Weekend at the Farm May 10 - 12, 2013

This is a Parrot Gladiola bloom.  This gladiola variety is an old fashioned one - a classic passalong plant.  It spreads like crazy.  Love the bright colors!

• Took Friday off and went to Burton.  Friday was rainy - great news.  Saturday evening a storm moved in.  My husband and I sat on the porch and watched a terrific thunder and lightening show.    Very dramatic.  
• Friday I spent a long time pulling up dead poppy plants.  Early spring flowers are finishing up.  The pink poppies are long gone and the seed heads have dried.  The red poppies are on the wane.  And the Ox Eye daisies are still pretty, but beginning to flop over and go to seed.  The once blooming roses and the columbine are finished blooming.  It was very pretty.  Now the tuber vervain, larkspur, crinums, feverfew, and ever blooming roses will take over.
• I sprayed the roses, still fighting the powdery mildew.
• Pulled up armloads of mint in the kitchen herb garden.  It was crowding out my favorite marjoram plants.  Mint is such a gorilla.
• Spent time in the Orchard cleaning up a bit.  My husband cut away all the dead wood on the Red Baron Peach.  I weeded, cut away plants that had flopped over in the paths, and pulled up the pink poppy plants.  It's all very unruly looking in the Orchard right now, but I want the flowers to go to seed before I pull anything up.
• Fertilized in the Vegetable Garden.  Dug up lots of red potatoes.  Cooked some for dinner on Saturday night.  Picked lots of green beans, brought a gallon baggy of green beans to my daughter on Sunday when we went to her house for Mother's Day.  Had some salad greens from the garden on Friday and Saturday night.  Really yummy.
• My neighbor, Ray, and I put on our bees suits and checked on my bees.  He says that his hives and the hives of all the bee keepers in the area aren't doing too well due to a spring dearth.  They are eating the excess honey.  But my hive looks pretty good, a lot of honey in the lower box.  The top box has some comb, but no honey.  I'll definitely be harvesting honey in June.  I fed them once, I might feed them one more time, but I might not bother.
• Moved a slavia greggii that had rooted off a branch that I layered.  This is something I do a lot:  I take advantage of all the seedlings that spring up.  I'm constantly digging up plants and moving them to other spots.  That's how I expand my gardens.