Archive for December, 2008

Squash Plants

December 23rd, 2008

Summer Squash

Rows of summer squash.

Winter Squash

Red Kuri winter squash.

Well we did manage to grow summer squash.   The winter squash grew but we never did get a successful harvest.  The plans for a watering system never worked out all summer.  The hole I dug to try the sandpoint system became the local watering spot for the bees and I never did get back in there to finish the job (I jumped in one day to work on it without looking and about 30 bees flew up and out of the hole, after that I left it for them).  I would haul water from the local well into the storage tank when I could, but that wasn’t really a sufficient amount of water for the garden.

The summer squash were harvested for several weeks and gave us an opportunity to sell them at the farmers market.

The Eggplant

December 16th, 2008

The Eggplant

We started eggplants sometime in the early spring and then transplanted them out to the garden.  With a little luck we actually managed to grow and harvest a few.  We will try a few again next year but generally our climate in not very favourable for eggplant growth.  It is fun to try though and they are a novelty at the farmers market.

Extracting Honey

December 13th, 2008

Extracting Honey

This was me extracting honey from the frames.  Space in the garage over the summer was limited but I did manage to get a corner to setup the 10 frame extractor.  We had a horrible year for wasps.  The first day of extracting was ok but the next day the wasps found everything and were all over.  I’d rather have a swarm of honey bees then the wasps.  I managed to move around slowly enough and never took a hit even though they’d be tapping my back every once in a while.  The extracting was easy in the heat of the summer but the fall honey didn’t flow (and we don’t have a hot house for the honey) so I didn’t finish filtering it all.  Right now what I didn’t finish is sitting in two large storage containers only course filtered and completely solid.  Next summer I’ll try and warm it up and finish filtering the honey.