Regular readers may remember that we plant in raised beds and raised rows. My plan for this year's garden was to make everything in four foot raised beds with three foot paths, making sort of a giant plaid garden, but I found it labor intensive to do all at once, and the season is getting old on me, so Steve tilled the second half of the garden for me again and I'm going to go ahead and do the rest of it in rows this year. 28 or 29 four-foot beds and five, maybe six rows, we'll have. I have one row pulled up and need to pull the rest of the rows up and get them planted. Beans, beets, carrots and whatever else I have out there to plant. Squash. Melons. Sweet Potatoes. Sunflowers. We have 'taters & onions in the ground. Also need to form some sort of trellis for the peas that are standing a foot tall all by themselves. This year's garden will be 2.5 times bigger than last year's! We are also planting grass in all that the bare soil around the barn.
I hope to see the Golden Digger Wasps again this year. I was fascinated by them last year, but it seemed they mostly nested in the ground where our barn now stands. There were a few around the base of the Cypress tree Genevieve, so hopefully some of those will be able to emerge and carry on with their life cycle. Fascinating, Golden Digger Wasps. Larger than your mud daubers and your paper nest wasps, these thread-waisted wasps excavate a chamber in the ground, where they lay their eggs. They bring stunned insects such as green catydids, which they take into the chamber and install with the eggs for their babies' nourishment until they can come out of the ground and continue the cycle. These wasps are not aggressive, but if you walk a little nearer their work than they wish, they will "fly loud," hovering in such a manner as to buzz, as a warning. Live and let live. I spent hours watching these girls last summer, and hope some have survived for this season.
Going to go watch a Hallmark Hall of Fame Classic Movie now, about Lois Wilson, wife of Bill Wilson, Co-Founder of AA. Should be a real tear-jerker!
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