Thursday, April 11, 2013

Around the yard and gardens


This is just part of my front yard. If you look at the top, where that white pallet is, that's where the bees will be going. When I get them. I'll put a fence around it to keep the sheep away. My yard is full of dandelions. Which I love. And I cry when I see those horrible commercials about Roundup to kill them. I use the flowers for tea and jelly. And the leaves are good to eat. And the bees LOVE them! How can anyone kill these plants? There will always be dandelions and violtes and henbit in my yard.


This is a view of the "wild" garden to the side of the yard. To the left top corner is where the bees will be. I have 7 blueberry bushes, so far, wrapped around this garden. I planted sunflowers seeds and some herbs in this garden plus lots of other flowers will pop up too.




This is the rock garden. This is the newest little lilac bush. So pretty. The bees should really like this bush. I also have some small butterfly bush, spirea and lots of peppermint and other herbs and Black-eyed Susan flowers. Plus dandelions all around it.



I have 4 fig bushes. Or are they trees? I don't know. They are all getting leaves now! You can see my sheep in the side yard. I put Abraham back in with the ewes today. Maybe some September lambs?

This is my grapevine row in the garden. All of them are getting leaves now. You can see the kale and collards to the right. Potatoes to the left.

I have 3 really old apple trees in the side yard. All of them are getting leaves and are full of buds ready to blossom out soon. I also have 6 newer trees down below the garden. And 3 pear trees. All getting leaves and buds too.



I found some Adirondack Blue and some white potatoes from last year in the garage. So I cut them up and planted them today. I dug a trench, put the potato pieces in that, then covered it all with a heavy layer of old hay mulch.


So it is really becoming spring around here. We're in for some strong storms tonight, so lots of rain too. We kind of need it right now. Strange to say that. But the ground is quite dry. My little baby plants need water.

Just a little view of my yard and gardens. I think my bees will be ok here. Plus there are 2 mountains on either side of us here, full of trees.

No bees yet

We were supposed to go about 6:30 tonight to get the hives in Sale Creek, Tn. But, we are in for some pretty nasty storms right between 5 and 8 PM. Right in the middle of when we were going. So we will go tomorrow. I am not looking forward to storms. In April. Those are scary. So I'll do a post about my yard and garden instead.

Wednesday, April 10, 2013

Mulching the garden beds

 I did do quite a lot Sunday. I know, it's a day of rest. But when the mood hits, I jump.


So I got the wagon and loaded up 3 huge loads like this one of the best hay mulch. This is where I fed the sheep hay and it's sat here all winter. It's FULL of big red worms. I mean FULL. Every time I got a fork full there were worms.



This is where all that went. On the cabbage and onion bed. It's really deep too. Still have a flat of cabbage and some broccoli to get planted. It will get done.






I have all this to get on the garden too.  Under the sheep shelter. Lots of good stuff. Then there's the other shelters. The chicken coop. And the goat barn. I should have lots of good arm muscles soon!



What do y'all use for mulch? I like this because it has all the sheep, goat and chicken manure mixed in with it. So good for the garden. And I can mix it in later to the soil and it makes it richer.