Monday, June 1, 2009

The Birds and the Bees

.

We got most everything done on our list last week, but for spraying, again. That will be this morning. Coming back up from picking cherries I chanced upon a VERY busy bumblebee and spent several minutes trying desperately to get him in focus before he zipped off. However, he barely stayed in one spot longer than 2 or 3 seconds, so I was sorely disappointed.





And we found a nest in the kiwi arbor of robins' eggs. I looked at a chart one time of how long it takes bird eggs to hatch and leave the nest. I was amazed. Some are out of the nest in only 3 days! I just tried to find the link but was unable to.





Cherry picking was fun. These are only bush cherries. They are like a mild sour cherry. They did not ripen all at once, so we are going to go pick more today. We also got rained out and had to hide under the bushes for a while, picking the inside.





















Here is the fungus that gets the cherries; Brown Rot. I had to rip out all the sand cherries I had put in years ago. They were so susceptible to brown rot that the entire bushes were a pile of mold. These are not so bad. We just lose a small percentage.





The grapes we will not be able to eat this year, due to spraying. But they sure LOOK great! LOL





The van before:





And getting clean. The car was almost unrecognizable afterwards. LOL





And the exterior windows sure look a lot better! They were pretty gross.





The potatoes are out of control! I've not been getting boards up, and the straw is barely hanging on. One of them has started to flower. I think the rest of the potatoes will go in the ground. I just need a bigger garden plot.





I like to keep my salad fixings all made up. We came up and put together salads worthy of the finest restaurants!









The asparagus forest. You can't see the forest for the spears?









If you've never smelled fig leaves, they are so uniquely scented. I visited my folks and their fig tree yesterday. It too had not fared well this winter. Just one of those years...





Laying out the string to mark where the new locations for the posts on the greenhouse will be.





I am really not looking forward to digging those out and moving them. One of those chores that I'll have to force myself to do.

Oh, yes. Our list for today:

DONE - Finish mowing goat pen
DONE - Mow around compost bins
DONE - One hour work on rocks
DONE - Pick more cherries
DONE - Pick more peas
DONE - Pick more strawberries
DONE - Pinch runners
DONE - Clean off patio
DONE - Put away sprouting stuff
DONE - Water lettuce
DONE - Plant more lettuce
DONE - Cover lettuce box with wire
- Re-pot houseplants
DONE - Prune/Tie grapes
DONE - Spray grapes
DONE - Tie up blackberries
DONE - Spray fence lines


~Faith

.

4 comments:

  1. Awesome pics Faith!

    WHat exactly are those cherries...gotta get me some.

    I'm glad your list is getting smaller. It seems mine is at a standstill outside. But I did get the whole house done this week...minus a few nooks that I will get to todat.:0)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hey there!

    I believe these bush cherries are the Nanking. Don't need to spray them really, but they should be in a warmer spot to avoid surprise spring frosts. :)

    Boy, oh, boy, would I love to have my whole house clean! I can't wait to do a complete spring cleaning, but it will likely wait until summer.

    ~Faith

    ReplyDelete
  3. Faith, I didn't realize you have to put boxes around your potatoes. I just put hay over ours, right after they started coming up out of the ground. Out of the 8 plants, two of them continue to grow. Is the process to continuely keep them covered by hay, hence the boxes? Makes sense, and looks like the only way to contain the hay. How big are your boxes?

    Speaking of hay, do you compost yours? You can see a picture of my compost bin on my blog, I just moved it and added a bunch of hay to the bottom in hopes it would expedite decomposition by putting the original compost on top.

    R Dean

    ReplyDelete
  4. Dean,

    Just found this.

    No you don't have to have boxes. It was an experiment of yet another way you can grow them.

    It did not turn out well for me. Not sure If I'll try it that way again and refine it, or just grow them in the ground. The goal was to grow vertically and save space.

    These were 2 by 2 feet and went up to 4 feet high.

    You are right. If you flip your compost pile, it will work faster. More oxygen will get to parts that were covered before.

    I have not had the time to forage for compost materials. I can't believe how busy we've been. I hope to be much more organized next year so we can be more on top of things. Whew!

    ~Faith

    ReplyDelete

I always enjoy hearing from others. If you become a regular commenter, I'll assume you are being friendly and pretty much comment regularly right back. :o) God bless and have a terrific day!