News flash…it’s HOT. Is it August already? This weather is not very welcome at this point in the season. All the true summer crops are enjoying the heat, but it’s really not quite time for it to be this hot yet. There are still plenty of Spring vegetables that are developing, like broccoli, beets, carrots, more sugar snap peas, among others. Some of the crops have turned yellow (arugula, radishes & bok choi) and won’t recover, but most are still looking fine and may wind up coming to maturity sooner than we expected. We picked the last of the strawberries on Tuesday, there weren’t very many. This year was, by far, the best strawberry season we’ve had! Looking to the future, the blueberries are starting to ripen. We have a number of varieties of blueberries that ripen, on and off, from now until September.
We had our daughter, Ada’s school out to the farm on Thursday. Despite the hot weather we put them to work pulling garlic, planting melons, and doing some sowings in the greenhouse. They all got a chance to see and taste some of the diversity of vegetables that we grow.
One of our bee hives swarmed on Tuesday. This happens when the hive feels like it needs more room and the queen takes half the hive with her as she exits the “nest” in search of a new location. In this case a huge mass of bees landed on the grass not far from the original hive and we were able to catch the swarm and get them to go into a new hive body. They will have to be taken at least 3 miles away, into unfamiliar territory where they will settle into their new surroundings. This is a fairly common way for beekeepers to expand the number of hives they tend. Unfortunately this also means that the hive that was left behind is only at half strength and may not produce very much honey for the remainder of the season. Our neighbor and beekeeper, Dave came over to do the catching as we all looked on. Bees, while swarming are fairly docile, though one of our CSA working members who was out to help today, got a little too close and got stung on the face! Ouch!
Swarm entering new hive
Maggie getting ready to make bouquets