master gardener!

 What a busy few months. This spring has been filled with non stop projects and class. After 3 months of classes and 24 volunteer hours I am officially a Master Gardener Volunteer for Wisconsin!

I learned so much in that class. The soil texturing and soil testing analysis was the most interesting part to me. I could go through soil samples all day and try to figure out how much clay is in them. Part of the class is we got to get our soil tested from our yards. Mine came back 5.2 on the acidic side. I ended up planting two blueberry plants and an elderberry. All three are thriving. My baby apple tree and my grapes from the last post have yet to leaf out though.
My husband has his permaculture design certificate so I sort of learned along with him about permaculture a few years back but no one really knows what permaculture is up here so this Master Gardeners certificate gives me more credibility when I request to volunteer and work with the kids in the school garden.

Now I am back to working with the elementary school kids to get their school garden planted. I also worked with another elementary school about 20 miles away. This year we planted an entire bed of herbs. Other beds of tomatoes, peppers, squash and more of a focus on root vegetables and less on lettuce because of the condition the lettuce is in September when the kids come back to school to harvest the garden.

When I plant with the kids I like to bring up how to cook the food we are planting and ask them about if they have tried it and how they like to help cook in the kitchen. Most kids up here have some relatives that are farmers but a lot of the kids are still very poor and do not have access to healthy foods and they are suffering by being over weight. This same group of kids comes back next fall as 4th graders to harvest the garden and weigh all the produce.

A friend gave me about 45 pounds of lard form her Hungarian breed pigs. I spent two days rendering lard and pouring it into jars. This lard is a fantastic bright white color. I am all stocked up now for soap making. I also use lard for tamales and pie crusts. 

I began working with a local bee keeper that works at the extension office that I connected with through master gardeners. He has been bee keeping for 10+years. I have been able to see what a hive looks like that came out strong from being over wintered and a weak hive and what he used to overwinter the hives. We added new bees to hive boxes and watched them make comb, lay eggs, larva, make drones and I got to see a queen. I t was very interesting to see how relaxed a hive can be and how pissed off another hive can be. It really is great to work with a bee keeper and not just go by what was taught in my class. I like being able to ask questions and get answers in the same day.

I did get a pretty good bee sting in my head, and it hurts just as bad as I remember. I learned a hard lesson, not to undress out of  the bee suit next to the bee yard. NOW I walk pretty far away and remove the suit and leave it in a bin. I got a lesson in fencing to use around your hives to keep black bear out. He uses 10,000 volts electric fence. Bears are sneaky, they can climb over the fence they can also plow right though it. It is important to be able to ZAP them pretty good. Bears are a terrible nuisance around Northern Wisconsin, they have gotten in my trash and they trash people's bird feeders and I see them dead along the highway all the time.

The spring rain brought out the oyster mushrooms in my woods. I have not seen other wild mushrooms yet. My husband was the first to spot these oysters on the log along side of our driveway.

Oyster mushroom

Now that it is officially fishing season in Wisconsin I thought I would share a neat site about bullhead fishing and eating.  I always thought bullheads were garbage fish but this site has peaked my interest in catching them and eating them with my son.