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Well, first I called and emailed the original apiary and left messages that said, since my order is lost, I would like a refund please. Heard nothing all day yesterday, other than an email from R Weaver's saying they could not ship here because of the weather. OK. 10pm last night, still having...

Hattie, if you lose a lot of fruit all at once in June/early July, it may just be that the tree is not ready to fruit and was having, ahhh, let's call it a teenage hormone moment in the spring. Yes it's heartbreaking after you've seen all the little green fruits and been dreaming of apricot jam...

Bishopweed. No amount of mulch, and you cannot kill it with fire. I've tried. Ground ivy/creeping charlie in the veggies. Again, no amount of mulch, plastic, pulling does the trick. Poison ivy is the only weed I will bust out the glyphosphate bottle for. Fortunately, after two sprayings only...

What pat said. Likely a lot of branches will croak. You might want to consult an arborist, and it's definitely worthwhile to invest in an axe. As far as liabilities go, in the state of PA you are entitled to cut any part of the tree that is on your property line. My brother the arborist says...

lesa: I asked, and they said they have a policy of not running those sort of announcements in their newsletter because they don't want to get sucked into the whole mess of sales deals gone wrong, sort of thing. Which is understandable, I guess they have been burned with that in the past. Clearly...

Dang. My friend suggested the local beek club, as her local club puts in orders with some Very Large Apiary and then they have it all delivered at once on a meeting day to save on shipping. My local beek club does not do that sort of thing. :( I agree w/ them that it's great to support local...

Instead of Lowe's/Home Despot, is there a salvage yard or building materials recycling area in your town? My state has what they call "transfer stations," which are basically recycling centers that also take trash and route it to landfills. Folks drop off construction waste at the transfer...

Just got an email from the local apiary. I had ordered package bees from them in January. Got the PayPal confirmation and everything. Called last week to see if everything was on schedule, as they had a notice on their website that they were running late on some things, please call and check...

I like the Arlo Guthrie version myself.

In the PSU study, they had the layer chickens in a portable pen that they moved to fresh yard every few days. So the chickens were getting lots of fresh greens daily. Not at all the same as being cage-free in a barn with some access to outdoors. That was my point, really--that there are various...

I don't know that they will necessarily set fruit faster--that sorta depends on the timing of the local pollinators, so you may get flowers earlier but not necessarily fruit if the bees aren't around. What I think it does help with is late frosts. The big plants, in a freak late frost, tend to...

Amish paste Heidi paste Brandywine Pale Perfect purple Lillian's Yellow Etoile Blanche D'Anvers Black Krim Roza red* Belgian yellow giant* Another kind, I forget what, and my notebook is buried under a million half-empty seed packets* *Sent as "try it and see" from Sand Hill Preservation. So...

I had no luck with Moon & Stars either. I got the vines to grow and after they were about 3 feet long, they died. A couple got flowers but never melons. My growing season is just not long enough or hot enough. Blacktail Mountain has worked well for me though--planting that one again this year.

Yep, it works. They keep on another 3-4 weeks or so like that, depending on what kind of tomatoes--it's not so much the tomatoes will get bigger or you'll get a lot more, rather the green ones that are on there will ripen slowly and the smaller green ones will become medium-sized. Bad part is...

Just got done with corn, barley, amaranth. Going out to do some quinoa and annual flowers as soon as I find the bug spray--sunflowers, pansies, poppies, everlastings, ranunculus in containers. If I have time, I'll try to get some cukes/melons/squash in, but I do need to build trellises too...

Only if the stalks get mushy spots. If they are still standing upright, you're OK. Also, bear in mind that oxalic acid poisoning requires eating 11 lbs. of leaves all in one sitting to kill a 150 lb. person. You might get ill from eating a bit of rhubarb leaf, but it's unlikely you'd get more...

They taste better. Does that count? Read the Penn State study, and it is focused on pastured poultry. This is quite different from a cage-free barn, where the poultry would be eating regular bagged feed. The study compared chickens raised on bagged feed in a caged barn vs. poultry reared on...

Good soil is plenty. You want to mulch under them though, and keep the mulch well away from the trunk.

Do you know what kind they are? Everbearing or June-bearing, what the name of the breed might be? Generally I'd say if the strawberries they do produce aren't to your liking, you're better off getting new plants. Sometimes strawberries will be flavorless if they are over-watered in a bad rainy...

Depends on the type of honeysuckle and where you live. I know in zone 7 the regular white/yellow vine type can be quite invasive, and that one will certainly overtake the slow-growing lilacs. But I believe the red/orange varieties are less aggressive, more easily trellised and controlled--and...