Garden finally started
I have had a hard time getting my garden tilled this Spring because it has been so wet.  The farmers have been getting into their fields late too.  The ground had dried sufficiently a few weeks ago but we were going out of town.  Yesterday and the day before, though, the ground dried again and I finally got in and, by working until after dark, finally got the garden all tilled.  I stayed out late last night transplanting my 48 tomato plants and 24 pepper plants and 6 eggplants into the garden to get started.  I was hoping to continue planting this morning, though the weather forecast was for a "few showers possible".

My garden is made up of 7 plots, five of them about 12 x 36 and two are 6 x 36.  Unfortunately the "few showers" turned in to steady rain from 8 am to 2 pm today, with one inch in my gauge.

Here is my plot of 48 tomato plants, taken as soon as the rain stopped this afternoon.  At least my transplants are well-watered now, but my hopes of completing the planting of my garden this weekend are shot.

A close-up shot of two of a few of my tomato transplants.  They got rather large and leggy while waiting to be planted, so there is a lot of stem planted below ground.

Here is my planting of 24 pepper plants and 8 eggplants, looking more like a rice paddy than a vegetable garden.  I took this as soon as the rain stopped and I'm sure the water will quickly soak in.

My rhubarb plants are doing much better than I had hoped.  They dried up and disappeared so early last summer that I feared they were dead and not reappear, but they are almost big enough to harvest a few stalks.  If they continue to grow like this, I may have a pie yet this Spring.

My Concord grapes are growing vigorously and following the trellis this year.  You can see the buds of the flowers that will grow into clusters of grapes.

Here are some of my Norton grapes also doing well this year, though a bit behind the Concords.

The raspberries I planted this Spring are coming up.

The blackberries that I planted last year (and survived unlike the raspberries that I planted last year at the same time) are now blooming.

Its not just the cultivated blackberries that are blooming.  These wild black berries in our back yard are also blooming.

The bluebirds nesting in the box on the garden fence have a new batch of eggs.  This is the second brood to be laid here this Spring.

Adding the third box

I inspected my hives again now 39 days after the packages were installed. I found the top (second) boxes full of brood.  Here are brood in the cells with only a few cells capped.  You can see the larvae curled in the bottoms of the cells.

This frame has more cells capped but is full of brood as well.

Here is a nearly full frame of capped brood from the middle of the box.  There is some uncapped honey and pollen in the top of the frame and some bridge comb along the bottom.  There first three pictures are from the first hive.  The second box was so full that I decided to add a third box, which should complete the brood boxes.

This is a frame from the second hive, also full of uncapped brood, with a few capped cells.

Another frame full of brood with more of it capped.

A frame full of capped brood from the second hive.  There are a few drone cells along the bottom -- the caps that seemed poofed out a bit.  A little bit of honey and pollen along the top, but this frame is nearly full of brood.

I added a third box to both hives, though the second hive was not quite as fully drawn out as  the first one.  I also filled the feeders on both hives with a gallon of sugar water to help them fill out the third box.  Once the top third box is nearly drawn out, I will remove the feeders.  With all of the capped and uncapped brood that I found in these boxes, the population will be expected to rapidly increase.  I only checked the top boxes this time as I was limited for time.

A few spring pictures
Things are getting busy so I'm not posting as much.

The young lilac bushes long the East fence of the garden bloomed well this year.

Fruit on the pear trees starting to develop.  I also noted fruit coming on on the peach, cherry, plum and apple trees.

The strawberries that I planted last year are in bloom.

Mushrooms!

I decided to go for a walk in the woods behind our house to see if I could find any mushrooms.  This is the creek that runs through the East end of our property.

Another section of our creek showing its rocky creek bed.

My hunt, as you can see, was successful.  These mushrooms are maddeningly difficult to see among the litter on the forest floor.

However, with some careful searching I was able to find more than I had ever found on our property in one hunt.

Here are some May apples growing on a hillside.

A Jack-in-the-Pulpit plant growing at the base of a hill.

These are the results of my hunt -- a record find on this property for me.  We had lots of mushrooms with supper  two nights this week.

On Monday I inspected my bees one month after the packages were installed.  Both hives seemed to be doing well, though they put quite a bit of bridge comb between the boxes.  You can see it here on the top of the bottom box.  I scraped all of this off.

I am holding this frame sideways, and you can see the bridge comb along the bottom of the frame.  There was a lot of capped brood even in the top box, and I saw some drone brood for the first time -- I think there is some here at the top of the picture -- the cells that have a cover that looks puffed out a bit.

Here's another frame showing lots of covered brood worker brood cells and some drone cells along the bottom (right).  There is some capped honey in the far upper left side with white capping.

More of the same.  The hive is growing rapidly.  Both of the feeders were empty.

Spring in full bloom

Our fruit trees are in full bloom.  This is the largest cherry tree.

My Earliblaze apple tree was covered in blossoms -- more than I had ever seen.  When the weather was sunny and not too windy these trees were covered in honey bees.

My Lodi apple tree was also covered in blossoms.  All of my apple trees bloomed heavily this year, even the Golden Delicious tree that had failed to bloom much for several years after it was attacked by borers.  It has some dead limbs, but the living limbs were covered in blossoms so it seems to be recovering.

Here a honey bee works on of the apple blossoms.

The leaf buds on my Norton grape vines were opening and starting to unfurl.

The leaves on my Concord grape vines were a little farther along.

There are still some daffodils blooming along the east garden fence.

I have several different varieties planted along that fence.

The lilacs next to the house were coming into fragrant bloom.

The wild plants were also putting on a Spring show.  This is a Red Bud tree along my back yard fence.

The wild plum was also blooming and attracting bees.  This was also along the backyard fence.