Recent Spring Events & We Got Our Bees!: June 18th, 2017

It's been awhile since our last post.  Spring, especially the month of May is a busy time for both of us with our jobs, birding for Marianne, and preparing and planting our crops before June 1st.  As of today, we have everything pretty much set for the next few months that will revolve around weeding, harvesting and preparing/preserving food.  Here is a run down of what we have been up to since the last time we posted.

APRIL

April 12th: Planted Snap Peas and Radishes
April 15th: Got some free Blueberry Bushes from our neighbour.  They will not produce enough to make jam this year, but there will be some for us to eat at least.
April 16th: Planted Potatoes, and 4 varieties of Grapes (1 variety ended up dying)
April 18th: Picked our first Asparagus spears
April 22nd: Planted 2 Apricot trees, 2 Plum trees and 2 Peach trees.

Extending Strawberry patch

April 23rd: Extended our Strawberry patch by digging up young plants and creating 3 more rows.  Replanted Peas due to seed rot, and continued to pick Asparagus.  We initially planned to pickle our Asparagus, but instead we decided to stop the harvest early in hopes of more spears next year.
April 30th: Propagated Tomatoes (Roma, Beef and Cherry), Peppers (Bell, Poblano, Habenero, Jalapeno, Scorpian and Ghost), Leeks, Brussel Sprouts, Cabbage, Broccoli, Leeks and some Wildflowers in basement.

MAY

May 9th: Got Chicks 2 weeks later than we normally do. We purchased 17 that included 1 rooster.  We went with the Rhode Island Red hybrids again this year, though clearly the rooster is not of this breed as he is a yellow chick, and the others are brown.

Can you guess which one is the rooster?

May 15th: Picking Radishes now.  Aaron wired the greenhouse for hydro.
May 17th: Planted Red and Yellow Onions.  Aaron put additional screened vents in the greenhouse. 
May 19th: Planted Sunflowers, Shellbeans (4 varieties), Green and Yellow Beans, Edamame, Sweet Corn, Peanuts (new this year), Spring Wheat (new this year), Peas, Zuchinni (yellow(new) and green), Acron Squash, Butternut Squash, and Pumpkin directly into the gardens.
May 20th: Planted Pickles (new this year) in pots in the greenhouse. Moved propagation trays from basement into greenhouse. 

Bell Pepper plant in greenhouse

May 21st: Put up a fan from Marianne's Dads old hog barn into the greenhouse.  Planted Broccoli direct in the garden.
May 22nd: Planted Kale direct in the garden.
May 24th: Picked the last of this year's Radishes.
May 27th: Transplanted Tomatoes from greenhouse to the garden. Planted Dill next to where Radishes used to be.
May 28th:Transplanted Peppers (except Poblano) from propagation trays to clay pots in the greenhouse.  Replanted some squash since some plants did not come up.  Moved our chicks from the garage to the chicken coup

Our greenhouse at night is pretty bright.

JUNE

June 2nd: Planted Broccoli, Brussel Sprouts, and Cabbage from greenhouse to garden.
June 9th: Planted Leeks from greenhouse to garden.  First Strawberries beginning to come on.
June 12th: Regularly picking strawberries
June 16th: Transplanted Poblanos from greenhouse to the garden in the row where the peanuts never came up.
June 17th: Begin to harvest Snap Peas
June 18th: Replant Peanuts where Edamame didn't come up

That is pretty much a run down of our spring.  Since then we have already had some successes and failures. Luckily failures have been pretty slim.  Once again the Edaname we planted barely came up with only 4 plants total.  None of our peanuts came up at all this year so we replanted again on June 18th.  We were moderately successful at propagating in the basement this time around.  Next year we will switch back to a seed starter instead of potting soil. 

Our fruit trees are doing okay.  The only issue is that one of our Cherry trees has aphids.  Small fruit is now on some of our Pears, Apples, Cherries and Peach trees.

Fruit on our Bosc Pear

All of our chickens are still alive and we recently opened the coup door to let them venture out into the run. This past week we experienced our first heat wave so they enjoyed getting outside and under some shade.

The kittens continue to grow and play in the yard.  On June 6th we had another surprise when Miya had 3 kittens in the cat house on our deck.  She is so fluffy we had no idea she was even pregnant! We now have a total of 9 cats. Our oldest cat, Momma White has also learned a new skill in hunting goldfish successfully at our pond. This doesn't bother us a bit as there are probably still over 100 fish in there.

Today on June 18th we received our bees!  This is something new and exciting for both of us.  The bees came with 4 frames per hive that included brood cells, pollen cells and honey. Each hive also has a queen which is marked with a yellow dot on her thorax. 

 

 

 The hives.  The yellow hive is Aaron's and the blue one is Marianne's.  The hives are the painted wooden boxes and the non-painted boxes are the stands.

Next weekend were will be canning our first item for 2017.  Strawberry jam! Yum!