Down on the Farm

Garlic up

The garlic we planted last fall has come up. Mmmm, garlic.

Soil's ready for plowing

Actually, this photo was taken earlier this week. Since then we've plowed some and planted some potatoes. It's raining now, and it is supposed continue for a few days.

Bees are gathering pollen

Waverly and I watched the bees flying in and out of their hive yesterday, and a lot of the ones flying in were carrying pollen on their legs!! It made me very happy, because pollen is food for bees and their brood, and, after a northern Vermont winter, these bees are hungry!! I think they are getting the pollen from trees, but I am not sure how or where. You can see that one some bees the pollen looks red and some it looks yellow. So they must have more than one source for it.

I don't see any pollen on the bee in the photo below, but I like seeing the bee in mid flight. Coming in for a landing at the hive, actually.

Heating up

The weather has been beautiful lately. But the warmth means that we have had to put the roll-up sides on the greenhouse in order to lower the temperature on sunny days. When we put the plastic on the house back in February, there was no need to vent the sides, so we just battened down the plastic to the baseboards. But now with the warmer days and stronger sun, we need to reduce the daytime solar heating in the house, so the lower parts of the side walls roll-up.

Basically, the roll-up sides are just pipe laid alongside the house and attached to the bottom of the plastic. Then we roll it up using a handle, secure the handle, and presto, instant ventilation. Ahhh, just like a cool summer breeze.

Planting out peppers

We planted out peppers into the greenhouse today with Ethan, Emma and Dana. And another wave of tomatoes. The first wave of tomatoes are just starting to flower.

Which reminds me of other very exciting news. The bees are flying!! It was a warm day and they were flying like crazy. Very wonderful to see. Peter said he even saw a few in the greenhouse, so maybe they will figure out that is a good source for early flowers.