The "busy work" of gardening, beekeeping & foraging
Beets
We've been engaged in quite a lot of what I'm going to call "busy work" since my last blogpost back in May. The garden has been a struggle thus far this year, with a significant number of our vegetable seedlings dying from the wacky pseudo-spring weather we had. I reseeded portions of the garden beds and restarted plants for transplanting two or three times in the last four weeks. We're also experiencing something of a chipmunk plague this year. The little beasties seem to be everywhere, beheading sunflower, okra and squash seedlings and showing themselves with an almost mocking impudence. I'm half expecting to walk out onto the porch one morning to find several of them playing cards, using my radish greens as chips and eyeing me with an air of dismissive contempt.
comb covered with bees
Our foray into the world of beekeeping has also had its ups and downs these past few weeks. Our first package of bees didn't make it. The queen and a majority of the workers perished in the first week or so. I blame the erratic weather, which was hot for the first day or two after we installed them and then dipped to freezing for several days. We purchased another, larger packet and successfully installed them into the top bar hive I built and they seem to be moving forward with determined purpose, building combs and adding to their numbers at what seems to me to be a staggering pace. However, they've also had to work extra hard to repair some of damage we unintentionally did to the hive during our first few examinations, as we inadvertently broke a few combs and killed a good number of larvae. More on that in a succeeding post.
late season ramps
And of course we've been foraging and filming. We've got a good amount of film in the can, so to speak, and need to begin editing and releasing additional episodes of Creative Sustenance. We'll need to get into a production rhythm so that we're releasing episodes on a somewhat consistent schedule. Getting out into the field to forage and film is such fun. We truly are fortunate to live in a state with such an incredible abundance of wild edibles and beautiful locations. I think you'll like what we've got on deck with Creative Sustenance.
