Every year around this time, a black beetle shows up on some weeds in our yard.  This portends the arrival of many more of its kind.  Our garden seems to be a favorite place to fill up their little stomachs and they don’t waste any time but get right to work – decimating an entire tomato plant in just a few days. This year I am determined that they will not get my 4 beautiful tomato plants so as soon as I saw the beetles had arrived I became proactive and covered my tomato plants with row cover.  Going out to the garden yesterday I found the little pests on my bean plants.  Not good.  Not good at…

Things are going to be a little different around here this summer.  You see, when we came back from Ohio we left our oldest son there to work for the summer (he’s done this for 3 summers now) and then Zachary, my second born, has went to Sierra Vista to work for the summer on the military base.  Gardening Help What do you do when you gardener leaves?  You get desperate and start learning how to garden yourself.  I’ve been reading a book called Small Plot, High Yield Gardening:  How to Grow Like a Pro, Save Money, and Eat Well by Turning Your Back (or Front or Side) Yard Into an…

Zachary has had his bees for a little over a month.  You can read about that here.  After your bees arrive you leave them alone for about a week and then you can start inspections to be sure the bees are doing well. Inspecting the Bee Hives First you need to get your smoker ready.  The smoke disorients the bees and therefore, they do not try to sting you.  We like that! Zachary has 2 hives about 15′ apart.  When he opened the first hive, he found that things weren’t progressing like they should.  You see, the bees cap each of the cells as the larva is deposited into them and almost…

A month ago we enlarged the chicken coop.  The chicks and the hens are quite happy with the set-up, having plenty of room to scratch around for poor hapless insects.  But there was one who would not be content and who became clever to the fact that she could fly out whenever she so pleased.  Life on this earth would not have had a happy ending for the little black hen if our dogs would have found her before I did on 3 separate occasions.  Clearly something had to be done.  That something was to clip the wing of the chicken. I enlisted my resident farm hand, Zachary, to assist me in the task.…