May 21, 2009

May Day has passed and the days are stretching out toward summer solstice. The onions respond to the longer days of light by fattening up into red and yellow bulbs. The fruit trees continue to burst out with flowers and the wild mustards and hemlock are reaching sky high. We have had a dry, sunny and very windy spring followed by a blessing of abundant rains.

While enjoying lunch recently, we heard a loud buzzing and looked to the sky to see a black cloud of bees hovering over the citrus orchard. Once they landed, our crew caught the bee swarm that had settled on a rosemary bush and offered them a place in our hive box. So far they seem to be making themselves at home, and hopefully making more honey to share!

The garden crew has been busy as bees planting starts we raised from seed in our greenhouse. We are putting out loads of spinach, lettuce, dino and red russian kale, cauliflower, broccoli, orach, basil, cilantro and in the greenhouse, hot and sweet peppers, basil, tomatillos and tomatoes. Thanks to the fantastic Americorp workers who helped helped prepare garden beds for planting and with a forest restoration project at Commonweal.

We sailed through our first big on-site course of the season, Bird Language, with our favorite caterer, Carin McCay. She provides fabulous meals with many ingredients from the land. We were able to provide lettuce and cooking greens, rhubarb, goat milk and cheese, eggs, and lots of cooking herbs from the farm for our guests.

The new chicks are growing up into fluffy adolescents and able to hold their own with the older ladies of the house. One day, when searching the barn for some tool, we came upon the hidden nest of a renegade chicken who flies over the fence everyday to lay her eggs in the barn!

To an inspired and abundant summer,
Penny, James, Tammy, and the RDI crew