I just updated the ‘available plants’ page with some vegetables seeds I didn’t have last time I edited that page. I have other seeds, but the ones that I have a lot of and know they grow fine are mostly on that page.
Archive for the 'garden' Category
So here’s the plan for the vegetable garden this spring.
I started some seeds already in the basement, including leeks, kale, wild chicory, bee balm, and Asclepias tuberosa.
There are a lot of things I haven’t found a place for yet, including melons, peas, squashes, beets, brussels sprouts, and potatoes. I don’t have seed potatoes yet, but I kinda wanted to try growing a bunch of them. I might need to build some raised beds to accommodate a decent number of potatoes. Remington volunteered to help and it seems like a job where help might help. Help haul the wood back from the lumber yard, right? I wish.
To that end, I should probably work more on the yard-scope plan to place all of these things.
That is an exciting diagram, as it includes a bunch of other works in progress and nice ideas.
I’ve got parsnips and carrots growing, and some newish turnips in now. I just planted a couple of burdock as a test to see how they weather the winter, how the yield is, and whether they can be dug out well enough that they don’t become annoying. I don’t want more burs.
I just planted the new row of fennel, but there are only 10 plants that survived drying out during my trip to MN in August. I hope they’ll survive the slugs of autumn.
I just scheduled planting time for garlic and fava beans, which I’ve been growing successfully for a few years now. For some reason, I didn’t note when I planted favas last fall. This is really annoying, because I planted them on three different dates, and the last ones I planted did much better than the others. So much for records.
I still need to figure out when to plant shallots. I did that last fall, but again there don’t seem to be any records of when I planted things after the Europe trip last year.
Outside of the front yard food garden, I just planted a bunch of herbs that I rooted from cuttings into a new part of the yard, and moved a mysterious Ribes into the gardens by the alley. I planted some Asphodel back there too. I’m excited to see what these plants do, as I’ve never grown them before.
A lot of the first brood I observed seems to have been drones. When I first saw the capped comb I thought they looked too domed for worker brood, but never having seen either in person before I was not sure. Is it normal for queens to lay a bunch of drones when they are starting their laying career? I don’t know. Since then I have observed lots of capped worker brood, so I am not worried about the drone production. Just curious.
Though the drones were obviously young, having hatched in the last few weeks, I found a number of dead ones. Did they kill each other or did they get killed by workers?
Getting the bees to build their comb such that it lines up with the bars on a top bar hive is a pretty significant initial challenge. I don’t know if using a Langstroth hive would ‘solve’ this problem, but fuller frames seem likely to help.
Sometimes on a hot sunny day the bees have a really active period. Then they stop abruptly when the wind picks up or a cloud covers the sun. This makes me nervous about swarms, but I am also skeptical, since I haven’t seen any swarm cells and I still seem to have a lot of bees.
Some workers are lighter and some are darker. I don’t know why this is. It could be that some are from my queen and some are from the initial batch. It could be that younger workers are lighter or darker than older ones. It could be a seasonal difference.
The bees have been in the hive more than a week now.
On Friday I had a bit of a gala to welcome them. It was an excellent time. Thanks for coming and thanks for bringing excellent food and drinks.
Saturday I inspected the hive to see how they’re building comb so far.
This is what the bees looked like when I opened the hive:
It was a bit rough, because the queen cage had caused the bees to build comb across a few of the bars instead of lined up with them nicely. First a shot of the empty queen cage.
Then on to the carnage. Here the sixth bar has been cut free from the diagonal combs, which are still connected to bars 4 & 5:
The top bars have a channel of wax running down the center of them so that the bees build the comb along the bars. When something causes the bees to build comb that doesn’t line up with the bars, the comb can normally be cut from the bar a little at the edges and straightened. I’m sure this works fine with comb that’s just curved due to being farther from the entrance, but the method (or my finesse) was not up to handling this soft new comb in this configuration.
Here’s the most hopeful point, with bars 4 & 5 separated from each other:
Unfortunately, neither of these bars had strong enough comb or connection left to survive straightening. I tied the biggest comb to the 4th bar and left the 5th bar’s comb on the bottom of the hive. I wasn’t confident that tying the comb back on was worth the time to find another piece of string. The bees should just chew it up and make new comb. Straighter hopefully.
Here’s the aftermath:
Comb images (mostly covered in bees) from the entrance back:
| 1 entrance | 
|
|---|---|
| 2 entrance | 
|
| 2 back |  |
| 3 entrance |  |
| 3 back |  |
| 4 entrance |  |
| 4 back |  |
| 6 back |  |
I built a bee hive. It’s based on top bar hives built by a guy in Wyoming.
I built it of materials found in our basement or nearby construction work. I did have to buy a replacement pulley for the table saw when the pulley broke, but that doesn’t count. I spent no money on this construction. It’s glued and screwed, built of pine, cedar, spruce, 1/4″ luon plywood, 3/4″ plywood, 2″ foam insulation in the cover, and a corrugated fiberglass roof.
It fits 24 bars maximum, and uses a melted wax channel as a comb guide on the bars.
Next month I’m picking up some Minnesota Hygenic bees from an apiary to the north.
I’m growing garlic, shallots, and three varieties of onion in the garden.
I bought the day-neutral onion collection which contains 50-75 onions each of red candy apple, superstar and candy varieties (150-225 total). I planted about a third of them today, but I haven’t figured out where to put them all.
I will plant what else I can find places for today and give my leftovers to Kalen and Claire.
I also have a few leeks leftover from last year still growing, and some kind of ornamental Allium I have not identified yet.
This plan still feels a bit tentative. Some plants will have to find places in the back yard or the interstices.
The dark-seeded favas, ‘negreta’ I think they were called, are about half dead. I have about 7 kale plants left, which seems like plenty, but some of them are flowering, so I should plant new ones. The brussels sprouts never yielded anything, and I’m wondering if they will. The garlic looks good. About 1/3 of the shallots aren’t visible. I don’t know if they’re waiting for something, or if they died in the snow.
I started seeds for tomato, beets, peppers, fennel, kohlrabi, and a bunch of other things last weekend.
I just noticed now, when starting in on a spring garden plan, that I never posted the one from fall.
After being snowed on and frozen for a few weeks, the favas are in varying states of wiltedness, though many seem still alive. The garlic and shallots seem good. The brussels sprouts, kale, and chard are dead on the edges, but I think the cores are still alive. The fennel looks pretty rough. Maybe some of the larger bulbs could live, but most of the plants are wilted and dead. I use the European vacation as an excuse for never planting parsnips, beets, or carrots this fall.
I added a link to my flickr account on the sidebar of this blog, under “me”.
I added a tab with some plants that I am interested in parting with or I have extras of. It’s titled “available plants.”
Click on these links if you are interested in plants or images.
