May 2019 – Wellyssa's Womb

Bees, second attempt!

April 2017 I received my first bee package. I nurtured them through that first summer and winter. In October of 2017 I have a vibrant hive, with two deeps installed and 1 super in place for the winter. At inspection we estimated approximately 80,000 bees and plenty of honey to get through the winter. and yes, they made it through the winter but in April of 2018, I went outside one bright spring morning, and found the hive completely abandoned.

My local bee expert came over to take a look, and he found no sign of mites, disease or vermin, and the bees had left a completely full, 10 frame deep of honey. I think they must have swarmed and moved on. Me as a first time bee keeper didn’t know to look for signs of them needing to split or swarm with new queen, so I lost that first hive, and it was too late to order new bees that season. So I packed everything up into storage, including 80 lbs of honey in that deep.

I order bees again this spring, and just got them into the hive, along with 4 of the full frames of honey. That should be enough to get them going. but I will be keeping a closer eye on them this time.

Spring Colors – 2019

More viburnum and Sand cherry on the interior side of the willow garden

The street side view of the Willow garden: Sand cherry, viburnum, Golden spirea and black lace Elderberry.

Red and yellow – south/east shoulder garden

I love all the different shades of green on the interior south berm

Stage God, enjoying his mushrooms! Daylilies have burst out of the ground!

The Russian Olive, and behind that, the Locust tree. Both were pruned hard in January. I’m keeping them in a dwarf size.

The oldest apple tree in the orchard. Leafing out after a hard prune in January.

First year transplanted shrubs on the new mid-west berm. this berm was installed to cup around the shape of what will eventually be a pond.

these are white tulips with light lavender blushing. the color doesn’t show as well as I would have like in the pic. but they are in the garden next to the water dragon.

My outside kitty sits calmly on the back of the dragon.

A declaration of War!

Vole damage in the herb garden. I don’t know how they got in, the floor of the garden is lined with chicken wire and the picket side slats at lined with rabbit wire. But they got in and pretty much destroyed everything. I have a small patch of oregano left, and lemon balm, one of the 5 golden marjorams made it, and the betony and comfrey were untouched as was the chives, of course. Everything else is gone. Literally, gone.

So I’m going to toss poison way down into the holes, then the next week I’m going to throw around some deterrent pellets. Then I need to re-level the beds and bring in new composted garden soil. I will do this over a period of weeks. Meanwhile, I need to try to figure out how they got in there in the first place.

Maybe I’ll buy some of the perennial herbs and get them planted before the fall, and then start over with the annuals next spring. Maybe it’s for the best – the walkways and the gates need to be replaced, they’re 13 years old now and falling apart. So maybe not having a garden full of plants that are in the way, will allow that project to move forward. so I’m trying to put a bright side on the situation, but wow, just wow. Utter devastation.

And from now on, I’ll be throwing vole deterrent around the yard on a regular basis.

A never ending, self-inflicted purgatory

Every year a new weed tries to take over the walkway between the herb garden and the vegetable garden. Last year it was thistle, the year before it was Kochia and errant grass, this year it’s prickly lettuce, lambs quarters and shepherds purse.

For some reason this one area is heavily covered with lambs quarters. Luckily they pull out of the rock very easily, as there is a fabric underneath; but I can’t just spray them. The sprayed weeds will dry and then decompose into the bottom layer of the rock, building up a compost type soil over time that will grow more weeds, so pulling – for 2 hours.

I left the very tiny weeds, because they’re actually too small to pull. I can’t grab them with my gloves on and I’m not going to sacrifice my finger tips to this purgatory.

The S/E walkway was easier as it had larger weeds, and was much more sparse. I got that done in 1/2 hour, after spending 2 hours weeding the vegetable beds.

I think one more session of weeding this area, and this level of purgatory will be purged! (And then I can move on to another location.)