Harvested the Vidal Blanc Grapes yestereday. Lost about half the crop to stink bugs and wasps. After destemming we still ended up with 60 lbs. of really nice grapes. Decided we did not have enough time to start turning them into wine before vacation so I bagged them and threw them into the freezer. They will just have to wait, along with the 50 lbs of strawberries.

The garden has been put away for the season. The bees have completely eaten all of the necter they put away this summer. We had a solid week of rain and bad weather and they could not get out to fly so they needed food. The only food available were their stores. Now I have to feed sugar syrup until the fall flow starts. If we get some nice weather for the next month they will put in a supply, hopefully enough to get them through the winter.

Well here we go again….. The temp. dropped to the low 40′s last night and I was not ready for it. The garden is done for the season. Not because I planned it that way, but because I really neglected it this year. My art business took over and just did not allow enough time to get out and keep things under controll.

We did manage to get a fair amount of produce from what we planted. Once we add it all up I can’t really complain. Came in with 45 lbs of garlic this year. Gave the better part of it to my friend at Joshua Farm. She needed seed garlic and at $12.00 a lb. I just could not see her spending that kind of money when I had so much extra.

These last two weeks have been real killers in the garden. over 20 inches of rain in two weeks just flooded everything. Killed all the beans and tomatos. Knocked down all the sunflowers. Opened up my beehive today and found the the bees have completely eaten all of their honey stores. I don’t know what I am going to do, they will not have enough left to get them through the winter. I had made a decision not to take any honey off the hive and let them have all of the honey this year…. Now there is nothing left.

I also had a really nice crop of Vidal grapes this year…. along came the rain just as they were getting ripe and beat them to death…. now the wasps hit them hard. I will harvest what is left in the morning and see if we can get some wine made.

Oh well, there is always next year.