Tuesday, June 14, 2011

300 Gallon Rain Totes and Bees Orientation

Sunday I called this guy on Craigslist and he delivered two 300 gallon totes that we plan on using as rain barrels. These totes had contained brown mulch dye and can be used for agricultural use. So now I have to fit them up.

One will go under our porch, it is in there right now, needs pulled out and placed on leveled concrete blocks. The dirt under the porch is hard clay like bricks has not seen rain in 3 years, very hard to dig in. The other tote we are not sure where we want to put it maybe on the back side of our shed, it is very high ground there. These were a pretty good deal at $75 each plus $40 for delivery.
 This is our first tall phlox of the summer to bloom. Meg and I bought a nice assortment of tall phlox at Big Bloomers when we first started gardening together.
 Above is a single dianthus flower from one of the six gallon sized planted I rescued from Home Depot. They looked pretty bad, but planting them and giving them water they are picking back up. Four of these went in one of the front beds the other two went in the school garden.
Another Home Depot rescued plant Coreopsis grandiflora. I picked up 4 gallon pots of these, on Saturday they looked down right pitiful when we planted them. Saturday night it rained and look what showed up on Monday!
Here is a short video of our bees in an orientation flight. They did this for 10 or more minutes, the bees were swarming around the front of the hive and above it swirling around. Very interesting to see, they completely ignored me. Hoping our first brood might have been out for the first time. Today marked 4 weeks since we got our package of bees.

10 comments:

Dave@TheHomeGarden said...

Looks like a good deal on those rain barrels! 300 gallons would be a plus. My 50 gallon rain barrel got used up fast once the weather went dry.

Bonnie K said...

Holy moly. Those are huge! You will love your bees! I love mine.

ann said...

What a huge rain tank. Your bees seem to be doing very well.

Shady Gardener said...

I'd say that's a great deal on those tanks... and how wonderful it will be to have that much water on hand! Mr. Shady finally finished creating the other two rain barrels this Spring, but we haven't been home much... esp. not long enough for me to level the ground so they can be installed!!! (They're to be in my flower beds and Mr. S doesn't want to get into trouble! ha!) :-)
At any rate, if it would now stop raining for a couple of days, it my dry up enough for me to do the work!! Must have something to complain about, I guess! ha.

Shady Gardener said...

PS How's the bottle wall coming? (I've probably missed a post or two about that!!)

meemsnyc said...

That is a good deal! I would love water totes like that! Our rain barrels are great, but it really doesn't hold enough water!

Cyndy said...

Love those rain totes! Didn't know bees went trough orientation - really neat.

Corner Gardener Sue said...

Those rain catchers were a great deal! That's a good size. The smaller ones can fill up pretty fast in a good rainfall.

I enjoyed seeing your bees. Good job on the rescued plants!

Janet, The Queen of Seaford said...

That is a huge rain barrel!! Good for you.
So for the first couple weeks you keep the bees in the hive? I probably read what you said about getting them settled in, then forgot.

Victoria Williams said...

Looks like you got a great deal on those totes. Good for you!
Can't wait for our tall phlox to start blooming, I planted quite a few new ones a couple of years ago. They're looking like they're thinking of blooming this year.