The Garden This Morning...in pictures

This morning's sweet surprise
green beans, yellow wax beans

coreopsis...the gift that keeps on giving

feverfew

first sunflower of the season

little sweet potato plant

lemon basil

zinnias in the garden

Honey Harvesting...a first attempt

not so many words - the pictures tell the story. In the previous post, you will see the bee hives, and the 'boxes' on top of each. This is our late (late) evening honey getting experience. And quite a mess it was, I must say (!) This is the result of one box from one hive. I have a feeling there will be quite a bit of honey in our near future...and I certainly hope we can figure out some other place to do this...Like - maybe outside...The scary-looking knife is HOT. (It is electric and smokes like the devil. I am in charge of the extension cords. Plug it in...when it smells like burned honey, unplug! Wait. Plug it in. etc. etc.) The goal is to uncap the little cells the bees have made...stick the racks in the big aluminum thing and spin!


A very sticky business, all in all. I have to hand it to Will, though. When he decides to get something done (like, bees...like, honey) he gets it done completely, and in very short order! In the end, my thought is this: I have never really seen this much honey in one container in one place - ever.

Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

bees...finally...Not a hard decision - we'd been thinking about this for a while anyway. But the distinct and mildly frightening lack of bees on this property all spring sealed the deal. Where to get a hive? I found the Louisiana Beekeepers on the 'net. Emailed the current president. He got right back to me. Actually, what he really wanted was for Will to show up at the Tuesday meeting. I kept pushing him for a contact instead - which he did give. But Will thought - no - best to go to the meeting. That was smart. Lots of bee folks, actually; and very nice folks indeed. He came away with cards and phone numbers and whatnot. And a direct line to a guy across the river who had ten or so hives he was trying to sell. So - the following Saturday evening Will goes across the river to Morganza and buys two hives (full of bees, naturally), and a big metallic thing that spins out the honey (looks like a giant ice-cream maker). He calls from the other side of the river at St. Francisville. (the Mississippi river). This means he is waiting for the ferry. Now, I don't know about you, but if I was getting onto a ferry and a guy drives his pickup truck onto the ferry with two beehives full of bees in the back of the truck, I would not be well for that. It was dark, and it was Saturday night, and no one seemed to notice. ha.
Well, everything went without a hitch. A friend was here to help offload the hives. Of course, Will had made extreme preparations, because that's just the way he is. He laid concrete footings, and set up cinder blocks and painted them white, and faced the whole shenanegins towards the rising sun to warm the bees in the morning. Within the first week, the Prez of the Beekeepers showed up out here to help Will 'go through' the hives for the first time. That was incredible. Also, Will's beesuit arrived. He puts it on...'does this look funny?' Well, that's a matter of opinion, I guess. It looks like coveralls with a hazmat hood, I suppose. It looks like 'first man on the moon'. It looks safe, for sure. It's kind of cool, actually. It took almost a week, but the other morning, I picked the first yellow squash of the season, and there was a bee in every single flower (!) whew. After weeks (months, actually) of walking and scanning all things flowering for any sign of bees at all, and finding a pitiful one or two here and there, it was a glorious sight. Lagniappe; ('something extra') The hive with the extra box on top...well, that box is full of honey, waiting to be taken. There are boxes to build and paint (came in the mail, sitting by the bookcases in the front room). And this will be done soon. So that there will be more honey this year. I know so little about all of this. Will is excited about the honey. I am excited about bees on flowering plants. Something for everyone.

a very quick note about a very beautiful thing

My daughter told me these would never, ever grow here. Ox-Eyed Daisies. She said they are wild and rampant in the Northwest...but it's just too hot here. And last year, when I started some from seed and put them in the herb beds, they nearly all died. She was right, I thought. Its just too hot. But one clump did hang in there, and here we are, a year later. There is also a clump of them way over in between two other rows. This means they seed themselves pretty freely. Lesson: if you can nurse something through the first year, you have a fighting chance. Lesson 2: Ox-Eyed. Daisies, obviously a predecessor of the Shasta Daisy, makes THING TWO in the herb beds that works because it is the hardy older variety. Thing One was the Bergamot, predecessor of the hybrid Bee Balm. (see last year). We've had Bee Balm: temperamental, and hard to pull through to next year. But Bergamot - well, it's all over the place now.

Time for a new FISH IN THE HAND picture - but not tonight.

It's been a month or more...but finals at school are at hand, and putting in the garden is an every-spare-minute thing. So...just to get things cranking for spring blogging, a picture or two:
Spinach. Thank you. And little tiny baby salad greens...a beautiful thing, to be sure, but a little harder to be very, very creative about: toss them on a little plate, throw some mandarin orange slices and cherries and sprouts and seeds on there, and...well. The arugula (in the middle of the row): some days yes, some days not so much. It is overpowering when matched with delicate lettuce greens. And a picture of this and that (thanks to Will and his new camera...he couldn't help himself but maybe I'm possessive about mine...) First - the purple martin house. Will always DID want one. We do not know why we have only three pairs of martins in this, the second year. Will seems to think we would have a billion pairs...or at least one in every little apartment. I mean, he went through a lot of trouble making sure each little apartment was separated from the others (I did joke last year that he should just go ahead and give every apartment a little barbecue pit and maybe wind chimes). But we are grateful for the ones we do have, and as long as we keep our distance with the mower and the tiller, they don't fuss to much. And, of course, we have the 'pond and fountain' feature...I laughed at first (it seemed so absurd) but i have come to love it, especially the sound of water...

And now, about this season...young as it is: It think things are different, although I can't be sure. You always think, every year...when did I plant what? When did this or that bloom? Unless you keep meticulous records about all these things, you cannot go back to check of course: This afternoon I looked out of the kitchen window and hey! gardenias! well - that's fabulous. Seems a bit early...and then, tonight, I went onto the patio and, reaching down for the hose, I came face to face with a night-blooming cereus flower. What a surprise! Isn't it early for that? Hey,. If everything blooms now, what's left for later? And we have clover come up and bloom all over the place before we can mow again. Now, clover is a wonderful thing, but I don't remember that ever happening. You know, it comes up and you mow it down and that's about it..in the spring. But over and over again? and so quickly? what's up with that? who knows. Tonight, Will it at the monthly Louisiana Beekeepers meeting. Not that we are beekeepers, but we had a hive a long time ago. The problem is, there are no bees here. Well, one or two. Think about that. One or TWO? Bees? So it's time to get a hive. More later about that. This is pretty serious business.

In the meantime, these rows of plastic have now been planted with melons. Yes, we need bees.

..And Will checks in...a scientific explanation

It’s the oxygenation, stup... Let me rephrase. In a closed ecological system with dynamic nutrient inputs, oxygen quickly becomes a limiting factor in the overall health and balance of the system. This is especially true when what you are trying to culture is dependent on oxygen to live (and thrive). Maybe the lights were unnecessary. But if you are going through all the trouble to (hand) dig 160 feet of ditch for buried cable and assemble, wire, float and anchor an aerating fountain, might as well go for broke (literally). It wasn’t THAT expensive. However, counting the price of the pond, fish, fountain, and feed we would probably much better off buying catfish at the local seafood house. Of course, we wouldn’t know where they came from and they would not be as fresh and I couldn’t witness the joy of my spouse as she catches one after the other, which I happily take off the hook and drop into the bucket (and later into the fry basket).

I’ve learned a lot about fish farming. Maybe I take it too seriously (lights excluded), but once I have committed to raising something, I start to worry about whether I have considered all the aspects and am doing what is necessary to ensure success. I hate to fail, though I have on many occasions. But I am in particularly adverse to the stinky evidence of fish farming gone bad. I blame it partly on the fish hatchery guy. I really only wanted a reasonable amount of fish for our half-acre pond, 400 hybrid bream and 150 channel catfish. In cavalier fashion, the fish guy ensured me that 1000 fish can easily be raised in a half acre pond and, besides, fish by the thousand would be much cheaper per fish than buying less. I should have known from the outset that this guy was fast and loose. After I carefully filled clean ice chests with water adjusted to pond temperature, bringing a thermometer with me to ensure no shock to the fry from the hatchery truck tanks, the guy just sticks his hand in the ice chests and says, “That’s close enough!” So now I have 1000 dependents that I can’t declare on my taxes. No way am I going to let them down, nothing too good for them. And all was well until Spring when they started to eat more and grow more and excrete more and now I am watching the pond go through textbook water quality changes. From turbid (adjusted with lime), to clear and pretty, to cloudy again (nitrophilous bacteria converting ammonia to nitrate) to matted floating filamentous algae – yuk, to now a healthy dark green (suspended algae) thanks to the fountain, the physical raking of the filamentous algae, the dry peroxide, and the application of pond microbes (the aqua-sphere Thais referred to). I’m not imagining that I am out-of-the-water on this so to speak, but I am happy with the results and you can indeed raise 1000 fish in a half-acre pond, but it takes a much greater degree of attention than it might otherwise. For those who have farm ponds or are considering them, the best publications I have found that can be accessed on-line are from the Southern Region Aquaculture Center of the USDA Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension Service at http://srac.tamu.edu/index.cfm?catid=25

a red bush and a fountain

ok. this will be brief. My mother gave us this little tiny stick of a bush when we moved here eight years ago. We put it in the side yard, under the oak tree, thinking, well, how big can it get? Apparently, pretty big. And every year I see some at a local nursery, and I vow to remember the name of this plant, and next year I can never remember what the heck it is. But it is truly beautiful. Plus, its an evergreen, and we all love that. So, here it is this week, in all it's glory. Same color as a true natural azalea, and every bit as magnificent:And, for our other evening fun, I give you the latest in Will's 'POND MANIA'.....wait for it...
the fountain with the blue lights! I tell you, I truly believe this man (who does indeed love his pond) has finally lost his mind. Sorry, Will. And of course I'm kidding. But it hits me at first as excessive. Yeah, yeah, I know. Oxygenization, which is probably misspelled. And the pond scum has been a big problem and the peroxide in a plastic tub (or as I prefer to call it, a tub of 'scum-be-gone') may not do it, as the 'BALL' of whatever, and I cannot keep up and don't remember what THAT is, may not get rid of the scum either. Thus, the argument for the ULTIMATE fix, the fountain! The survey so far says....let the man have his fun, and 'man, that is really great'. So, I will give it time. More later, but here is the daytime pic. Can't get the after-dark one...I must be doing something wrong, but I'll keep trying for that:
You've seen the pond at it's low ebb, before it filled, and you've seen the bird-kite, so this is just the next chapter in what I predict will be many, many chapters of pond excitement.

SPRING......no stopping it now....

When you notice the tops of the oak trees start to get 'fuzzy', and the red flowering trees and tiny green leaves of the willows in the swamp between here and New Orleans, you know it's almost time. But it's when you see the deep green grass and weeds creep up to the edges of the roads, you know there's no stopping it...spring is actually here (!) I tromped around outside to see what's what and look for signs and there are many, many signs of the new season...clover, ah yes. And various other wildflowers...now don't you people from the frozen north get jealous, although I am glad we are not in the land of snow. Come August or so, remember you'll be having the famous last laugh.
In the garden, things are peeking out from way, way underneath. So we never got around to cutting back the 'sticks' from the perennial sunflowers or the tarragon or the bergamot, but now that all sorts of craziness is happening down at the roots, cutting back old growth is rewarding. Here is the bergamot, as an example...
and the peppermint, coming up from the roots as well, although this we 'weed-eated' in the late fall, to get rid of the old growth: well - enough of tiny little bunches of new leaves....I mentioned the 'I Hate The Winter Grass' springtime problem, and digging out from it in the garden. It's kind of beautiful, really, because it is a deep dark green when everything else is brown and seemingly dead...but it is a terror just the same. To make my point, here is some probably wonderful fennel - but you can hardly tell, because the winter grass has taken over completely: and, after nearly two days of hoeing and hand-weeding, here is some of the lettuce that had suffered the same fate, but when you look the lettuce in Whole Foods, and then pull your hand back, thinking "wait. we have lettuce. I'm just lazy"....and now we have lettuce. And , after trying to crank up the mower, and going out for a new battery of course, and it could be worse, so that's good...a little part of the yard is mowed, and one flower bed planted, and we work outward from there. In the meantime, the fish we put in the pond in the late fall are growing like crazy...they expect food every day at 5:00 p.m. Don't try to feed them at 4, or 3, because they simply won't eat at that time. It's getting almost scary, the way they boil to the surface. I'm trying not to think of actually eating them, although I look forward to that...but they aren't as anonymous as some other fish from some other pond. that's pretty silly, i know. This is the best I can do for now, but it gives you a tiny idea of what it looks like at feeding time.More later

Robins!!!!!!

seems early yet...I can't remember from one year to the next exactly WHEN the robins come. But it seems that I always think it's early, so maybe it's not. I'm not sure what their arrival portends, either. you'd think it would mean Spring is here. But we all know that's a laugh. It's 70 degrees today, but this is Louisiana. That means it will be 30 degrees some night next week or the week after.
And it's a shame, too. Every year, the Japanese Magnolias begin to bloom, and many things are in bud. Then we get a freeze, and then we get no flowers from the fooled bushs..yo'd think they would know!
We have a couple of sayings around here, though. 'Thunder in February, frost in April'. I'm not sure about that one. "when the pecan trees leaf out, there won't be another frost' I AM sure about THAT one. It's true. But they don't leaf out until late late, so it's not that big of a trick really.
Back to the robins.
If you'd like to make your own observations, this is a fun one. Robins do this very hysterical thing. They land in your yard, or, in our case, in the field. But they stand around in a grid. It seems each robin has exactly so much space they're supposed to occupy. It's a square of sorts. One robin moves a few inches, and they ALL have to move to accomodate! shift. shift. It's a constantly shifting grid of little squares. Watch it sometime. It will make you laugh.
The garden.
The wet, wet, sloggy garden. Every year we say 'it's too wet, we'll never get out there to plow!" and the other one.."boy do I hate that winter grass!" We'll have to mow before we can plow! And we have to mow it before it goes to seed! And we'll never get out there in time, because it's too wet!
But, every year, it all works out. We've perused all the seed catalogues, but haven't taken action yet. We will, in a week or two.
We have to see about what seeds we have in the freezer! It's a bit confusing. You always order more than you need, but then you have more seeds in the freezer...
And Will always says "I'm not going to plant tomato seeds this year, I'm just going to buy some plants" And then, here comes this package from Tomato Growers....with seeds. Because he can't help himself. And he also says..."I'm not going to put in a big garden this year". And then his imaginary twenty tomato plants winds up being at least 100. We'll see.
Pictures next.
To be honest, there aren't many visuals you'd like to see right now. It may be 70 degrees, but it is still winter. Not the snowy pretty kind of winter. The wet nasty kind. The 'we haven't been in the garden for three months' kind.
Later.

Paper Osprey (owl kite at the pond)

ok. SO. Let me begin by saying that we have stocked the pond with 1000 fish/ 800 hybrid bream and 200 catfish. Will was very worried that his 1000 little fishies were going to get gobbled up by birds. He was, in fact, very very worried about this. He talked about a plastic owl. I reminded him that, as in the summer, when we were worried about crows in the corn, the town of Zachary has no plastic owls for sale. And I sure wasn't going to wander around Baton Rouge looking for a plastic owl. So, he did some 'research' and found a kite site on the 'net that he thought was promising.
He ordered the paper bird. The Osprey (which, I think, really deserves his very own name.).
Will spent an entire evening bent over the table in the kitchen glueing the bird together, bending the wings ever so slightly, and reading about 'teaching it to fly' (seriously). Here he is: He is in the front room because he is taking a break from 'flying' over the pond. He has been in and out of the house several times since his maiden voyage, by the way. But I digress. So Will takes his newly-glued bird out and he cuts the longest tallest bamboo pole you'll ever see. He ties the bird-kite to the end of the pole by a relatively short string. He stands out on the dock and waves it around (this is kind of awkward with a 20-ft bamboo pole) and 'teaches' it to fly but don't laugh! This actually works! From what I can glean, the wind 'shapes' the birds wings permanently so that it can 'fly' anytime the wind picks up in the future. I mean, what do WE know? Back to the bird coming in and out of the house: Will is worried about the bird and the 'weather'. So, if it looks like rain, especially heavy rain, he goes out and collects the bird. Now, I can't see us doing this indefinitely but I guess it's a new thing and all that. He has sunk three pieces of pipe in the ground at different places around the pond, so he can move the bird from time to time, thereby fooling the other birds. Right. (He just places the end of the bamboo pole down into the PVC pipe). We have heard and seen the Kingfishers and they are there and they know about our tiny fish. And they have come for them. So this is an attempt at scaring them away. We were, at first, heartened by the prospect. Although the pictures aren't that good (lots of light) here is the bird over the pond: Looks pretty good, doesnt it? I must say, though, the other day I came home from work and found the dog laying by the pond, and a big white crane standing in the pond, probably full of little fish - and the bird flying above. Oh, well. Usually that particular dog (Sweetie) barks at ANYTHING that flies, be it a bird or an airplane or whatever. But she wasn't doint it this day. To close, let me say that we have gotten a LOT of rain the past few weeks, and the pond is not completely full, but is getting there. Here it is, replenished:

Fall crops! YEA!

...it's been a month since I have posted here. Much rain (good thing for the pond) much rain (good always for trees and bushes) much rain (almost not a good thing with baby crops, but we'll take it). After the Spinach and Lettuce Scare of 2006, I am happy to report much lettuce and the beginnings of a good spinach row. I don't know about you, but I eye the greens in the supermarket with much trepidation these days. Many good things in the garden, but much of it is way, way soggy tonight, and I hear the rain coming down again. But that's ok. Before this spate of low-pressured-ness, Will was pulling the sprinkler around and dragging hoses, and it was a pain. And the trees were hurting, and there was no way to get to it all. In addition to beans and squash and MUSTARD GREENS! we will have little yellow potatoes soon, and other wonderful fall-type produce. We have flowers again, which is so nice. August kills them all, and it is sad to have no flowers to cut. We have accidental zinnias, from the row I pulled up (these were not planted, believe it or not). I did plant one other fence-row of them, but they're not nearly as nice. And, in a moment of loneliness, when Will was out of town, I got down and planted a row of French Marigolds. Will later fertilized them and did all of the mulching (thanks) and now they are the bright spot in the garden. I like this last picture: One of Will's sisters gave us a bunch of little metal signs for the garden. I like this one best, and move it around to the area that is most inspirational at the moment. Bad lighting, but it says 'INDULGE' ...More later; about Will's big paper/plastic owl kite. But I must take pictures first...

And so it is Fall...

...and we start all over again. Will planted 13 rows last weekend, and everything is coming up. So it is time to play "Know Your Teeny Tiny Seedlings".
First up; Beets. You can tell because the stems are red. Then we have 'some kind of beans'. You know they are beans from the wide flat big leaves. Just so happens these are green beans, but the red beans look much the same. Next, we have spinach...yum...looks a lot like little blades of grass. Potatoes take a while to come up, but when the do, they have fat little strong stems and relatively small but thick leaves. Peas are very delicate, with rounded leaves..and are a lighter color of green. Everything that is not in rows is a vast expanse of cover crop. Clay peas. Any kind of pea or bean can be used as a cover crop...you let them get as big as you like, or until you need the space for something else, then you plow them under. Nitrogen for the soil. There is more, but the sun came over the treeline, so that's all for this morning. In the meantime, among all the newness of the Fall garden, we have this; an okra pod. Cut down and plowed under, something always survives. There are enough seeds in this old pod, laying at the edge of the field, to plant a whole row of okra. Life goes on.