Bees Knees

So, so beautiful today. I was thrilled to not be at work today. It was the first truly spring like day we've had yet this year. I noticed to day that the kale is up in the one planter. And, my bees arrived! I stopped by my office this morning for awhile and picked them up. They aren't mason bees, but they are another kind of solitary bee, meaning they don't have a colony with a queen, they breed individually in a communal nest amd eup of small tubes. They are nestled in their coccoons in a box in the fridge for now, they need a few more weeks before there is enough stuff blooming for them to eat. I'll probably stagger their release over two weeks or so. They are pretty cool, I have a little house with plastic tubes that are sandwiched between little boards under a galvanized metal roof to keep the nests dry. I'll probably put it up under the eaves of the porch, where it will get sun but still be sheltered.

The vermiculite arrived today! That was really fast. UPS dropped it off this afternoon. Marc picked me up some peat moss today, so I think tomorrow I am going to throw caution to the wind and plant two tomatoes with my Wall O Water things and see what happens. I never did use them last summer, so I'm curious to try them now.

I am absolutely itching to get my beds built. The question now is do I level them up somehow to compensate for the tilt of the driveway... I'm kind of afraid the dirt will erode downhill if I don't, but that is fancier carpentry than I've ever tackled. It can't be that hard though. I think I can handle it. Now that the car is gone, I can get a better idea of how much space I really have. It looks kind of small, but I can grow a lot of stuff in there. I have a progress meeting I have to go to down at the jobsite on Friday (ironic, since I've been unemployed all week) and I'm going to see if Jeff will let me take any lumber with me so I can build beds this weekend. The plan is to put hardware cloth stapled to the bottom of the frame, followed by weed blocking cloth (a heavy fiberglass mesh type Kyle gave me) followed by a layer of gravel, under the soil layer. It will help control erosion, while still being well drained. I think Kyle, my neighbor from down the street, and I might go get a load of compost this weekend too. There's no stopping me now!

I am still trying to devise ways of using my planter without them getting all mosquito ridden and skanky. I like the self watering concept, it does make it so much easier. It's just an inherent design flaw, I think. Maybe if there's not as much water in it to begin with, it won't pool and get gross. I could try the guppies this year again, but I'm not entirely sure if that made a big difference last year. The oil on the surface did nothing to stop the mosquitoes; several people had suggested that to me but it just made a mess. I just haven't found anything online about mosquito dunks being OK for food crops, so I am assuming it's not. What's the point of growing them yourself organically if you have to poison the mosquitoes? Anyone out there have any suggestions?