If you want to increase your success rate, double your failure rate.

Sunday, May 17, 2020

Updates on...well everything!

Hey there fellow bloggers.

I've been a little busy now that I'm back at work but I still have been hard at work here at home.

Had a little trouble in the garden with our third winter this spring and had to do some replants but all is well now.

Still waiting on the bees to arrive and with the weather we have had it is actually for the better.  Shooting for first week of June.  Stay tuned.

Besides work it has been:

Gardening
    Re-plant almost the entire garden

Building bee hive boxes
    Built 4 new boxes and even put my own custom brand on them

Painting old bee hive boxes
    After the original paint job I decided to spruce it up with some happy bees and flowers

Hanging out with Corabella
    We successfully flew a kite overnight.  LOL

Mowing
    So much rain = so much mow

Installed a rain barrel that fills off the woodshed gutter
    Added bonus for quick watering details

Today I planted 4 flats of flowers and put them in the greenhouse to plant end of June
    $60 worth of flowers for about $10

Below you will find a few links so grab some popcorn and have a view!

Thank
-Bushman
(Formally known as the 'Quarantine Gardener) lol


Planting the garden and installing drip irrigation


Planting flowers in the garden









Monday, April 27, 2020

Sunshine Sunday

Hey there, how ya doing?

Welcome to another installment of Bushman shares his boredom.
Just in case you didn't have enough boredom of your own I can share some of mine.

Last post we watched as I walked around and acted like I knew something about something and guess what?   Here is some more of that!  LOL

Today marks the official yet unofficial last week of my lockdown.  I have orders to return to work in one week.  Our Governor has extended the lock down yet another two weeks and I for one mostly believe it is to cover her own butt because I still believe that most of this was unneeded.
I won't get into details nor will I go all political on this blog but I'll leave it as is...unsettling.

I spent a big portion of my time cleaning up bee hives and frames this weekend.  It was fun and definitely out of the ordinary which made it even more enjoyable.
I scraped propolis and old wax off of all the frames.  Pulled the plastic foundations out of them and cleaned all the grooves and then fired them with a torch to essentially sanitize them of any hidden bugs I may not have seen with my naked eye.  Better safe than sorry.
It took a long time and a ton of scraping but I wanted to start with a clean slate.

I have ordered fresh beeswax to re-coat the frames and they should be ready to go as soon as the supplies arrive.

There are a few areas in the lawn that have been re-seeded.  One was the last remnants of my old wood stack.  I finally got that all cleaned up and put down some grass seed and straw.
The other was an elm tree that was dead at the top and was unsightly so I cut that down and seeded the old mulch area under it.

The apiary is all set for the bees to arrive.  I needed to make sure I finished that as any work after the new tenants arrive would most likely irritate them enough to sting me as I would have to be right next to the hive working.

If all the seed germinates that I put in around the apiary it is going to be spectacular!

Morning glories, Nasturtium, Four O' Clocks, Sunflowers, Purple Coneflower,
Candytuft, Siberian Wallflower, Zinnias, Single China Aster, Cosmos, Sweet Williams Pinks, Coreopsis, Sweet Basil, Larkspur, Corn Poppy, Blanketflower, Lacy Phacelia.

I am hoping that some of these perennials like the coneflower, coreopsis and blanketflower will do well enough that maybe next year I can divide them up and spread them throughout some of my other planting beds.

I lost my beautiful Moonbeam Coreopsis last season because a Trumpet Vine had invaded it and the only way to eliminate the vine was to spray roundup all over everything.  :(

10 day forecast looks promising for getting the plants in the garden  I'm dragging my feet as much as I can but my tomatoes are getting huge.

Ok enough for now.  Below is a link to the video I took last night.  Enjoy and I'll see you soon!

Sunshine Sunday