I'm sure my posts are getting boring with only pictures of Veggies. However it excites me to go out and keep pulling in a big bucket of Veggies each time I go out. especially since Fall is starting to rear its ugly head. Okay fall isn't ugly it's beautiful but it is winters close friend and as soon as we get the first frost Tomato season is OVER! (Tear!) :'(
Anyway as soon as I get in the groove of being back to school and we have a warm enough day I'll go out and smoke the bees and grab a bunch of honey, I'll try to get that on video to give y'all something to peek at new besides garden stuff.
Just a picture of a bunch of garden stuff I pulled out of the garden on Thursday the 26th. I've been getting about this much or so... each week. And yes that little cantaloupe was grown in my garden as is Muy tasty!
Just a Random Sampling of stuff I pulled out of the garden today (August 11th). In the back is a pile of Anaheim and Hungarian Wax peppers. I have a Brandywine OTV Tomato, and a Pink Tie-Dye Heirloom tomato in the middle. There are two long Asian eggplants on the left, and a black beauty eggplant on the right. Summer Yellow squash on the left and yellow zucchini on the right. A cucumber and pile of Jalapeños. The two pink cherry tomatoes are Wickline (heirlooms also). The small plum is an heirloom variety called Baselbieter Roeteli. The three purple cherry's are actually called black cherry tomatoes. And the two tiny ones are Matt's wild cherry which are heirloom also. all good tasty stuff folks!
Sorry to disappoint you if you ran across this blog doing a Google search for naked pictures of people with brain damage. What I have here is pure unadulterated pictures of beautiful and tasty vegetables from my garden.
The first picture above is a Brandywine OTV heirloom tomato. and all the rest are of a Pink Tie-Dye Tomato, the first tomatoes eaten out of the garden this year. And quite possibly one of the tastiest tomatoes I have ever eaten! No I'm serious!
Yesterday I went out and did a quick couple of garden videos. I have been pretty happy with the growth over the past couple of weeks things are just taking off. I don't have any ripe tomatoes yet but I have plenty headed that way and several of my plants are taller than me climbing up the trellises. They are a little pungent and after pruning I have green all over my fingertips but I honestly love the smell and feel of tomato plants. I would be a sad gardener if I ever became allergic. lol
As a novice beekeeper I had initially read many books that stated not to expect too much honey the first year. However we had a pretty late honey flow this year due to colder weather in the spring and early summer so when they started pullin it in boy they started pulling it in! Even with the one swarm we had this year I still have frame after frame full of Honey and Honey comb. A few weeks ago I cut out a small bit of comb to bring in and see how it tasted being a first year beekeeper and let me tell you... It was sweet! I went out today to do an inspection on my hive that swarmed earlier in the summer. About a week ago I did an inspection on the other hive. I had so many frames full of Honey in this one I checked today I decided to Borrow one from the bees. (Well we probably won't give it back.) There are a few different ways to go about getting the Honey. The most common way is to use an extractor. An extractor is basically a centrifuge that you place the frames into, and it spins the honey out. Initially you scrape or cut the protective outer coating of beeswax and this will leave open cells for the extractor. There are both hand crank and electric extractors but regardless of the power most are a little out of the price range of novice beekeepers. The second method is crush and strain. And this is the method I used today. For every beekeeper you will read or hear a different method, and or opinion about doing certain things. Some say crush and strain adds hardship to the bees since they are always having to remake new comb to replace what you crushed. Some say its good because the bees naturally make wax anyway and this way they are continually providing clean wax to raise brood and store honey and pollen in. This is said to limit some of the diseases that can spread in old wax. Regardless, for now I am going to stick to the Crush and Strain method. For one I like the idea of clean and new wax. And I don't really plan on extracting all my honey out to sell it. I will probably fill a half dozen to a dozen bottles to use personally and give away to family and friends. The rest of the Honey I will leave for the bees to make it through the winter. I have read and heard that this also will make for healthier Bees. A lot of beekeepers will take the majority of the Honey in the fall and leave the bees sugar water to store to survive on for the winter. While this has been successful, it is said that Honey provides a much better pH to keep the bees healthy through the winter. And I like healthy natural bees. The Picture above is how much Honey I got out of "1" frame. Yes "1" frame! I scraped the honey filled comb into a 5 gallon nylon paint strainer bag (that you can pick up at your local home improvement super store)and squeezed till all the honey came out and I was left with a big ball of soft beeswax. Thats Right Honey for nothing and Wax for free! All I had to do was secure it from the Sultans of Sting. And in that department I am in no Dire Straits!
I purchased my "Huckleberries" from a small local nursery. They were an impulse buy, I've never grown huckleberries before so when I saw the pony flat with four plants I thought it sounded pretty cool, and for a buck how could I go wrong right? Well after I got them home I planted them and let them grow. Well after awhile I started to look up "growing huckleberries" to see if there was anything I could do improve the harvest etc. And I was initially kind of surprised that most info I came across said that Huckleberries are closely related to Blueberries. And I thought to myself... boy these sure don't "look" anything like blueberry bushes. So today I started looking again and I realized that I was growing "Garden" Huckleberries. Which are not even related at all to real Huckleberries. Years ago they were cultivated as "sunberries" or Wonderberries, and just recently many home gardeners have been bringing them back. The Garden Huckleberry is a cousin to the Tomato which is part of the nightshade family. And the berries need to be cooked before they can be used and apparently they aren't near as tasty as real Huckleberries as they require a fair amount of sugar to sweeten them up. Ah well they look purty and they are growing like nobody's business.
Eating whole natural fresh foods just seems to make the most sense. They are tasty, quick and easy to prepare. And they are are just good for you! In for a penny? I suppose that to invest in good food may seem like it costs a little more at times. Especially if you count buying fresh meats over pre-packaged meals. But then again the Penny's you save now will add pounds later. and I imagine in the long run eating the crap will cost us all health problems and health care costs. Anyhow, regardless of the cost I just enjoy eating basic whole foods. Yesterday we had grilled turkey breast that had been marinating for awhile. Along with grilled Zucchini cut up and tossed with fresh oregano from our garden and feta cheese. In addition we also grilled up some bread slices on the grill with some olive oil for some Bruchetta made with fresh tomatoes and garlic from the local farmers market and fresh basil from our own garden. I can't wait for our tomatoes to ripen but the locally grown ones are damn good, let me tell you. Tonight we had grilled new york strip steak, with some fresh Pollenta. I also sautéed up some baby portabella mushrooms with some fresh garlic and my baby tossed up a salad with fresh greens from the garden. That was some good eating! Uh Huh!!
Here are a Couple Videos from my Garden that I took last week.
Also a few snapshots of the garden and bees I took yesterday:
Come on Maters! Blush for me! These are Tie Dye Maters, They will be Purty. "I'm your Huckleberry!"... Doc Holliday Peeking at the Bee Ladies through the fence. Mmmmmm! Blackberries! You say Po-tato, He says Poe-ta-toe, I say Taters and grow them in a can! Awhile back a scientific study was conducted on synergistic planting, and found that sunflowers and huckleberries seem to do pretty damn good together. Well actually this "is" the study... who knew? Hey wait is this a postcard for square foot gardening? Little Peppers in a square box, little peppers all the same... Theres a Green one, and a Yellow one and a Red one and an orange one and they are all made out of ticky tacky and they all look just the same!
Rodney,Rodney, quite contrary, How does your garden grow? With assorted berries, peppers-cherries, And pretty maters all in a row.
Hi folks just a quick garden update, things are growing along quite nicely even with the month or so of less than advantageous weather that we had. Below is my latest Video update from last week. and remember: its not who you know its what you grow!
...Why yes, yes I do Mr. Dirty Harry. Yet even with all my luck sometimes things are out of my control. I've had at least a couple of those things happen to me this past week. Last Thursday I decided to do an inspection on my beehives, it had been awhile and probably a little too long. Let me explain, below I have some video posted (second one) and in the first hive I'm looking at I mention a few queen cells that the bees have made. Well bees will make queen cells for a few reasons. One they are not confident in the Queen they have and will raise a new one to replace her. Two they don't even have a queen anymore, this can happen due to her either dying, or flying away. The third reason, and the reason that is most important to this tale of mine, the hive becomes too crowded and some of the bees need to move out. Bees love their Momma, as a matter of fact they love her so much the ones that are moving out usually want to take her with them. This is why they start to raise a new queen so that the hive won't be left without a Momma when the rest head for the hills (or the Apple tree in this scenario). I'll come back to that... So I finish with the inspection, clean up for the day and get ready for my weekend trip to visit my Dad with my kiddos.
We had a really good visit with grandpa. As a matter of fact my son had such a good time he decided he wanted to stay for another month or so and sprung the idea on us at the last minute. We were all getting ready to head out when he said "Umm hey Dad, how do you feel if I just stay for awhile?" It was kind of sudden, but I talked to my Dad and Kathy his wife to make sure it was okay. He will be turning 18 in a couple months and I realized he just doesn't have that much time left to be a kid and enjoy "Summer". We said our goodbyes and me and the girls loaded up and headed out. This is when the first out of control thing happens this week.
We were about 10 miles out of Price Utah, this would be about 2/3rds of the way back home. I look down and notice that my battery light is on. My first thought is oh great my alternator must be going out. I had just put a new battery in about six months back. I figured at least it is running and I can make it into Price before I shut it down and see if it will even restart. About a minute later I look down and my temperature gauge is redlined, at the same time radiator fluid just shoots out the side of my hood. I concluded right then well two things went wrong it must of been a belt. I had figured the overflow cap had sprung to release pressure on the radiator... thus the fluid shooting out. I pulled over, got out and popped the hood. Well yea... sure enough there was the broken belt, the one for the alternator and fan, that answered that one. Unfortunately however the radiator did not conveniently vent to let out the hot fluid. Instead the entire top of the radiator blew off. Long story semi-shorter. I spent the next three hours pulling the radiator and belts out while Teresa brought me some new parts with her Parents. We got everything put back in and working and made it home safely at some ungodly hour of the morning... And that adventure was over.
Later that next day as we were laying around recovering, working in the sun and subsequent all night drive home left us feeling like we had a hangover, The other out of control thing happened.
Remember I mentioned the bees and queen cells and reasons behind them existing in the hive? Well we were laying there around 4:30 in the afternoon and Teresa thought she heard a sprinkler on in the backyard. She got up and looked out and I hear her say "Oh My God Rodney...The Bees!" I get up and look and there is a literal cloud of bees. They were almost beyond description. I have seen swarms in movies, and in videos I watched before getting bees but watching one form 30 feet away in front of you is very surreal, and amazing. Luckily I had read a lot about swarms and knew what was going to happen. Basically when the part of the hive that decides to leave, leaves, it is all at one time. They will rush out of the hive and form a swarm in the air, thousands and thousands of them. The queen who is not used to flying will soon settle down to rest. And this is where we were lucky. If the queen rests at a spot that is reachable, the beekeeper can recover most of the bees. And luckily for us she landed right on a branch on our Apple tree. When the queen lands all the bees in the air will settle on her and form a clump. When bees swarm they have just gorged on Honey and do not have a home to defend, so surprisingly enough this is the time when they are the most gentle and they are pretty safe to be around. As soon as they landed I knew I needed to act fast.
Even though I knew I could save my bees, I do not have room for another hive at this time. Usually you can not put the bees back in their old hive, they will just try to leave again and find a new home. I called a number that I found a while back for "bee rescue". Basically these are usually bee keepers that will come and collect a swarm because they have the room for them, and they don't want to see the bees harmed or killed by unbeefriendly peeps. Anyway I called and since he was at work and couldn't leave he said he'd send his son to help me capture them. I collected up a ladder, and my beesuit and a box to put the bees in and went out to get my bees. I was able to get up and get half of them in a box before the guy's son and his wife showed up. They helped me get the rest and I was able to send my bees off to a new home with little effort and only one small 8 foot fall from my ladder lol.
Anyway those are my adventures this week. The remaining bees seem to be doing good and I will give them a little extra attention with some more frequent inspections. The garden is doing well especially the new area, that receives lots of sun and heat.
Hi Folks, Just thought I'd do an update to all of Y'all (yes that is proper grammar for a boy that spent 8 years growing up in Texas)that are following the blog here. The title of the blog is a little begging to the gods on behalf of my poor Tomatoes! They say that April showers bring may flowers. But April... May... Going into June now... Showers bring stunted Tomatoes and other Sun/Heat loving plants like peppers, basil, etc. Well I suppose I can pick up the peppers and basil from the store but there just is no substitution for Home Grown Tomatoes. To borrow a few lines from John Denver here "Home grown tomatoes, home grown tomatoes. What'd life be without home grown tomatoes. There's only two things that money can't buy. That's true love and home grown tomatoes." So here is keeping my fingers crossed for a lot of sun and heat through the rest of June, July, August, and God willing September! At the end of this post I have included two new Videos showing my garden boxes that are growing, and getting ready to grow some plants. Several of the bare spots that I mention in the video that I had just seeded, have sprouts already this week (I filmed at the end of last week)especially the radishes. Radishes love to grow, let me tell ya! In addition I did a beehive inspection the weekend before last and I included a couple short clips on to the end of the first Garden video. Even my bees are not liking the rainy weather, they do not have near the comb and honey production that they should have by now. (look at me trying to sound like I know what I'm talking about). Anyway, Hope Y'all (there it is again) are having a good week. And until next time keep it fair to middlin!
I came home from work today and started working in my Garden that sits next to my Hives. About ten minutes later a City pickup pulled up out front. I can't say I've been waiting for this day, but it wasn't overly surprising to me either. The city worker inside walked up and asked if he could look at my Hives, Well they were sitting right there 10 feet in front of him. As a matter of fact they sit in full view of the street. Anyway, he just mentioned that a neighbor had called and was wondering if I needed to move the Hives at all. Apparently the neighbor told the City that the bees were "Attacking" them while they were mowing and working in the Yard. I told him, that that was rather strange since the Guard bees couldn't even see the neighbors yard. I work out in my garden that is 5 feet away from the "View" of the guard bees and they rarely even mess with me, and even then they just come up and say hi, sometimes landing on my arm and take a sniff. I also told him that my son literally runs our lawnmower right against the fence that sits 6 inches from the bees, but since they are blocked by a tarp they don't ever mess with him either. Well apparently the Inspector from the city has seen a few hives in his time. He said "Well they look to be at least 10 feet from your neighbors fence and I don't see any reason why you'd need to move them." I pulled out my Beekeepers License from the state, he glanced at it, and told me to have a good afternoon. I am thankful to see Bee friendly authoritarian figures in the world. Especially in my local world lol.
You can see the neighbors fence to the Right, And the back part of the fence that my son Mows past.
Slowly but surely. The weather here has been pretty stormy off and on over the past month. Not only has it kept my bees in doors (Their house not mine.) It has thrown several monkey wrenches on me getting my garden ready for summer. Now I'm mostly a pretty patient guy, but I'll be damned if I'm gonna wait too long for my Tasty Tomatoes to ripen later this Summer LOL. Anyway, I've gotten quite a lot done this week on my Square Foot Garden Area Version 2.0. Here is a Pic I took this evening when I was wrapping up for the day.
Honey Bee Hives require inspection periodically. At least that is what all the books and online experts say. I kind of wonder how all those wild bees made it without having some funny looking guy in a space man looking suit coming along and prying them open occasionally. Anyway, the thought is to make sure the queen is laying, and the bees are drawing out honeycomb like they are supposed to be doing. In addition, during inspections you can look for any Bee pests that are trying move in and give the Bees a hard time. Apparently with all the modern bee keeping techniques the bees have lost some of their natural resistance and protection to certain things in the environment. Many beekeepers have changed some of the things that have contributed to the problems, and have attempted to go back to Natural methods of Bee raising. That is, getting rid of a lot of the chemicals and pesticides in the hive, Allowing the bees to raise their own queens from local mated bees, and also allowing them to make their own Honey comb. I will attempt to try a lot of these things. Because I think Even Bees should go "Green"... Ironically. (Shouldn't they have just stayed green from the beginning?) Anyway, Below is a Video from my first Inspection last week.
Bee's get thirsty too, well they don't drink Beer (lucky for me), But they do need lots of water especially when it starts getting warmer, So I decided to sit down and build them a "watering hole".
About 10,000 of them anyway. On April 20th me and my son, drove up to Logan to pick up our Honey Bees. I ordered them in February as "Nuc's". Nuc is short for Nucleus Hive. This is One of three ways that most people start off as a Beekeeper. The other two is buying a package which is basically a box made of screen filled with three pounds of female worker bees, and a queen in her own small cage (Because she is normally not the mother of the bees, so they need a few days to get used to her, if not they might kill her before accepting her.) And, the third is catching a swarm. Swarm's can occur in the spring and usually are a result of the spring buildup of the hive that is pretty rapid. If the bees are not given enough room to expand and feel crowded they will raise a new queen and approx half of the hive will swarm (Go find a new Home.) In all the horror movies featuring bees, the swarm is what you need to watch out for. Actually, in reality when bees swarm that is when they are at their tamest and if you find them before they establish a new home they are rather easy to capture and transfer to your own hive. The first way that I mentioned is the Nucleus hive, and this is what I chose to go with. Basically The Apiary (beefarm) will allow a hive to raise a virgin queen, they will allow her to mate, and then throw her into a 5 frame mini hive with some worker bees (either made out of wood like a big hive or a waxed cardboard box.) They will do this about a month before the buyer is scheduled to pick up the bees. During this time the Queen will lay eggs and establish brood, while the workers build up comb, work out in the fields and bring in honey and pollen. That way by the time I picked up my bees they were already established into their own Nucleus Hive... Nuc. We brought them home, set up our Hive boxes and basically just opened up the cardboard boxes and transferred the frames over to our hives. Then we added a few empty frames for the bees to fill up and left them to their work. I installed the first nuc, and while taking Video I allowed my 17 year old son Rodney to install the second one...
The whole point of Square Foot Gardening (Per the book) is that once you invest the initial time into preparing the boxes and soil, it makes the rest of your gardening easy. That being said I tried square foot gardening last year, and I liked it. And I did really well with it. However, I built some boxes and set them "over here", and built some other boxes and put them on stilts "over there" then as things grew I thought 'Next year maybe this will work better "over there", and maybe those boxes on stilts will do better on the ground "over there". And I could add some more boxes that will get full sun all day "over there" and that will make my Tomatoes go crazy. So I'm sure in theory Square foot gardening can be and is easy once established. But my mind isn't easy and its never idle, and this year not only did I want to add more space and move all the stuff around that I did last year, I also decided to get me a few garden helpers. So I drove up to Logan and picked me up a few ladies, well for a price. Now don't worry I got them for a good price approx .02 cents a lady. I got about 10,000 of them. Honey bees that is. So now I'm a gardener AND a Beekeeper.
Monday, May 3, 2010
I started Square Foot Gardening last year, and I really enjoyed it. This year I will be expanding my garden and moving things around some. I will try to post a Video here from last year showing my garden boxes and tomatoes growing up trellises 8 feet in the air.
Seems like there have been a multitude of movements covering backyard farming, gardening, beekeeping, raising chickens etc. Even in the big city you have folks stashing chickens and bees on their roof and growing tomatoes off of their balconies. In my opinion (and I have many) they are doing this to try and get back some of what we have lost when we all packed up and stuffed ourselves into the towns and cities. Well I don't want to start a movement, I have my political opinions and ideas, but I'm hardly "Political" by any means. I just want to do whats fun and enjoyable to me. There are a lot of things in life that you can do that causes a lot of sweat and dirt and sore muscles at the end of the day that you really don't enjoy. However yard work, and gardening etc. Is a hobby I found that I can get all of those thing and still enjoy at the end of the day. Also I like to build things, and invent things. Not necessarily for the act of inventing either. If I need something I'll walk around and brainstorm till I find enough tools and objects to throw together what I am making. Its not always pretty but usually its functional. For example: The handle on one of the toilets in my house broke a few years ago. I walked out into the garage and found some tools, I knew what it would take to fix it... Roughly. I just needed to find something that would work. Turns out an old spoon in my kitchen drawer fit the bill. Well that spoon is still sitting there as the inside workings to that toilet years later. Like I said I don't want to start a movement or change the world. I just want to have fun and enjoy what I do. So when I use words like MicroAg and BurbFarm I'm just taking the spoons I find in the drawers of my mind and using them in unforeseen ways.
