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Post by Deleted on Mar 18, 2015 17:14:24 GMT
Sorry to hear about the well. I'm glad you didn't give up. I love what you're doing and appreciate the updates.
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Post by grey areas on May 31, 2017 15:26:15 GMT
Well, my smaller garden up near the house is sprouting all over the place finally. Now comes the chore of planting the bigger plot. (around 2000 square feet, but I'm just using about 3/4 of it, and the rest is for composting) I finished rototilling it for the season yesterday and went to begin planting this morning. I nearly dropped from blood loss and am going to have to wait a couple hours until it heats up a bit so the mosquitoes take a break. My t'maters are already about the size of the fingernail on my pinky.
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Post by grey areas on Jul 10, 2017 17:25:07 GMT
Well, I'm still far from sick of tomatoes, and that'll never be the case with me, but I've eaten lots already this year and the vines are getting pretty loaded again. The romaine lettuce is like a hedge already. Some of my spinach is already going to seed and plenty remains. Peas will be another week or two and there should be a bounty there too. Carrots are tasty little guys that need more thinning still. Beets are doing good but they'll be some time yet. Onions and garlic are also doing good but a while away yet. Then there's the spuds. They're outta control. On the downside is my battle with the green beans. They did great here years ago but it's been about 4 or 5 years since I had a good crop of those stubborn buggers. Rhubarb is going great and I should have harvested once before today, but I've been lazy. ...and it's been a pretty wet year here so the saskatoons are growing well also, however the songbirds seem to have been hungrily awaiting their arrival as well and it'll be a week or two before they've had their fill and leave me enough to go picking for pies
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Post by Deleted on Sept 9, 2017 4:31:05 GMT
The saskatoon picking went fairly well and I got a good 3 gallons or so off my place. Rhubarb was a bit of a disappointment but there's nobody to blame but myself. I settled for almost a gallon chopped up, and might still get a bit more before the frost. It's almost time for me to get out a shovel now as the beets, carrots, onions, and spuds will take a couple days to harvest and clean. I was considering grabbing the highbush cranberries around here too, but I'd likely only get a few cups, and it'd take a while. Maybe next year. No frost here yet (knock on wood) but the mornings are getting pretty fresh, and the daylength is dropping like a rock. Ho ho ho.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 11, 2017 1:01:48 GMT
I still enjoy the updates.
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Post by grey areas on Jun 28, 2018 20:42:16 GMT
A new development this year was that I was growing a bit worried about the lack of bees around my place in recent years, so I decided to grab a hive for the acreage. Unfortunately my knowledge about being an apiarist was very limited, as virtually no interaction was required waaaaay back when we had bees. (I was of school age) Sadly, much has changed in the bees' world since those times, and not for the better by any means. I am however learning much regarding the necessary duties to help a colony survive and do well in today's world, and would say the colony is growing like crazy and doing excellent under the very watchful eye of this greenhorn
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Post by Deleted on Jul 11, 2018 20:22:40 GMT
Another new endeavor that I forgot to mention was that I decided to try my hand at a few new fruits this year. The first, sadly, was a bit of an oversight on my part. I tried a new strain of strawberries out. They produce quite well and are "all season" producers. As well, they have really attractive bright red blossoms. The unforeseen catch however was that with the purdy flowers one has to actually go and have a better look to see if that bright red spot is actually a nice ripe berry, or as is very often the case, just another purdy blossom.
I also took on a couple other new endeavors in the yummy fruit area. I decided to give wolfberries a go. (better known as goji-berries) They seem quite hardy and are growing rather well. I'll see next year (hopefully at least) how the fruiting works out.
Another new venture was to try my hand at Haskap berries. (another alleged super-fruit) I went with the "Tundra" strain along with the "Polar Jewel" (as cross-pollination is quite important, much like apples) and even got to try a few berries in June. Pretty tasty, but again, I'll get a better idea when they get settled in for next season.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 11, 2018 21:09:45 GMT
Being in tune with nature, I too am very interested in saving/helping bees. I do believe still the radiation levels from cell phone towers/use play a major role in their decline. There was a study over ten years ago now, that aired on both PBS and the BBC that extensively backed this hypothesis. More recent data proves this to be correct, and is still being ignored.
As a member of our local preserve, we have bee keeping and sell the honey. We lose so many hives every year its disheartening.
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Post by grey areas on Jul 11, 2018 23:53:27 GMT
It seems to me from notable research that while the whole radio wave bombardment is certainly detrimental to life, yours and mine included, it's major impact is more along the lines of but it'll never be stifled because of the immense amount of revenue it generates for the puppeteers, (government and BIG business, and by that I'm primarily referring to huge commercial farming conglomerates) neonicotinoids are the root of the decimation of almost all of the bee wipe-outs. The deep pocket dirtbags are fairly adept at hiding their sins and censoring most of the negative publicity related, but it truly doesn't take too terribly much snooping around to see the cover-ups. (and the few that slipped between the cracks before their meddling)
Though it's seldom one of my shortcomings, it truly does evade me how to put into words how ashamed and disgusted I have become of my species, when lowlifes who are just victims of a horrible sickness (themselves and their own offspring included) will still condemn the entire planet and life as a whole to their demise merely for some bigger, or a few more numbers on some piece of paper, even though they already have far more money than anyone would ever need to live a great life, and want for nothing. Almost worse still, is the realization that the masses can be silenced in a heartbeat by an occasional handful of pocket-change tossed back into the crowd, and all the atrocities that have been survived (by most, for now at least) are forgiven again and again.
On the upside and regarding the initial topic, my bees seem to be going gangbusters, and are healthy as a horse. I have gone totally organic. I have still an unopened package of apivar that I grabbed soon after getting my bees, as it was widely touted that varroa mites were inevitable, and best treated with that poison, so I grabbed some in case I needed it at least until I got my feet firmly planted. I check the hive weekly and so far haven't even seen a sniff of any kind of infestation. *knock on wood* As things look I'll be pushing my luck not doing a split until the spring as they are just going gang-busters. And, even if they do decide to swarm I have an extra hive set up right beside them, and a swarm trap a short distance away (and toward the water/pond) so likely won't lose the bees even if they do decide to acquire a bit more elbow space.
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Post by grey areas on Jul 11, 2018 23:57:59 GMT
oops.^ I meant "along the lines of disorientation" (Right above BIG)
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Post by Deleted on Jul 21, 2018 2:53:04 GMT
Well, I chickened out and split my hive into 2 hives on the weekend. (avoiding any risk of them swarming) The weather has went to hell in a hand-basket ever since. First it was hotter'n ... *bleep* for 2 days, followed by thunderstorms and torrential downpours for most of what followed.
I hafta say that even despite all the terrible weather it looks as though the new colony is gonna survive all the stress/grief. That's not to say that much death didn't accompany all the stress, but I looked in today after the thunderstorm and they seem a bit subdued, but doing their bee-thing as they should normally. (well, I actually helped them clean up the corpses inside the hive as the downpours were making bodies stick to stuff quite a bit, and I doubt they enjoy such tasks too much even in typical circumstances)
It even appears that the queen cell that I moved to the new hive with the split has hatched and she got her nookie supply, as things seem pretty in order for a fledgling hive. *knock on wood* A week or so from now and a good inspection should tell me what I need to know.
Interesting hobby, I must say.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 1, 2018 3:46:41 GMT
What's the report on the bees?
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Post by grey areas on Aug 2, 2018 0:14:48 GMT
ahhh, they're kinda being brats actually. Even after I did that split and made a second hive, they still swarmed a little more than a week following. I caught them in a swarm trap and relocated them into a full hive, whereupon they swarmed again. I did it again and they seem to have settled in contentedly now. The original hive swarmed again only a few days later. Those ones went up a tree, hence got away. Just the same, I have 3 pretty healthy hives now and am still considering one final split next weekend. Almost unheard of colony/s growth all the same so I really can't whine, even though it sucks when livestock escapes and can't be recovered. In the end I have many workers doing the bee thing now though, which was the reason for this undertaking in the first place.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 8, 2019 21:58:00 GMT
I finally got around to looting my rhubarb patches today. I should have began a couple weeks ago so there were a few stalks starting to get a little bit on the dry and stringy side, but once they're baked into a pie one can't tell the difference. I got nearly 2 gallons of cubes and will get that much again a couple times this year, easily.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 16, 2019 17:17:14 GMT
I started a new project a good week ago now, and that's growing my own mushrooms. The white ones at the supermarket are called Agaricus bisporus. The brown ones are the same species but called crimini, (which I began my spore prints from) and the change is just a bit more maturity. Even the big flat (and pricey) portabellas are just a still more mature specimen of the same Agaricus bisporus. After a good week of the spawn having been sown in used coffee grounds the mycelium looks like it is growing great gangbusters and will be ready to spread in some growing medium. I'll try using composted manure mixed with straw for a place to try growing my first crop in another couple weeks or so.
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