More From The Garden

I am loving watering the garden every day. It is bursting forth with good things.

The first pea harvest:

The first green bean harvest:

And the "I don't think these carrots were quite ready yet" harvest:

Bee Box or The Project That Never Was

Some time around February or March a friend suggested we make bee boxes. (The point of a bee box is to make a place where mason bees can lay eggs in hopes of the bees pollinating your flowers). Ever since I've been trying to explain to people why there's a chunk of wood on my kitchen table.

"So... what's that...?"
"Oh... that's my bee box..."
"A bee box...?"
"Yeah... um... well... it's not really finished... what happened was..."

And it's too late in the season, so it probably never will be. But... our intentions were good. This is the story of the Bee Box or The Project That Never Was.

So way back in March a friend proposed the idea of making bee boxes. We didn't exactly have the right tools or materials, but a little improvisation never hurt anymore. No block of wood? No problem, found one on the side of the road. No saw? No problem, we'll work our muscles with a hatchet.

We started out drilling holes around the wood Taune found on the side of the road. It was fairly difficult because the wood was still wet inside.

Next we hacked and hacked and hacked to split the wood into two usable pieces.

Then we had to wait several weeks (probably closer to 2 months) with the wood propped up against the heat register to dry it out. Shortly thereafter we began to drill the holes that the bees live in...except... the drill battery died... and so did the project.

So now I have a chunk of wood with a few holes drilled into it sitting on my kitchen table that never fails as a conversation starter.

Garden Update

So I came back from Peru (you can see photos here) to find that my garden had exploded while I was gone. Very exciting... except for the peas and green beans that I had not staked appropriately before leaving.

I really wasn't expecting the peas to grow 4 feet! That's more than a foot a week! Since I hadn't staked them properly they were growing all over the ground and tangling up on each other. I sorted it the best I could. (These were left over peas that didn't fit with the others that have a climbing net... that's why they are in a pot.)

My first harvest was this romaine lettuce. It was very crisp and just lovely. We made it into a salad after washing it very thoroughly... little bugs up in there!

With the salad we had Potato Corn Chowder in soup form (I didn't feel like washing the blender). It is a favorite soup to make and is great with summer corn.

It has been fun to come home and cook with all the fresh fruit and vegetables from the garden and the farmer's makert. Ah, the best part of summer.