May Flowers?

Yesterday it rained, not a lot. But enough I can't be outside. I find I want to be in the garden all the time now, but haven't figured out how to convince the house chores to do themselves... For the growing season I do not predict me making the time to sit down and write this blog biweekly as I would like, I will endeavor to write monthly.

This month we rented a sod cutter, to make the strips for flowers. We cut 7 rows, ranging in size from 4ft to 10ft wide. I believe they are 70 something feet long? One row is exclusively for wildflowers. But the rest will be/are filled with everything from sunflowers to dahlias! The kids loved being involved in helping to remove the strips of sod! (They got to help roll them.) The Chickens also loved the process. Chris and I are neither in no rush to do it again, Ha, as we did most.... he did... of the heavy lifting!

Each row was then filled with composted dirt from the neighbor. Heard a guy I follow on YouTube say he would rather farm terrible dirt with good neighbors then great soil with bad neighbors. I couldn't agree more!

As soon compost was down, I started planting. I am test running a biodegradable plastic to help with weed suppression. I started with my snapdragons which had grown excessively in the grow room! I even snuck in a few warmer temperature plants and covered them with a protective cloth, hoping to get a jump on the season...then came the wind. I am not sure if the wind ever quit blowing in April! It destroyed the cover, but the plants hung on. Then came an unpredicted late frost May 3rd. Farming is nothing if not unpredictable. All of my plants seemed to have hung on but their growth was dramatically slowed down. Patience is not always one of my gifts! I am incredibly thankful my plants made it through!

This year I put in some tulips, mostly as a test run to see how they would grow and how I would do. I was able to sell a couple bouquets (You Ladies rock Thank you!!) I definitely am hooked and hope to fill an entire row with tulips this fall to have large quantity of bouquets for next year! I also put in a bunch of daffodils, most being doubles, seriously I'm a sucker for anything double!

We lost all of our hives of bees last year, sadly. This year we again had to start from scratch. I ordered 2 packages of bees from Crooked Hill Beekeeping in Chillicothe, MO. and 2 Nucs from Lyons Bees, in Easton, MO. A package is roughly 10,000 bees mixed with a queen from a different location. You then attach the queen to a frame in a little cage, that she comes in, and quite literally dump all the rest of the bees in on top of your frames! Two days later you get into the hive and release the queen. This allows the bees to get used to the queen and hopefully accept her. If they don't they will kill her. Thankfully ours took off great and at the 2-week check-in I could see lots of capped baby bees.

A Nuc is a bit different its more like its own tiny hive. Made up of 5 frames that have honey and Babies, a queen that's adapted to the bees, and all the stages of worker bees. I have yet to find anyone local selling Nucs for my deep, Layens Hives. Because of this the package bees I put into the deep hive and the Nucs go into my Long Langstroth. I currently am in the works of getting a second Layens hive but one of the neat things about them is I was able to install both packages into one hive for now and then will be able to transfer them to the new hive once it arrives. All of the hives recieved new coats of paint and the kids helped decorate them, makes me smile every time I see them! One of the cool things about bees is that they are actually able to recognize the look of their hive, so each was painted differently.

Before

After

Packages of Bees

Bee and Pollen

The Large Garden is about 3/4 of the way planted with its first crops, as well as all 4 raised beds. The seeds for Buffalo Seed CO are also all in. I love checking on the progress! I am cautiously optimistic that we will have a great growing season!

I am currently preparing for my first Farmers Market in Albany, Missouri on Thursday evening. It is the scary part for me. All the doubts jump in my head. I know that I am capable of growing great produce and flowers, but convincing people to buy them, and hoping they love them as much as I do, and alternatively having enough products to meet demand... We are going to try to do two markets a week this year, one in Albany and the other in Maryville, Saturday mornings.

We began the process of making trellis for the grapes and Raspberries. It was a family affair! They need the wire stretched and are finished! I am seeing blooms on the Raspberries and tiny clusters of Grapes on their vines!

I will leave you with some of the beautiuful sunsets we have already had this year. I look forward to updating you in June, Hopefully flooding you with pictures of beautiful produce and flowers!