The garden update for this harvest Monday is more of a revisit. I picked the garlic in early July and hung to cure. This weekend I processed and planted one bed's worth of garlic. I ended up planting 60 cloves which was way less than last year, but as you can see, we have more than enough. I probably spent $30 on garlic last year so it is nice to not have to buy any this year. The rest of the garden is still going strong. The tomatoes got a little cold over the weekend. I checked this morning and they should be OK except for a few tops. This week will be much warmer and I think we will still be getting tomatoes until mid-October.
I also harvested bee cocoons. Last winter I got some mason bees. They aren't hive forming and pretty docile. They lay eggs in cardboard tubes I put out near the garden. I put 8 cocoons out last spring and ended up with three filled tubes. They are packed with mud and look like this.
You peel back the cardboard to find a bunch of cocoons. The bees lay eggs in cells and then pack it full of pollen. The larva grow all summer before spinning their sink case for the winter.
Then the collected cocoons go into the refrigerator. This way I can control when they get placed outside in the spring in case it gets warm too early. I ended up getting 20 or so viable cocoons.
3 comments:
Wow! That is cool how you harvest the mason bees. That sounds like a neat science experiment that I could try with the kids.
They are really easy. In the springtime you can watch them come and go without worrying about getting stung.
Your garlic looks beautiful! And your mason bees...very, very cool!!!
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