I’ve wanted to keep bees for years, and was planning on doing it the year I became pregnant with twins. Needless to say, the bees got put on hold for a while. This spring the girls turned three, and I signed up for a beekeeping class at the local nature center. I have fallen deeply and madly in love with bees. They are fascinating creatures, and I have enjoyed reading about them as much as I’ve enjoyed watching them build their colonies.

The top picture is a recent one of the two colonies I have in my backyard. The picture below is just a shot of the bees hanging around the entrance. You can see one bee coming in for a landing with her legs full of pollen (she looks like she has yellow rain boots on).

This last picture is from the very first day, and shows the installation of what is called a “package” of bees (around 10,000 bees that come in a small box). I’m dumping them into their new home. Behind me are the frames that I removed in order to have some room to dump the bees into the hive box. The bees build their comb on these frames, and each small cell will be used to either breed a new bee or store nectar or pollen. The bees were surprisingly gentle, and would tickle me when they landed on my skin.

The girls are great strawberry pickers, and we have enjoyed lots of strawberry treats this year.

We water (sometimes the path or our sister) and pick lots of flowers for the house.

And we always take time to watch the bumble bees and honey bees, and thank them for their hard work.

Above is a picture of our snowgirl (Maxine) who got buried in the unrelenting snow this winter. The girls would wave at Maxine from the house as she gradually got covered in new snow.

Bring on the summer!

I have wanted to post a picture of these guys since I started the blog, and finally got some photos this year. I find it impossible to see these worms (they blend in with the plants perfectly) except when one of the wasps has laid its eggs on it. The first year or so that I grew tomatoes I had an awful problem with these worms eating them up and just devastating my crop. Luckily, their natural predators, the braconid wasp, came to the rescue. Since then we have not had any problem, as the wasps seem to find all of the hornworms and dispense with them (that is, by laying its eggs inside the worm, which then produce the cocoons you see in the picture).

Growing broccoli has given me some of my most challenging pest problems. If you are interested in a recap and pictures of some of the pests, here is a link to my summary from the 2007 season.

This year I decided to give row covers a try, since broccoli is a big hit with the girls. I planted a whole bed (about 10 x 4) with just broccoli, and covered it with a row cover (one of those white gauzy ones that lets in the rain). I pretty much forgot about them after that, until it came time to harvest. The broccoli thrived, and I have been cutting off huge heads ever since.

Here is a picture early on:

And one from today:

I have had such a huge influx of broccoli that I’ve had to figure out what to do with it all. I am probably the last person on the planet to realize that roasted broccoli is amazing. If you haven’t tried roasting broccoli, here is a link to the recipe I made last night:

Roasted Broccoli Recipe

Be forewarned, it is positively addicting. No kidding. I made the recipe last night (8 cups of broccoli), and there are no leftovers!

Technorati Tags: broccoli, insects, recipes

This is how I currently manage to take the girls into the garden. I load up the double-seater wagon grandma got us, and we head out. The strawberries are a big hit, as the girls can never seem to get enough. Luckily, strawberries are incredibly healthy in addition to being delicious. Of course, the organic, home-grown, warm-from-the-sun, just-picked version is the best.

The slugs are horrible this year because of the wet spring. For every strawberry I pick to eat, there are probably 10 or 15 that have been partially snacked on by the slugs. But, the plants produce such an abundance of berries and have spread so enthusiastically that I don’t really mind sharing.

Technorati Tags: berries, slugs, strawberries

I decided my first post this summer has to be about the lettuce that planted itself and kept us in salads all spring (of course, a picture of my girls will soon follow!).

I never got around to cleaning up the lettuce bed last year until after it went to seed. There is apparently something to be said about the lazy approach to gardening! The volunteer lettuce was delicious and mild, with several types in the mix. The only difference I noticed from the original seed crop was the lack of bright red leaves. I guess either the seed from the red leaves wasn’t fertile because it was a hybrid, or it reverted back to a greener hue. Below is a picture of lettuce grown from the “parent” seed.

Happy summer, everyone!

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Finally harvested the garlic a couple of weeks ago. I had planted bulbs from a sampler pack (I chose the “rare and heirloom 8-pack) that I got from The Garlic Store. I was quite late in harvesting, as I didn’t realize that you were supposed to harvest before the plant was completely dead. Oh well! The picture above is of shatili garlic. We have done taste comparisons of shatili, chinese pink, french germinador, and shantung purple. To be honest, I really can’t tell a difference between them (at least eating it raw, by dipping bread in olive oil with minced garlic). Perhaps I don’t have a refined palate to appreciate the differences. In any case, it is nice to eat my own fresh garlic instead of garlic shipped all the way from China.

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