Annoying the Bees

I'm hoping to plant sweet potato slips at the beginning of June. The beds are currently occupied. One is occupied by my baby Asian greens. The white stemmed bok choy was starting to bolt so I picked them all. The rest will be picked before the end of next week. But the big work was pulling down the huge mass of flowering kale. I left it as long as I did, not because I'm saving seed, but because I wanted to let the bees have them. They nicely left the ones I was working on until the last one. Then I had a swarm of bees trying to harvest while I was trying to take the plant out. They really didn't want to give up.

But now my cilantro is in full bloom. Well right now it is in full bow. The rain knocked it down. I have supports on both sides holding it up, but the string was put in way too low before the flower stalks were sent up. Once it dries off a bit, I'll help them back up.

I was going to just do half the chore as it was getting hot and muggy out. But I just did it. I put a foot of kale stems and flowers into the compost bin. I should have put some leaves between the green waste but wasn't really thinking. And I'm not hauling it out now, so hopefully the stems have enough carbon so it won't get smally. The bed was raked over and the sticks were put on to keep the cats from playing in the dirt. I'm not fond of their presents.

And speaking of compost. I've finally started dealing with my compost pile. We have a black plastic bin to hold the kitchen waste. It has hardware cloth on the bottom so the rodents can't get in. Normal garden waste just goes into the pallet compost pile. The kitchen bin hadn't been emptied since last fall. It gets smelly after a while since it doesn't get turned. It can happen because there is too much nitrogen (though we do add leaves when we add the kitchen waste) or like this time, it was too wet. So I turned it onto my pallet compost pile and mixed in some dry leaves. Everything smells much better now.

I didn't get out into the garden yesterday as it wouldn't quit raining, and when I finally got out this morning. I found the beans were all up. There were some gaps in the Masai green beans. So I reseeded a small section.

Sadly the corn is only up spottily. I planted 20 spots in corn (three seeds per spot to be thinned to the best plant), but only about nine were up and growing. So I reseeded that section.

And since it was time to plant the next section of corn I did that today too. I prepared one whole 4'x8' bed. The first five feet were planted in corn. Then the end was planted in Waltham butternut squash. The end of the other section of corn was planted in Tetsukabuto squash. I've never grown Tetsukabuto. It is a hybrid that needs a C. moschata pollinator. The Waltham is C. moschata. I really only grow them because that genus is resistant to the vine borer. It is the only way I've found to get ripe winter squash around here consistently. So the two plants are on either ends of a full 4'x16' bed. With two sections of corn in between. I'm hoping to let the squash wander below the corn.

I'm really looking forward to the pea crop this year. I have both snap peas and snow peas, but to be honest I only really love the snap peas. I'm not sure why I grow the snow peas at all anymore. Maybe next year I won't.

And the favas are blooming too. So much anticipation.