Hello again, homesteaders of Hive! The title pretty much summed up what today's post will be about, so I think this short paragraph will be enough introduction. Let's move on, shall we?
Since my last real gardening post, a lot has happened. The strawberries, which were barely beginning to come to life back then grew large enough that I could mulch them properly, and started growing some flower buds.
The strawberries that I added to the bean bed last year flowered nicely, but didn't set a lot of fruit, and only the wild ones set any fruit at all. They need a lot of attention still, which isn't surprising because I put minimal effort into preparing this extension. The weeding has been getting easier, though, and each year should be better than the last.
The strawberry and blueberry bed by the old chicken palace has been having a pretty good year. These are mostly everbearing strawberries, but the ones in the lower right of this bed always begin producing in June with the early strawberries. Usually our chickens would wreak havoc in this bed, but this year I'm not giving them as much freedom to roam.
The picture below was my first strawberry harvest this year, and it happened over a week ago now. This is, by far, the best year yet for strawberries, though it still isn't really enough to make jam or pie filling with. It has been enough for us to eat our fill of them this year.
Radishes have also been doing very well, and I've already had a couple harvests like this. I'm the only one here who really eats them, so we don't plant a whole lot, but I like to have at least one square of them planted at any given time.
Our currants are still surviving, but not doing as well this year as they did last year. Because of the area they are in, they've been hit by a lot of falling trees and branches over the last 8 months, and I'm very happy that they're still producing anything at all. I hope to give them a great deal of much needed attention this year.
The lilies have taken a little damage from these infernal red beetles, but I've done a much better job of staying on top them, and we're hoping for a spectacular flower show to start pretty soon.
A good dusting with diatomaceous earth once in a while keeps these pests in check, although it doesn't make the lilies look very pretty. These beetles and their larvae will absolutely destroy all of these plants, so a little dusty look is a small trade off.
The bean bed, along with pretty much everything else, got neglected last year due to the constant rain. I actually took a sick day at work to get this thing back under some sort of control, which was no small feat.
Big feats yield big rewards, however, and this was no exception. There was another harvest of dandelion root, including the monster below. This extra long root is a good sign that the dirt in this garden is finally getting loose enough to grow some real carrots and other deep rooted vegetables in.
I also dug out a few parsnips that wintered over from last year, and a couple pounds of wild carrot. There were some other parsnips that I left in the ground to flower out, and hopefully I'll be collecting seeds from them in another month or so.
There was more to clean up here than just the weeds. Lots of cardboard that was brought up to be used as weed barrier, empty pots and cells from last year's planting, an assortment of small tools, and other general debris lie in wait beneath the sea of flowing weeds.
Some of the hidden things were less trashy, like this adorable little salamander. He didn't seem too happy about me disturbing his home, but he still decided to move on quickly enough.
By the end of the day, things were starting to look a bit more like a garden again. There's still obviously plenty of work to do, but at least there is room to start getting some of our unhappy seedlings in the ground!
The other half of this garden, where I started the early planting, looks quite a bit better, but still needs plenty of work. The early brassicas that I put out suffered from cold, bugs, and woodchucks, but I've still managed to harvest some broccoli, and one of the cauliflower has a decent head started.
Planting means screening some more compost, and when I went to the pile, I was greeted by this beautiful little guy. This is a milk snake, a non venomous variety that sports the most color of any of the local snakes. They're usually quite a bit more shy, but I was lucky to catch this one out when he had nowhere to hide.
These early started zucchini were pretty sad going into the ground, and they have died off since planting. No worries, though, I've seeded this spot and some others, and I'm sure we'll be trying to give zucchini away in no time at all.
These cucumbers also looked pretty sad when they got planted, but have since recovered nicely. Every one of these cucumbers lived, as well as a couple loofas and one butternut squash. I'm hoping the cukes do really well this year, we've run out of homemade pickles and desperately need to make more.
This feisty little guy was ready to fight me rather getting away from gardens! He did eventually see reason though, and wandered off home. He disappeared for a few days after this close encounter with a human, then reappeared in the live trap. If he wants to get back into my garden now, he's going to have to figure out a way across two rivers.
When I'm weeding, I always save a few of the wild mustard for harvest. Most will bolt pretty quickly, but occasionally one will just grow crazy large leaves, like the one in the pic below. This picture was taken just three days after I harvested this plant down to practically nothing. I'm a big fan of mustard greens, and I use them exactly like I use spinach.
As promised in an earlier post, here is a follow picture of the biggest garter snake I've ever seen, who has been living in my compost pile. You can see this guy's head easily enough in the pic below, and if you look closely, you can see his tail as well, ending near the lower right corner of the frame. More pics of this guy to come in future posts... he's hard to miss and seems to have to interest in moving, despite all the extra excitement I keep bringing to his home.
The early parsnips that I planted in the onion bed have been getting huge, and we're looking forward to harvesting quite a bit of parsnips this season. The leeks have also been doing fantastic in this bed. Something ate most of the kale plants that I put out here early this season, but they've been hanging in there, and seem poised for a comeback. The St. John's Wort has been as mysterious as ever, dying off or suddenly growing like crazy without any apparent reason for either. Onions and radishes in this bed have just been doing okay, but okay is better than bad.
Things have been growing even better over in the garlic bed, though the extra growth makes this bed look quite a bit less tidy at the moment. This box needed quite a bit of compost added this year to get the soil level back up, which is probably why things are growing faster over here. This is the bed that I've already taken my radish harvests from.
Speaking of radishes, I've left a couple of the ones that bolted so I can gather more radish seed this year. I still have a LOT of them left from 2020, and they're germinating well, for now, but I would still like to have some fresh radish seeds this season. It's a shame that the radish flowers won't stand up and show themselves better, they're actually very pretty. I think they look a lot like phlox.
I've also gotten the corn bed tilled up again this year, though I haven't managed to get it planted yet. I'm not too worried... last year squirrels ate almost every sprout that came up when Hedge Witch planted corn in June, and it was nearly mid-July before we got it replanted. We still saw a decent harvest, considering the late start and neglect. More than enough grew for us to get an idea of what we want to replant this year, and I have plenty of seed left from the harvest. We plant mostly popcorn and other 'flint' corn in this garden, along with some squash. This year I want to plant some beans out here as well.
I also got to work finishing up the brassica bed at long last, though it was more of a chore than it should have been.
The reason it was such an extra chore is that one of the handles on the tiller decided it was time for a break, and, well, it broke. I have a few welding options to repair this, but they're all at the other end of the property, so I have to drag the tiller all the way down to the driveway to repair it, then bring it all the way back to finish this garden.
A bit of sloppy grinding and welding later, and this old tool was finally ready to get back to work.
This garden has the best soil, and the tiller went through it easily. The weedy spots that I didn't till are a patch of peppermint, right in the middle of the garden, and a patch of asparagus near the upper edge. Both of these will get moved, but I want to dig them out more delicately than I would be able to do with the rototiller.
After a great day of work at home, I was venturing out into the world to do some milling, and the $500 Honda decided to pop a lower ball joint, right at the bottom of the driveway. On the bright side, it didn't happen while I was driving 60mph on one of our local treacherous roads along the top of a gully, but it was still a pretty horrible spot to try working on a car. It didn't help that it was blocking the driveway, so I couldn't even get out with the other car. The post about that little chore, and the cursing that went along with it, will going into the Hive Motors community some time in the future.
That still doesn't quite catch us up to the present day, but we're already past 1800 words, and it's WAY past my bedtime. So far, I feel like I'm doing an okay job balancing my work life, farm life, content creator life, and community admin life, but it definitely IS a lot to juggle.
I hope to see you all along for the ride with me, whether I run, walk or fall. Until next time, be safe and be well!