Update 12/30/12

Haven't updated in a bit and I want to make sure to keep track for future reference in years to come.  As you can see, the broccoli is doing great, probably the best head development we have had so far.  There is also cabbage starting to come around and still waiting on cauliflower, maybe early Spring.

Starting to get some Brussels sprouts as you can see.  This bed had plenty of water and I have not opened it in a bit, partly due to our being out of town for Christmas.  Some of the sprouts plants had considerable mold, at least that is what it looked like.  I cut them back to the dirt and tossed them on the compost.  I am hoping for more new sprouts in a couple of weeks.

The lettuce bed is still producing, though it's days are numbered except for the arugula.  I will replant the same mix for salad into early Summer.  We have been eating it as hard as we can for the last two months at least.

And of course the greens are doing great, fresh in my morning smoothie every day.  I will probably braise a mess for New Years Eve dinner tomorrow.

The root veggie bed just didn't do much.  I replanted it and hope for a Spring crop.  That's it for now.

Mourning

Looks like the bees are dead.

We fed them during the worst of the summer dearth and quit when they had mostly quit taking it.   After about 3 weeks we started feeding again as we saw goldenrod drying up.  But, apparently, it was too late.

There was a time when there were so many bees we were afraid of a late summer swarm.  Now there are practically none.  There is nectar or sugar syrup visible in cells and capped pollen. But, almost no bees and the sugar syrup hasn't gone down any for about 3 days.

Did we not feed enough?

Were they poisoned by the corn growing down the road?

Do we try again next year or sell our gear thinking this area is bad for honey bees?

First Freeze?

We may be in for a different winter this year.  There is a freeze, not frost, warning out for tonight and I had to get the cold frame covers out of summer hibernation.  I had intended to get them out this past weekend and do some maintenance/reinforcing, but Sandy's wind and rain made that a poor choice.  In any case they are on and will hopefully do their job.  It was late November before we needed them last year.

I took some photos of the "crops" before I covered them.  We have been enjoying all the salad we can eat with mixed lettuce, arugula and spinach.

The far end of the above bed also has some pepper plants still producing, but I fear the cold will shut them down pretty soon.

This bed has swiss chard and three kinds of kale plus some spinach on the side.

This one has turnips and beets with some arugula at the ends.

This one has brussels sprouts, broccoli, cabbage and cauliflower, all coming along very slowly.  The cover buckwheat crowded out the new starts at first and I am hoping they make a comeback with the extended season covers.

This is our spaghetti squash tree.  The vines climbed the crepe myrtle and also latched on to the fence.




There was a volunteer sweet 100 grape tomato plant that I was letting grow in the greens bed that started very late in the season.  With the freeze coming I harvested all the fruit and have put a couple of bananas in the basket to hasten the ripening process.  Maybe fresh tomato candy for Thanksgiving?

These are useful...

both for eating sprouts and for knowing germination times of stuff we've planted.

Salad

This is where we've been shopping for salad, lately.

New bee documentary

Looks like it is coming out in November. Was just at the Toronto Film Festival.
More than Honey - Markus Imhoof (Official Trailer) from CIBER Science on Vimeo.
Amazing footage! And here is a nice article about it in Outside Magazine.

Permaculture reminders from FB

Garden Update

Been a while since I last posted here. There has been mostly eating, though the summer returns have been a bit sporadic. The early excessive heat and the inconsistent rain has had it's effect on production. The summer squash finally ran it's course and I was pretty much ready. I was a bit tired of it. I expect that I will not plant so much of it next spring. We are into Fall and Winter planting right now and I have added two new beds. Lowes had self-contained kits on sale made of cedar, so I thought I would give them a try. I have planted buckwheat in one for the bees to forage during the slow season.

They have been a bit slow in finding it, but have been more interested lately.  Kitty pulled the feeders from the hives about a week ago.  We are watching to see how they do now that Goldenrod is plentiful and they have Buckwheat just outside their front doors.  This morning I planted more Buckwheat in the mulch between five of the Hazelnut bushes just to see if it will sprout there.  If so, I will plant more.  It grows quickly and lasts until the first frost and is supposed to be a great green compost.

Moving on to the new stuff.  Last month I planted Butternut and Spaghetti squash in the other new bed.  It is about to take over the yard.  There is already fruit and many blossoms.  I tend to prefer the winter squash varieties over the summer.

 

In the bed beside the Buckwheat, I have planted carrots, beets and turnips.  In the bed beside the squash, I have planted cabbage, cauliflower and broccoli.  In the other upper bed I have planted three varieties of kale.  That bed still has thriving chard and a leftover okra plant that is still producing.

 

In the last lower bed I have planted lettuce, arugula and spinach.  Yesterday I planted peas in the cinder block holes along one whole side of that bed.  The rest of the okra plants doing fine and I expect them to keep producing for a few more weeks.  I have also planted Parsnips in the half of the cinder block holes in that bed.

We had mixed results with tomatoes.  The corner bed away from the raised beds produced wonderful German Johnsons and some very tasty Cherokee Purples, but the plants in the beds seemed to wilt in the early heat.  We are still enjoying tomatoes and have been able to share with family and friends.

I planted Buckwheat in some of the other beds.  The one below is where the cabbage, cauliflower and broccoli have been planted.  You can see the greyish leaves of the returning brussel sprouts plants that I just cut back in the middle of the summer.  I am a bit concerned that the Buckwheat will impair the sprouting of the new stuff.

Anyway, that's pretty much it for now.

Aromatherapy

From the Homesteading Survivalism Facebook page.

We have 7 of 12.

Talking about taking honey and our bee tending intentions

Honey is bee food.  Beekeepers take honey that bees don't need in the Springtime when there is a good nectar flow on and the bees have successfully overwintered.  Beekeepers who take too much honey at the wrong time can starve their bees.  Or find themselves feeding the bees sugar syrup or fondant to make up for the lack of real bee food.

Chuck and I would rather take a little bit of honey, if they have enough to share, and leave the majority to the bees.  We are mostly in it for the pollination, but also with the intention of helping to restore honeybee populations

And we hope that our hands-off way of tending the bees will help to restock the feral bee populations that have been hurt by Colony Collapse Disorder.  It didn't just affect commercial beekeepers and honey farmers.  It has, also, decimate the wild bees.

Honeybees preceded settlers across the continent as soon as they landed.  This was fortunate because so much of the crops that colonists were going to be planting needed those bees. And that hasn't changed. In order to grown a huge amount of food we eat daily, we need honeybees.


Here are some (but not all) of the things they help pollinate:


Alfalfa, allspice, almonds, apples, apricots, avocados, beans (many varieties), beets, blackberries,  blueberries, boysenberries, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, buckwheat, cabbage, cantaloupe, caraway,  cardamom, carrots, cashews, cauliflower,celery, cherries (sweet and sour) chestnuts, clover, coconut, coffee, coriander, cotton, cranberries, cucumbers, currants, eggplants, elderberries, fennel, flax, grapes, guava, kiwi, lemon. lime, loquat, macadamias, mangoes, mustard, nectarine, okra, onions, papaya, peas (many, again) peach, pear, persimmon, plum, pomegranate, rapeseed (aka canola), raspberry, safflower, sesame, soybeans, squash (all sorts), strawberries, sunflowers, tangelos, tangerines, turnips, vetch and watermelon.


And notice that some of the crops listed aren't people food. Alfalfa, clover and vetch are are food for other food.

The other important thing going on with honeybees is that because of how humans have handled them they have been exposed to parasites and diseases that they aren't ready to deal with.  Asian honeybees have developed habits and immunities to varroa mites and the diseases they carry that European honeybees haven't had time to develop.   But because they get moved around the country to pollinate huge monocrops (ie, Florida oranges groves, North Carolina blueberries and California almond orchards that cover an area the size of Rhode Island) they have been exposed to these pathogens fairly regularly.


That has been one of the pieces of the Colony Collapse puzzle.  


Now, some beekeepers are raising queens that produce bees that have "hygienic behavior."  And there are treatments for the mites.  Unfortunately, the treatments create weak bee colonies with resistant mites.  


There is a subculture of beekeepers who are trying to support "survivor bees," bees that have managed to thrive in spite of varroa without help from humans.  These beekeepers let weak colonies die and then restock their hives with swarms caught from healthy hives or feral colonies.  And they don't whine a whole lot if one of their hives swarm away.


So, our hope is to pollinate our garden, get a little honey and to grow healthy bees that will help the Colony Collapse Disorder recovery.