It has been a brutal triple digit summer. The temperatures have been unbearable and the humidity worse. Finally, after such a hot summer, it has cooled down. This morning the temperature was a wonderful 62 degrees Farenheit. Fall is in the air. If I needed anymore evidence to confirm this fact, the black walnut tree is dropping its baseball sized nuts, which litter the side yard and the tree leaves are showing some change in color. I have never, ever been so glad for Fall.
I did get my Fall garden planted and it has sprouted. I really, really recommend raised bed gardening. It was my first year for it, and it was hugely successful. I will be moving my blackberry plants into one this fall. It is very hard to allow the blackberries uncrowded growth area in the lawn. My biggest struggle is keeping weeds from choking them out after berry season is over. So I am setting up at least two more six foot raised beds and transplanting my blackberries.
I also read that mountain laurel honey while safe for bees is poisonous to humans. It can cause paralysis of the throat if eaten. This highly concerns me because I propagated a thicket of native mountain laurel after my Master Gardener classes on native plants and it is thriving. Unfortunately I will be cutting it down this fall to avoid honey tainted with mountain laurel.
My American bees are doing great. I added a new small hive on top of the two brooder boxes. I highly recommend this variety of bees; they have done well in their first triple digit summer. It was a bit rough at the start as the queen wanted to swarm and I had to take preventative measures by picking her up and depositing her back in the hive. It was a mess of bees following her pheromones back into the hive. Since then, they have settled into their Langstroth hive and really gotten into the business of making home and brood. I will be attending the Alabama Beekeepers Association Annual Meeting in Montgomery in October with my oldest daughter. They will have so many speakers and classes that I don't know which ones to take. It will be great!
Finally I lost two hens this summer. Prissy, the white Orphington, died from the heat stress. And my little Buckeye was killed by a predator. Sad but such is life and we go on.
