We have three bee hives now!  Although I'm the new Perry Hill Farm beekeeper,  dear sweet hubby decided to go ahead and put the bees into their new  home.

A healthy package of bees.

Getting everything right.

Making sure the queen is still alive in her little box.  Early  tomorrow,  I'm going to take her out.

I  have been spending so much time working on the plants for the farmers market my garden has become a weed garden.  I started clearing beds and around beds today.  My hope is to get most of the planting beds done tomorrow and plant just before it rains.

 Before I started:

 
After a long day of work.

Three more beds are cleared and I mowed around several other beds.  I know I have tons more to do but many of the tall plants are staying.  I will be using them or they attract beneficial insects. 

A shot of the medicine wheel  before:

After:

You  can now see  most of the rocks and the comfrey has been harvested to dry.

I have used dirty wool as mulch around the peas and onions.   I did plant in the garden peas,  onions, carrots, lettuce, spinach, cauliflower, lupines, sunflowers, poppies, and delphiniums.  I started harvesting strawberries this week.  We have kale, johnny jump ups,  and mustard greens that we have also been harvesting.  From  the greenhouse I have been harvesting green onions,  lettuce, kale, celery,  and spinach.    I have a lot of plants to get into the garden soon. 

Lettuce

I was so excited to see my fox gloves were back and blooming.  I also noticed a white one is getting ready to bloom.

My irises are almost done blooming, they are going so fast.

At least I'm still enjoying the blue flag iris that is in our little fish pond.

We are starting to get into the groove of participating in the Farmers Market.  I was able to add more products from the farm for sale this week. I'm sure I can keep adding to it as time goes by.  So far so good!  It is a lot of work but we do enjoy it.

Waiting for the market to open.

Joshua has decided he wants his own business too.  So we formed Joshua's Trees a subsidiary of the Farm.  Joshua will be selling trees.  Since he was a baby,  Joshua has been obsessed with trees.  This was a perfect business for him.  We decided his title will be..... Junior Arborist.  I made him business cards yesterday.  He loved passing them out at the farmers market.  He also sold his second tree at the market yesterday.  He's an excellent sales person and well almost a little too pushy. 

He wanted me to take his picture by his Spruce trees.

Here is his logo and he took the photo. 

The market provides a hands on approach to learning about business.

We had a fabulous time at our first farmers market last Friday.  We did much better than I anticipated and we are looking forward to the market each week.  It was so wonderful to see so many of our friends and acquaintenances stop by to purchase plants and say "Hello!"

I learned it is really hot at the market without shade, so we have purchased a shade canopy and a nice easy foldout table.  This should make our area look even more professional along with some major comfort for us and our plants.  Most the plants hung out in the shade in our car as the sun was causing them to wilt. 

We have a few beds of garlic and it looks fantastic.  We are looking forward to selling garlic scapes and then the garlic at the farmers market.

Our big Holstein steer,  Baybe,  has been driving us crazy and breaking through the fence.  He has been visiting the neighbor's gardens and such.  Bad boy is in jail now and we brought out a big solar fence charger for our electric fence.

It is our handmade solar fence charger or we like to refer to it as our "Solarator". 

We've been busy harvesting a lot of herbs/medicinal plants for drying. 

Red Clover

chamomile

Stinging nettle

Joshua is such a big help in harvesting.  Here he is harvesting stinging nettle.  He blows me away with his knowledge of wild edible plants and trees.  He is in his glory when he is in the middle of a forest.

We've also harvested  chickweed,  comfrey, narrowleaf plantain,  peppermint, English mint, and Oregano.  Our dehydrator is running constantly and I've also turned the back of my car into a dehydrator and Joshua's train room is drying plants too.

We found eleven cute chicks tucked away in our tool stall under an old rusty wagon.  The mama hen was doing a good job of hiding them.

They are so cute!!

 Early this Spring I found our last bee hive empty.  I was saddened to know that our bees either died or left the hive.  We decided that Joshua and myself would become the future Perry Hill Farm beekeepers and give sweet hubby a break.  I ordered two more packages of bees that I will be picking up at the end of this week.  We've been reading upon beekeeping and watching some fantastic youtube videos of an amazing beekeeper, Ron Breland.   His approach to beekeeping is very like my approach to gardening.  I decided I would also follow my heart and gut and keep the bees in a similar way. 

 We took our last empty hive and placed it in the yard near the house.  It was full of honey and the bees starting showing up and eating the honey.  After the flowers started opening up, we noticed they were not coming to the hive anymore.  So I have been slowly robbing the honey.  I go out to the hive and take a few combs inside for our honey.  Joshua looked outside today and said,  "mom look at all the flies in the back yard swarming."  I looked again ad said,  "no it is honeybees!"   We had a swarm arrive and move into the hive!!  Can you believe it?  What a gift!  The bees chose us!!    I hope they stay and they seem to be very happy.  Tonight I will set up their hive correctly as you can see in the photo it's partially open.  I will also move the hive off of the wagon.   This hive is close to our house so it will be nice to keep tabs on.  The other two will be set up in our garden.

We are so blessed!

Tomorrow is our first Farmers Market and we are excited.  I've worked some mega long hours getting ready for the market. 

I've got a few touches in the early morning hours and we will be all set.  We are looking forward to a successful Farmers Market.

This is my main potting area.   We've have a lot of plants to bring,  merino wool,  some tree seedlings, and dried herbs.  Later in the season we will also be bringing produce.

We attended a wonderful Astronomy Day at an Observatory.  A grand day indeed!

We watched a very interesting demonstration with a robot.

We flew kites and watched some magnificent kites fly overhead.

Sometimes,  fish can fly.

We looked through telescopes at the sun.  We even observed a solar flair.

We rode on a Segway. 

Joshua and dad were quite good on them.  Me.....well that is another story. 

Someone rolled down the big hill over and over again!  He even had rolling races with another little boy.

There were so many hands on activities and a fantastic planetarium show.   However,  we believe one of the biggest highlights was Joshua trying on a *real* astronaut suit!

Joshua also looked through the main observatory telescope.  So very, very cool.

Just before heading home,  Joshua really enjoyed touching this meteorite.  I think he was dreaming about someday finding one about the same size. 

Sometimes we get so caught up in the errand running and the *have to do* that we forget to take the time and really enjoy ourselves.  This past week we decided to stop....take a breath....and forget the *have to do* and do something fun on our way.  In the middle of our errand running we went for a beautiful hike by a waterfall.

We saw two ducks and one  woodpecker.  What a fabulous time and we vowed we are going to do more of just this.....make the time.

The recent oil spill has been a terrible  disaster to this earth.  We have felt helpless in the clean up efforts and devastated by the sheer destruction this oil spill has and is causing. 

I've signed a few petitions here and there against off-shore drilling but I really wanted to do more.  Not having the extra budget to donate or actually go to the site to help,  I found another way to help.  A Matter of Trust  non-profit is accepting donations of hair, animal fur and nylons to help build booms to absorb the oil.  I came home the other day whipped out the scissors and cut my hair short.  Joshua decided to get a hair cut too.  He wanted to help the birds along the coast.  I'll also groom one of our dogs and send a nice package of hair and fur to them.

Look how much hair I cut off:

I'm sporting a new short hair do and it feels great.  It also feels good to help out. 

Spring on the farm brings such delights.....

A steer taking a break from his very important job of moowing our lawn.  Yes,  moowing.....LOL not mowing.

Jack-in-the-Pulpit.  We just love these.

We have many plants for sale this season.  Click on our website for a list of plants.

Perry Hill Farm grows plants very differently. Our seedlings are grown in our own compost, made from our organically fed livestock's manure instead of a sterile potting mix.    Our soil is not tilled, which is better for the environment. Our produce is grown in permanent raised beds and is co-planted with mutually beneficial plants. We have a garden insectary, which is small garden plot of flowering plants designed to attract beneficial insects. Those beneficial insects devour many common garden pests.  This natural approach, combined with co-planting is Perry Hill Farm's safe alternative to pesticides.

We want to make gardening easier for you.   Each plant is grown in a CowPot ready to be put into the dirt.  No need to pull the plant from the pot to disturb it's roots....you plant the whole thing!    CowPots are made nearby in Connecticut and of course, the plants are grown right here at Perry Hill!  For more information on Cow pots please see link at the bottom of this email.

Pricing:

Our main goal for the farm is environmental stewardship, while producing organically grown food and plants. We do not use pesticides or chemical fertilizers and use sustainable practices.   We have signed the NOFANY farmers pledge and we are working towards our certification with the USDA.  Many of the plants are open-pollinated heirloom varieties and the seeds were purchased from Turtle Tree Seeds or High Mowing seeds.  All of the purchased seeds are certified organic and even some are bio-dynamically certified.   A few of the plants were propagated at Perry Hill Farm.

CowPots

From CowPots website: 

Created by two ingenious dairy farmers, CowPots are a revolutionary pot made with 100% renewable composted cow manure. CowPots are manure-fiber based seed starter pots, which allow for unrestricted root growth creating stronger, healthier plants. These earth-friendly “pots you plant” are an exciting high-performing alternative to plastic and peat pots.

The CowPot manufacturing process removes all weeds, pathogens and odor. All that’s left is the natural fiber and goodness of manure: the perfectly plantable pot!

Here's to a great gardening season!