My inspection of the big Sam hive in my Home Yard revealed a massive population occupying three full mediums and getting honey bound or rather, egg bound. Capped brood was intermixed with nectar, though not much. Possibly whatever is brought in and processed is instantly consumed by this massive population. The weather has been conducive …
Author Archives: kaat
FPJ, extracted, and a mushroom
Scatterlings
I’ve read Martin Shaw’s book Scatterlings a couple of times now and I keep finding hoards of riches. Here’s a good introduction to it, filmed by Ian MacKenzie:
Biochar and KNF Side-by-Side Trial
Cross-post from the Transition Wayland website Today we started the carbon/biochar and Korean Natural Farming inputs trial at our plot in the Community Gardens. Andrea and Kaat divided two beds in half. All halves received biochar (“pre-loaded” with compost – never apply pure biochar by itself!) and straw. Two of those halves (one in each …
All Potted Up
Most of the tomatoes, peppers and tomatillos, sunbathing
New batch of FPJ
More FPJ! This one liquefied almost instantly.
Chicks at Four Weeks
Impossible to photograph!
More Shrooms, for Drying and Storing
The mild, intermittent rains are bringing ever more Garden Giants, popping up all over the wood chip yard. I went down with two boxes and harvested all the best looking ones, wine-red caps (hence its other name: Wine Cap), nicely concave, the annulus (or ring/skirt) still high up under the cap. I came away with …
Breakfast
This morning I went hunting for tops of vigorously growing plants for more FPJ, and there they were, the season’s first flush of Stropharia rugoso annulata, aka the wine cap. Hundreds of shrooms all over the “fungal garden”. I plucked them, careful to keep the butts and some mycelium intact, cut the butts off and …
Mushroom Cultivation Workshop
What a day. Pouring rain for the first part of the mushroom cultivation workshop at Allandale Farm with NOFA-Mass Dan Bensonoff. Good for the fungi, and because it was pretty balmy, not harmful too humans. I am ready to start growing some mushrooms other than Garden Giant. After that, potting up tomatoes, and sowing squash …