Horticulture

We were planning on heading to the in-laws' cabin this weekend, but my mother-in-law was not feeling well. The in-laws stayed in St. Paul, and we stayed in town. We headed to Duluth Farmer's Market and then to the Whole Foods Co-op. At DFM, we were gunning for fresh whitefish, but Lake Superior Fish Co only had smoked fish. We settled on the trout. As tempting as it was to buy beta grapes from Deb Shubat or the petunias and herbs from others, I am sticking to my "30 days without buying books, seeds or plants". We could have bought chocolate from Peace, Love & Chocolate, but decided it to head to pick up groceries at WFC.

Our neighbor had been wondering about the poles in the garden and why we were apparently making two small teepees; he asked if we were native.

The long and the short answers to that question are the same: no, we are not native. Both my wife and I heritages that hail from northern and north-central Europe - not native American.

We put a new vegetable garden in this year - eight feet by eight feet. It takes up a small section of the yard that the grass never really grew in and the hounds really were never encouraging to the grass that attempted to grow there. In this new garden, we are mainly growing vine-crops: pole beans, bush beans, and cucumbers; in the non-vine arena, there are red cabbage & parsnips and lavender for a border.

Around two months ago, I looked at the calendar and decided that I would take vacation from work for the week of May 17, 2010. As it turned out, I picked the best week, so far - this year, to take off. In the evenings, the temperature has been going to down into the 40s, and during the day, the high 70s. Few clouds, cool breeze - fantastic bee-friendly weather.

The weather has been somewhat chilly, and the wind has been up, too. The week started off with a relatively nice, crisp, slightly windy day. Over the weekend, my sister, Meg, a pharmacist in the Chicagoland area, was in Hibbing (our hometown), visiting our parents and grandmother. She was staying through Monday, and decided to pay us a visit. She has been telling her pharmacy technicians about our bees. We needed to check the bees, check their feed pails and clear out any bridge comb that they might have built.

All around, it was a nice day. Breezy, but nice. The bees were out and about with an ordered chaos of neurotic flights of toing and froing. Leaving the bees to do their thing, I set to work on getting a garden-to-be fenced off from the hounds. I would equate a hound's stalking of good-smells-in-the-ground to that of an anteater. The anteater, as seen in many a nature programs, will find a termite nest and then set to work on determined pursuit of its quarry. Hounds are likes that; except, we do not have termite mounds in Northern Minnesota.

It would appear another weekend has slipped by into the past. Much was accomplished this weekend. Saturday was cold and overcast, but we were out in the yard, none the less. The goal for the weekend was to get the Bee Corral built. It is less (and not intended to) keep the bees in place, but more to keep the hounds out of where the bees are to be. Located on the north side of our shed; morning sun, late-morning sun, and sun the rest of the day -- the bees should like the location.

Last year, about this time of year, I was busy planting various kinds of hops - in pots - in the kitchen. Mid-spring, I transplanted all of it out into various areas of the garden. The Fuggle, which originally showed signs of being sickly or weak, took off like a rocket. The Chinook was a 1/3 the length of the Fuggle and the Cascade never really made it beyond the four-feet-tall-mark.