Jam Packed Weide Weekend!

Gruene Weide Garden in June

We start today's blog entry with a garden lead-in photo. This year's garden, both at home and on Die Manchmal Gruene Weide, grows astonishingly well. Although the rain we've had this spring has been below normal, the rain we have received has fallen over a consistent span of time. Add to that the fact we've had a cooler spring than normal and the result is verdant gardens.

From Die Weide we've already harvested at least five pounds of the most tender delicious green beans I've ever eaten in my life and the bean bushes are still producing. Today Inge plucked the first tomato from one of the six heirloom plants (there are also three hybrids tomato plants too.) Today we spotted tiny cucumbers growing on our bush pickling cucumbers plants. Last week Inge mentioned eating salt brined pickles her mother made in an earthenware crock so I looked up a recipe which we will try when we pick a batch of pickling cucumbers.

I rented the compressor for my brother and I to drill on the water well again this weekend. The drill rate varied from slow sections of 4 inches per hour to two hours with greater than a foot per hour. We ended up drilling about 8 feet over the two days and now the well is one inch shy of 40 foot deep. The video below shows us dropping the drill rig down the bore hole when we started drilling Saturday. The first time down the hole, you could see where the tape snagged the ladder. but we moved the picnic table closer to the ladder which gave better support and prevented that annoying issue from occurring again.


Kenny and I take turns tending the bit and while he tends the bit I knock out things that need doing. Normally, when Inge and I visit Die Weide, we're only there long enough to water everything and perhaps knock out one item from the never ending to-do list. However, camping out over the course of the two days provides a lot more time to get things done so I accomplished the following tasks while off the bit. (sounds like a horse term...)

• Peened (sharpened with hammer) the sythe blade. (Future article and video topic!)
• Doubled size of compost heap using scrounged pallets, rebar, and wire.
• Emptied several bags of oak leaves and grass clippings (from the house) into the new compost compartment.
• Cut garden border and paths with sythe, raked and tossed clippings onto compost heap and turned in the new material with the old.
• Dug 3 ft diameter, 3 ft deep hole for future outhouse.
• Braced posts for blackberry and raspberry trellis.
• Strung, tightened, and tied off the blackberry and raspberry trellis support wires.
• Repaired the fence where Herbie the donkey found a way to sneak into the garden!
• Performed first bee hive inspection for which there is a video and paragraph below.

Pollen Around Single Bee Entry

Sunday Inge drove out to join me in our first bee inspection as my brother is allergic to bee stings and wanted to keep his distance. I had fired up the smoker earlier in the day but every time it lit up, it promptly went out. I need to find out how to get the smoker to stay lit more than a minute or two.

Inge and I brought the supplies (smoker, long-sleeve shirt, gloves, bee brush, and hive tool) to the hive, including a new jar of sugar syrup. We removed the cover, then I opened up the unoccupied back of the hive to remove the empty bee package from the installation last week and to reload the sugar syrup feeder. I found last week's quart jar empty and I have no idea how long it takes to empty a jar. After closing up the back I moved to the front and lifted the first bar to find a nice straight comb that covered just over 2/3rds of the bar length and most of the depth of the hive. It was covered in bees but I was too nervous about keeping it out to find the queen on it. There were a few dozen capped cells though and I'm hoping that's the sign that the queen is laying on the comb. I asked Inge to start shooting video for the rest of the inspection which you can see below.

The weekend included our open pit dinner Saturday of a rack of ribs served with home fries, beans, and jalapeno poppers. After sundown I pulled out my guitar and mixed noodling around with a new song melody with playing a few of the songs I sort of have memorized. Made for a very pleasant evening. We woke Sunday morning to a thunderstorm that dropped half and inch of rain on the garden - negating the need to water.