Notes From Zone 4

Frank still thinks I’m nuts, but I worked my tail off today putting in that new bed where the lilacs I planted aren’t going to make it. I think it is probably twenty feet long, and it entailed much digging up of sod and dirt, hauling of much crap, and generally hard, physical labor. I

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I started this year right in the front of the house. The hosta I’d gotten so cheaply from Walmart and potted up were doing so well that I wanted to get them into the ground. I think they could handle even a hard freeze if we get another one, so in they’ll go. I put

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Spring has sprung. It’s probably only temporary, and I know we’ll probably still get at least one more snow fall before spring is really truly here, but I don’t care. Today was absolutely beautiful, and we stayed outside as much as we could, getting a head start on the spring clean up, and getting quite

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Wow. Two hives times four deep bodies times ten frames each is 40 fullsize frames. They go together pretty quickly, and we’ve got the assembly line down pat, but man are there a lot of them. We aren’t thinking about the top super frames yet, because we won’t need them until much later in the year, if we even need them at all this year. From everything we read, we shouldn’t expect to get any honey at all this year. Frank rigged up a jig to help us make the frames, and it’s working really well. We are using a little brad stapler, bought just for this purpose. We tried it with a hammer and are really too spoiled by the nailers that we use for everything else. We figure if we’re going to keep bees, it’s worth the investment, because we’ll be making a lot of hivebody frames over the years.

With all the boxes in, I’m now not safe at garden centers. I have so much time! I should buy more, more, more! Actually, I’ve been pretty restrained, all things considered. I found some really cheap but healthy looking stuff at Walmart, and potted them up. In particular, a red scarlet clematis is now potted

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So we got the beehive wood in, and Frank started painting them. I wanted green grass color, and we picked one with that exact name. Does it look like green grass? No, it does not. Of course it doesn’t. Silly me. I still like it, though. We have two hive bodies, and are painting them both the same color. Who knows if we should do that or paint them different colors. The guy at the paint store said something like “can bees see green?” and I didn’t have a clue. I sure hope they can.

I can’t believe how many window boxes I got up and running. Most years, I can do twelve of them on a good day. It usually takes me a few hours, I do them four at a time, and after three rounds of four, I’m wiped out and ready to do something else. They are

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We got just a light dusting of snow, probably less than an inch. It was supposed to just rain. Surprise! We knew it would happen, and sure enough, the rain turned to snow overnight last night. Happy April. I am really done with winter, thanks. My sweet pea experiment seems to be working out okay, though. Frank tromped out there and took a couple of pictures, and the stone seems to be keeping the area just around them warm enough to not freeze the little guys. They’ve grown three inches already since I put them out just a few days ago.