[gardeners] In the garden - Wednesday
George Shirley (gardeners@globalgarden.com)
Wed, 27 Oct 1999 10:25:51 -0500
Got up before daylight and got ready to go out and work for bux. Foggy
as the dickens so carefully drove to 3 different clients shops and then
back home by 1000. Still somewhat misty, pretty cool temps (60's?) but
the sun was breaking through the fog so took a stroll around the
gardens. Picked a few ripe chiles for the hot sauce crock, pulled a
yellow eyed bean for snacking and shared it with Sleepy Dawg, and then
decided to take a look at the flowers. Nearly every flower had a mason
or orchard bee hanging in it snoozing. Pretty neat, looked like little
yellow and black striped fuzzies snoozing on a pillow. Once the sun is
fully out the girls will go back to work pollinating. Reckon I'm gonna
have to make some more nest blocks for them as the ones I had out are
full already. There are some dead limbs way up high in the oak trees and
I suspect many of them are drilling nests in those.
Since we don't see many honey bees around anymore I encourage the mason
and orchard bees by providing nest blocks for them and we have a lot of
them pollinating things around here on a regular basis. The winter crops
are doing well and the lemons and kumquats are getting closer to picking
every day. Would dearly love to have a couple of apple trees but have no
space left for them. If the mayhaw trees don't bear next year they're
gonna be yanked out and apples planted in their place. I warned them
this spring that this might be their last year but to no avail. Might
try whipping them with a chain. My FIL advocated this method when fruit
trees would quit bearing. Said you could beat them with a board or a
chain and they would set fruit one more time. I just don't think I could
do that after babying these things for 9 years. Oh well, apples may do
better.
Gotta go now, a friend is having an emergency, needs help picking his
chiles, so reckon I'll go help him. He gets upset if I eat too many of
them while I'm picking though. ;-)
Happy gardening.
George