehive, at Last

I finally got my hands on an affordable beehive from Craigslist.  My friend lives in Woodinville, where it was located, and she picked it up from the seller for me.  For $10 I think that I got a good deal.  The only work needed is to paint it on the outside and wire some plastic honeycomb foundation into the frames (this will be were the babies will be made to populate the hive) and get some bees.  It already into the bee season though, so I might have to wait until March to get bees, when the season starts again.   You have to give the bees sufficient time to build up their stores in their new hive to tide them over through the winter.  Otherwise you have to feed them sugar water, and they can go through 10 gallons of this a week! Yikes!

I am excited to start as a novice beekeeper.  I took a Master Beekeeping class at the Pierce County Extension about 2 years ago.   I need to take it again, though, to refresh my memory.  There is also a hands-on component to this class that I missed last time that would be helpful to take.  Also, I am keeping my eyes and ears open for a fellow beekeeper who needs help so that I can learn by helping.  For further information, I have been checking out the numerous books and websites on the subject , and viewing an amazing library of informational beekeeping videos on YouTube.

Hopefully in the next couple years we can have some honey.  Mmmm.  I can't wait!