Beltane New (Solstice) Moon
The day began with the bees, lively and growing, now well into the second box, already 
filling two frames with brood, making honey and collecting pollen. After the bees, more honeycrisp bagging. Yes, this is a pain, but it’s a one and done pain. That is, after you do it those apples are ok. I may start a feeding program this year for the orchard, but that’s separate from the immediate disease and predation prevention.
This is what horticulturists calls IMP or integrated pest management. Basically you first support the plant because a strong plant can repel invaders. Then you do physical things like picking the bugs off, bagging the apples. Only after you’ve done these things–and there are many more than I’ve mentioned–do you consider a pesticide or fungicide. I don’t resort to those, so my whole strategy comes on the first two legs of the stool.
After I got some bagging done, it was time to go pick up Bill Schimdt and head out to Plato, Minnesota to meet Luke Lemmer of High Brix Gardens. Plato, Minnesota is about 5 miles west of Young America. Luke is a husband and father trying to make a living selling bio-dynamic soil nutrients for gardens as an adjunct of International Ag Lab’s agricultural product line.
Luke had mixed the broadcast minerals and put our orders of drenches, foliar sprays and transplant aids in a box. We spoke with him near the site of a new building he has planned. He says this year his business has finally begun to take off. His daughter came out, hugging him and looking down at the ground. She had what sounded like a summer cold. He explained the use of the various products and the schedule they require.
The site of his home used to house a hotel and beer garden back when Plato was more of a manufacturing hub. It now has one factory and the grain elevator. It’s on an east west railroad line. A pretty little town, bucolic with all the green thanks to our rains of late. 300 souls. A true small town.
Back home a nap, then I broadcast the minerals and dug them in on all of our beds and got most of the tomatoes, peppers, egg plants, kale and tomatillos treated with a transplant powder and water. We’re really a bit behind the curve, since the broadcast will be done in the fall in the future and the transplant aids are made to use when putting the plants in the ground. But we’re starting when we can.