What did you do in the garden today?

[WthrLady]

I'm sitting here waiting on a delivery.
It's noon and I've been working since pre-dawn.
I forgot to soak my peas last night, which is fine as I ended up letting the girls rip up the garden while I cleaned the herb beds and planted potatoes. I'll soak peas tonight, and plant them tomorrow.
SO MANY baby wild strawberries! Incredible, they're EVERYWHERE.
I trimmed back the bits of the grapevines that will poke me in the eye later, but left the rest alone so I'll get fruit.
The rest of the morning was a WHOLE LOT of other little things that needed done.
I really need to get to the post office today, but that delivery might ruin that plan.
It's nice to see little bird faces poking out of all the nest boxes around the place today, singing their little hearts out.
The sound of crews trimming trees and setting new electric poles continues.

 

[gtaus]

I plan exactly that, to screw 4 ( or 6) pallets together, I got 2 hips replaced and am not good at bending anymore, that is why I started this project

Oh, I completely understand. It's great that you are adapting your raised beds to meet your current needs. I think using full pallets, for someone in your condition with hip replacements, is exactly the right choice.

Again, I would encourage you to post your (full) pallet wood raised bed build and pictures on the Show Me Your Pallet Projects! to share with others. I have posted my pallet wood raised bed build that is 16-inches high, but I am sure people would love to see how you put together a full height pallet wood raised bed.

I would also encourage you to copy and paste any post to the Gardening for Old Folks (Adaptative) thread started by @CapricornFarm. I have built a few pallet projects that were accessible to people in wheelchairs and shared them on that thread as well as the Show Me Your Pallet Projects! thread. Different people may follow the various threads, so I think it's good to cross post some info where more people get a chance to see it.

In any case, I hope the full height pallet wood raised bed will work out for you.

The strap was the idea of my friend, he is a truck driver and knows I have to secure the cargo

That is a great idea. I don't have my old Ford Explorer running right now - it's in winter storage - but I will be checking to see if it has some tie down strap connections. I have lots of those straps, so I just need a place to lock them in. Looks much safer than just piling the pallets in the back all free and loose to become a missle hazard if you have to stop suddenly.

 

[gtaus]

My pepper plants seem to like being in the bigger pots, in spite of me ripping off all the roots that were spiraling around the smaller pots. They're turning darker green and the new shoots at the leaf junctions are growing fast.

Those plants look wonderful. I will be starting my plants in the house in a week, or two, for planting around the first of June here in zone 3B. If I get my plants out too early, I risk frost bite killing the young plants.

Just wanted to mention that I switched over to using net pots/cups for my plant starts a few years ago...

The big advantage to those net pots/cups is that the roots will air prune instead of spiraling around in a "normal" solid wall starter pot. The plants grow new, additional roots when one gets air pruned. This makes the root system stronger and I have had no problems when it comes to transplanting my peppers and tomatoes after 8 weeks in the net cups.

I use the 3-inch net pots, but you can get larger and smaller pots. I have grown my pepper and tomato plants in the 3-inch net pots for 8 weeks without having to up-pot.

I mention this because I used to have some problems removing plants with the roots all spiraled around in the solid walled pots. The net cups with the slits eliminated that problem for me.

 

[pennyJo1960]

Headed up to get more plants started.

 

[TJAnonymous]

Got compost put down in the new asparagus beds... Nearly put the Kei Truck in the pond in the process... It's a manual transmission and I failed to appreciate how elevated the ground is between the asparagus beds and the pond. As I tried to back up to the beds, I just kept rolling closer to the pond. Finally managed to figure out a solution and get it done.

One of my duck hens has decided to be sneaky. She's an Ancona-Runner cross and lays a distinctive blue egg. She's the only duck I have who lays blue eggs. Anyway she hasn't laid an egg in the coop in nearly a month. All the other ducks lay their eggs in the coop. This morning I noticed her hunkered down in the wood pile by the house. They all frequently look for bugs in there so I didn't think much about it except she seemed very intent on watching me and waiting to see if I was going to come over there. I ignored her because I was busy. Later I decided to go look at the spot she was hiding.... Sure enough, there's a blue egg laid there. So I'm guessing that she is laying them around the pond or in other random places instead of in the coop.

 

[Molpet]

Got compost put down in the new asparagus beds... Nearly put the Kei Truck in the pond in the process... It's a manual transmission and I failed to appreciate how elevated the ground is between the asparagus beds and the pond. As I tried to back up to the beds, I just kept rolling closer to the pond. Finally managed to figure out a solution and get it done.

One of my duck hens has decided to be sneaky. She's some type of runner cross and lays a distinctive blue egg. She's the only duck I have who lays blue eggs. Anyway she hasn't laid an egg in the coop in nearly a month. All the other ducks lay their eggs in the coop. This morning I noticed her hunkered down in the wood pile by the house. They all frequently look for bugs in there so I didn't think much about it except she seemed very intent on watching me and waiting to see if I was going to come over there. I ignored her because I was busy. Later I decided to go look at the spot she was hiding.... Sure enough, there's a blue egg laid there. So I'm guessing that she is laying them around the pond or in other random places instead of in the coop.

Glad you didn't get a bath

Coyote, Racoons and opossum have been eating good

 

[akroberts1085]

Went to evaluate the best place to put the ducklings. I then decided to check out the potato bed and tons of potato sprouts.

 

[hnorth]

So, after work today I went through the stack of bee boxes that the big swarm migrated into. As I said it was a rather large swarm- perhaps the size of a snow shovel and then some. They fully occupy two deeps and a medium. There was a frame missing in the top box and the bees had already drawn fresh comb to fill the empty space.

Shame to have to pull that nice white comb out of there. but as a consolation, I replaced the missing frame with a empty drawn, dark brown frame. I wanted to confine them to two deep hive boxes. So I had to remove all the bees from the medium box. Not a nice task. The bees, of course do not understand that I was trying to help them- and naturally they were defensive about my interfering...

I worked gently but quickly to minimize the time that the new hive was open. Luckily, it was a warm, sunny afternoon. I put a quart jar of 1:1 sugar water on top. by the by, I worked without a smoker in an effort to not spook them into absconding. But where they made their new home was merely a roughly stacked column of old boxes- so it had to be done. Now, with 10 days of heavy rain predicted the bees will be left alone to do their work.

 

[WthrLady]

So, after work today I went through the stack of bee boxes that the big swarm migrated into. As I said it was a rather large swarm- perhaps the size of a snow shovel and then some. They fully occupy two deeps and a medium. There was a frame missing in the top box and the bees had already drawn fresh comb to fill the empty space.

Shame to have to pull that nice white comb out of there. but as a consolation, I replaced the missing frame with a drawn, dark brown frame. I wanted to confine them to two deep hive boxes. So I had to remove all the bees from the medium box. The bees, of course do not understand that I was trying to help them- and naturally they were defensive about my interfering. Not gonna lie- they were pissed off.

I worked gently but quickly to minimize the time that the new hive was open. Luckily, it was a warm, sunny afternoon. I put a quart jar of 1:1 sugar water on top. by the by, I worked without a smoker in an effort to not spook them into absconding. But where they made their new home was merely a roughly stacked column of old boxes- so it had to be done. Now, with 10 days of heavy rain predicted the bees will be left alone to do their work.

Free bees!

 

[hnorth]

How many hives do you have? We have a bee thread, so stop there and say hello too.
https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/the-honey-factory.1358454/page-340

In theory, I have 30. But due to a window of warm weather and a willow and wild plum nectar flow, I was forced, to prevent excessive swarming in confined hive boxes- to make make many nucs. so counting those, about 60. Ultimately, I will scale back to around 30 or less.