I can feel it from here! At last -- warm weather! Now it's about 85 degrees. Gone are all gloves, scarves, and even long pants. What's the farm's status on this lovely May day? Four baby chicks are a week and a half old.
It's hard to get photos of babies when there are two mamas and a fierce daddy standing right there! Adam was called yesterday to come retrieve a swarm hive of bees that had settled in a shopping cart at the Food Lion grocery store. So he did.
He used this portable nuc box. It's fitted out with frames inside, and is a perfect box for a swarm hive to start in. The bees stayed overnight ... but sadly this morning they'd decided to move on. Bees will do what they like. In addition to mowing and watering and weeding and many other tasks, Adam continues clearing the border to the west of the house.
He's leaving the large pine trees. There's a slender little tree in the photo, (just above the word "slender") that we wanted to identify. Here's its leaf.
It's a Washington Hawthorn with impressive spikes. Now that it's free of strangling vines and has sun on its face, perhaps it will have bright red berries and pretty white flowers as it's supposed to. My hostas are looking grand.
Both elephant ears and amaryllis are happy too.
From the greenhouse: Tomato plants are going into the beds. All are Matt's Wild Cherry this year. We like them best.
I have a dozen of these to sell at the market tomorrow, plus a dozen cucumber plants, three loofah plants, and nine basil plants. There's wedding planning in the garden too! How so, you ask? I'm growing gypsophila, also known as "Baby's Breath." You can't have too much Baby's Breath at a wedding.
I've since weeded that bed more, once I was able to identify said flower. I sewed the seeds not knowing what it would look like.
Next to it I sewed a small bed of chamomile. It's the ferny-looking stuff.
Here's a close-up. It's for making tea.
Everything's growing this time of year. So far, it seems only our lemongrass and most of my lantana died over the winter. I'm still holding out for the lantana though. Oh -- if you missed my most recent Herb Beds Tour (I know -- Oh, the excitement!), here it is:
