So ya know how yesterday I was complaining about my lack of planning. If you will remember, I mentioned not having a garden to eat out of. Well, go ahead, prove me wrong…

Today I abandoned my tea for a good 15 minutes and tromped out to the garden. This is not a big endeavor as this is the garden just beyond my sliding glass door. I had a report from Washington state that a friend farmer had lost all of her potatoes to the cold weather.

I had been storing these potatoes in the ground as I was too lazy *ahem* as I was too busy knitting, tea drinking and Christmassing to dig these up. The top layer of smaller potatoes were mushy as a result of frost, but the biggers ones that burrowed deeper are quite crunchy and edible.

These babies are for dinner!

Also, our garlic seems a little confused. Last year I was told to plant garlic before Hallowe’en. I was obedient, I mulched it and let it sit over the winter. Then the garlic sprouted in February or March and we ate it in August. This year we planted a whole bed of garlic. We bought it from the garlic farm. But it’s already sprouting and pushing up through our cozy layer of mulch. Um, hello! Go back to sleep silly garlic!

And other things are sprouting as well!

We went for a walk to check on the bee hives too. I cannot open the hives up because it is too cold right now. Honeybees form a cluster in the winter to keep warm. If I break their cluster, they can die from exposure. They bundle together and eat all their stored honey they gathered in the summer. I like their lifestyle! A very interesting fact is that summer honeybees live for approximately 6 weeks. Winter honeybees (those born in November) live for an ancient 4 months. The summer bees exhaust themselves in an effort to gather pollen and nectar. All the winter bees have to do is stay warm, eat, carry their dead sisters out of the entrance, and hold the hive over until the winter thaws and the Queen starts laying again. In our mild climate, she will begin laying in January or February.

To check on the hives right now, I try to clear away the entrance (which is reduced to fit one bee in and out at a time) as the entrance is littered with dead bees. And I press my ear against the box to hear any distinct hum of a live colony. Out of the three hives I checked, I heard one buzzing. It doesn’t mean the other two aren’t alive, they are both smaller hives and may not have enough bees to generate a buzz that I can hear from the outside.

It still looks pretty green here, eh? If it stays this cold, I may have to go out and tap some big-leaf maple trees to see if I can procure any syrup for my Sunday morning pancakes!

Wishing you some sunshine wherever you are!