Well , here we are in mid-May , and it ain't so bad . We had like 3
frosts just a couple of days apart in mid/late April , and it looked bad
for a while . It got all the buds on many of our oak trees , my new
grape vines and the wild muscadines , and some tomato seedlings that I
had on the deck (enclosed area) . So it goes , the grapes have new
leaves , I lost a couple of 'mater plants , and the Rose of Sharon on
the deck (open area) lost her buds .
That's all history and things have turned around and we're going
gangbusters here now . We have 19 tomato seedlings doing well , the
green beans (blue lake pole variety on a 5 foot tall trellis) are a
couple of inches tall . The cuke and zuke and acorn squash hills all
have seedlings now , and the salad greens I planted a few days ago are
coming up . In an effort to avoid early blight I have covered the ground
under the tomato cages with cardboard . Just a hole in the center for
the plant . The goal is to stop soil splashing on the leaves since the
blight is a soil-borne fungus . As soon as they're taller I'll be doing
the same to the beans , as much to help with weed control as anything .
Any space that isn't covered by cardboard will be mulched with straw for
both weed control and to help conserve moisture . I haven't decided how
to do the vine crops , I might try using some of these empty dog food
bags as a sterile mulch for weed control . Straw hasn't worked out very
well for me for that .

Bee update - We're back to 8 hives now , but it looks good for all of
them to survive . One of the caught swarms decided to leave , and one
weak hive dwindled away to nothing . Of the 8 , 6 are doing very well by
*outward appearances , the other 2 were caught swarms and will take some
time to build populations . I'm looking for those clouds of bees that
buzz around the hive on "orientation" flights as that means they are
building up the population . I'm very very happy with the way things are
going out in the apiary this year .
*I'm a very hands-off beekeeper , I figure they've been doing it
longer than I have and know what to do without me in there messin'
things up . I will go into the hives about once a month or so to be sure
they're not doing something crazy like running comb crosswise and to
check for brood but that's about it until this fall when I'll be
stealing their honey .
--
Snag
Yes , I'm old
and crotchety - and armed .
Get outta my woods !