garden work

this is a row of tomatoes desperately in need of weeding and mulching.


this is the walkway between the tomato rows. this year we are using feed sacks as a weed barrier. i tore them open and the kids helped soak them in water. they stick to the ground better when wet.


here is a double row of tomatoes just after tabitha hoed it.


this is the walkway partially covered in mulch to weight it down. in previous years we have used wheat straw. our source for wheat straw has most of his fields underwater. buying it from other sources would break us.


this is a new experiment. a fellow blogger, i won't drop any names, uses aged sawdust for his human manure project. i plan to copy ron's composting toilet--oops sorry ron. anyway, i went to get the saw dust and decided that it would make a good replacement mulch. i loaded my truck myself with a silage fork. i mounded it up and my little truck thought nothing of it. doing it by hand afforded me the luxury of picking out all huge chunks of bark. this row is basically a truck load. it seems we'll need two more to finish the tomatoes.


our beets are really starting to make.


we also harvested the garlic. we love garlic. this is a rows worth. it won't last through the canning season.


here is the row that it came from. there were some bare spots and tabitha transplanted the chard from the hotbed/cold-frame. it has gone to seed and we'll save some for next planting.


kassi flitting around demanded to be photographed.


this is the "crazy hive." the bees are incredibly busy. they spend a considerable amount of time hanging around on their front porch. i have to get another super on them before this weekend. we have been using hive bodies for everything. we need to be standardized and this is what we started with.

the double swarm hive is almost completely built out both of it's hive bodies. tabitha has laid claim to as "her hive." we are having trouble referring to them without elaborate descriptions. i thought we should name them after cities but the idea never stuck.

here is the oldest batch of broiler chickens. don't they look tasty? they think i might have a treat of whey, milk, clabbor or farina. not yet fellas.