Bees- day 2

 

I checked the bees today and they still haven’t released the queen out of her own little box yet but probably will by tomorrow. The queen comes in a little box inside the big ‘shoebox’ with the rest of the bees. All the bees have to release her. If we humans released her right away, they would probably kill her as they are all not from the same hive and need to acclimate to each other. There is a little sugar plug on the end of the queen’s box which takes the bees about 3 days to eat through thus releasing her. While they eat the little sugar plug out, they are getting use to her pheromones and by doing so will accept her. The name ‘queen’ is actually a misnomer as she does not boss the others around but is really a ‘mother’ bee, in essence a baby machine! There is no ‘leader’ in the bee colony, all the bees make decisions by consensus and the colony thinks like one organism. Kinda like the Borg in Star Trek!

What do Bees Have to Do with Gardening? Everything!

So what are bees doing in a gardening blog? Why am I writing about them? Well, bees and gardens go hand in hand. Without bees we wouldn’t have our crops. They pollinate over 90% of all food crops in the world. So please bear (oh oh, bad word for bees) with me while I get another hive established on the property. I’ve learned so much from Caleb and his hive this past year and I’m very excited to get my own. I hope this year is better for the bees than last year. We need more rain this summer.

RAIN=MORE FLOWERS
=MORE CROPS
=MORE BEES
=MORE HONEY!

The bees are in their new diggs!

Wednesday we received our bees and put them in their new diggs (I mean home—I mean hive). Caleb came over early (7am) and realized the stand for the hive was too tall for me (he’s like 6′ 4″ and I’m 5′ 6″) and needed to be cut down so off he went back to his shop to work on it. Meanwhile the bees were delivered to our shop, Liquid Light Glass, (all quarter million of them!) and were surprisingly quiet. I think they liked the warm ‘hot shop’ after being in a cold truck. First we called everyone on our list to make sure they would get picked up that day. Then Caleb dropped off the stand and I went back to the ranch with the stand and the bees.  I set up and leveled the stand and hive (bees like their homes on level ground, just like us) while the bees buzzed crankily in their little shipping shoebox’ box (they did not like the ride on the dirt road). So I let them calm down before taking them over to their new topbar hive. We decided to put them in later in the day so they would have overnite to adjust to their new diggs. Caleb came out to make sure I did it correctly and Elodie took pictures of the ‘bee installation’. Amazing success and no one got stung!

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When Will I Plant Tomatoes?

I think I’m going to start planting tomatoes by the weekend.  I won’t get all of them in but this will be the EARLIEST I have ever planted here in Santa Fe. I checked the weather for the next 10 days and no freezing weather is projected. Of course it’s always a crap shoot here in NM but I think the odds might be in our favor this year. I will still put them in wall of waters (WOWs) because they grow so much faster in them than without them and if we get a freeze, they offer lots of protection.  But I will hold off on the eggplants and peppers for a little while longer cause they want HEAT. I checked the weather for the next 10 days and no freezing weather is projected. I’m not recommending anyone plant before our last freeze date of May 15th, just letting you know what I’m thinking. Unbelievably beautiful weather-so different then last year’s-no wind, no freezing weather-just fabulous! Time to spend lots of time in the vegetable garden!

What’s the Bzzzzzzz?

Tomorrow the bees are coming!  That means about 240,000 bees will be arriving at the studio! Hopefully they will arrive around 9am INTACT. Of course they are not all mine but 15 total orders are on my order and Mike Masse has an extra 5 packages in his order. Honeybee genetics where we all bought them has ganged all the packages together and has used our studio address to deliver them to. The new owners of these bees will be coming and picking up their bees throughout the day. I have one package out of the 15. Each package weighs 4 lbs and there is about 3000 bees per pound so each package has about 12,000 bees to help all us budding or established beekeepers get our hives started. Caleb is coming out with my hive and stand at 7 am to place it on our predetermined site and then we will go to the studio to pick up the beezzzz to pick them up and then back out to the property to place them in their new home. Can’t wait!!

My First Bee Class with Les Crowder

Sunday I took my first official bee class (Intro to beekeeping) with Les Crowder. Mind you I’ve learned a lot in the past year with Caleb and his bees but I want to get more information and experience. Les is a professional top bar beekeeper with 30 years experience who also instructs. We all got to handle the bars with bees on them, find the queen and drones, pet the bees, and even divided a hive that was getting ready to swarm. The class was fantastic!  Can’t wait till the next class: Spring Hive Maintenance. The class couldn’t have come too soon- tomorrow the bees come!

Santa Fe Master Gardeners Garden Fair Today!

Today-Saturday, April 28-Santa Fe Master Gardener Annual Garden Fair 10AM-4PM at the Rodeo Grounds

This is our giant garden fair blowout we put on once a year and it is FABULOUS!  If you are a gardener and have never come to this-you have missed out!  You want to learn how to plant stuff in Santa Fe-Come here! Want to learn how to compost-Come here! Want lots of gardening information-Come here! AND IT IS FREE!

It’s held at the Rodeo Fairgrounds here in Santa Fe from 10 AM – 4 PM and will feature a giant plant sale with really good prices and a ‘garden shed’ with lots of gardening goodies for sale.

We will also have demonstrations on: How to Build a Rain Barrel, Composting, Vermi-Composting, Creating Herb Gardens, How to Do Drip Irrigation Systems and Creating a Wildflower Meadow.

AND we have wonderful guest speakers,  Tracy Neal-Landscape Designer, Jim Brooks-from Soilutions, and our main speaker, David Salman from Santa Fe Greenhouses.

The many non-profit organizations include Santa Fe Botanical Society, Rose Society, Home Grown New Mexico, Iris Society, Herb Society, and Sangre De Cristo Beekeepers with a demo beehive.

We have over 26 Gardening exhibitors including Santa Fe Greenhouses, Agua Fria Nursery, Paynes Nurseries, Eulalio’s Farm (great tomato plants for sale), Wild Birds Unlimited, Sierra Club and many more too numerous to list.

Oh and if you come, I’ll be in the plant sale section. Come by and say ‘Hi’. Hope to see you there!

What are these grubs in your soil?

scarab beetle larvae

This time of year when you are adding amendments and turning your soil, you may notice some white fat grubs with brown heads. I noticed they were in soil that I heavily amended with horse manure and would freak out when I saw them. I took all of them (sometimes a lot) and give them to the chickens. I use to think were cutworms but they are not.

They are Scarab beetle larvae and will NOT harm your vegetable plants or vegetable roots. They are also known as the ‘dung beetle’ larvae. In fact they are beneficial because they help break down the manure by eating it, hence you will find them where you use manure. Just leave them alone as they are kind of like worms, adding nutrients to the soil as they process the manure. I have never seen any damage to vegetables but if they are in your lawn (what lawn?! LOL) they will eat grass-roots (but not vegetable roots).

cutworms

On the other hand, here is a picture of cutworms which are HARMFUL to your plants. They come out of the ground at night and chew the base of your transplant stem off leaving you with a decapitated plant (so to speak). They attack baby plant stems because they are tender. After the plants get older, they don’t bother them. If you see these, get rid of them.  I look for them in the soil around the hole I dig just before I put my transplants in the ground. But there is something else you can do to protect your plants.

You can protect your plant by putting a ‘cutworm collar’ around your newly planted transplants. I use a paper towel roll or toilet paper row  cut into 2 inch increments. I cut the tube lengthwise to get them around the plant stem and tape the cut seam.

Then I sink the tube about 1 inch into the soil. They won’t crawl up the tube. After your plants get a little older, take the tube off-they only like young stems. In this picture the collar is filled with dirt but I just leave the collar  on without filling it with dirt.

Rhubarb and Asparagus starting to come up!

Asparagus coming up!

I can’t wait! It’s been 4 years since I planted the asparagus and I hope I get enough to harvest this year. About 5 spears are already poking through the straw they hide under and that is just one of 4 plants.

Rhubarb coming up too!

Last year I read rhubarb is a good companion plant for asparagus so I got 2 that were already in gallon pots and transplanted them. I got lots of rhubarb last year because they were already 2 years old. They are now coming up like gangbusters. I have them covered with row cover on freezing nights but they seem fine with cold nights. Spring is here!

Make a Soil/Rock Sifter for New Garden Beds

My friend Adam made a sifter to sift out rocks from soil when creating new garden beds. It is a simple contraption made with stuff I had lying around. He found a pallet and cut it in half. Then he screwed 2 layers of chicken wire onto the pallet. He used two 2×4 as portable legs to lean it up on an angle. Then you just put a shovelful of your rocky soil on it and the dirt falls through while the rocks roll off. The soil is light and fluffy and ready to add compost or horse manure to it. When I later looked up how much one is you can buy online, they were $250! Here is Caleb using it on a new garden bed.

Potatoes Were Planted on March 30th

Potatoes planted in deep rows-covered in straw

I’m trying a lot of new varieties of vegetables this year besides the varieties I always plant. I’ve never planted potatoes before but thought I’d give them a try this year. I actually planted the potatoes on March 30 and am just now getting around writing about them. I just couldn’t wait any longer. I put them in my best bed that is 12 inches deep with very rich fluffy soil. I figure even if it snowed (which of course it did), the ground wouldn’t freeze up 3-4 inches below the soil where the potatoes are. Plus I got the drip in place (even though it isn’t turned on yet) on the potatoes and covered them with straw to protect them from the snow. I planted all fingerlings-French, Russian Banana and a purple variety. They are not up yet but can’t wait till they are. A brand new crop for me.

Seed Germination Trouble-seed heating mat too hot!

Some new tomato seedlings coming up among the others

This year I have been struggling with my seed starting this year. Many seeds have not germinated. The seed germination mats seemed way too hot. I’ve never had this problem before (usually it is too cold) but when I did some research, I found out the mats are suppose to be 20 °F over the ambient temperature. This spring so far has been very warm (especially inside the house even without the heat on) and when I took the temperature of the soil in the little pots it was between 95 and 1oo°F! Way too hot for germination. No wonder very little was coming up—I’ve been frying the seeds!

So I got a soil germination thermostat that will control the temperature which I keep at 80°F and within 3 days I had 11 tomatoes come up. Wow what a difference. I will have to replant some tomatoes seeds but hopefully I will be fine. Guess I won’t have to worry about the plants growing too big this year before I transplant them in the garden.

April Snow in Santa Fe

April snow storm in Santa Fe-2012

Good news. Bad news.

Good news-We got some snow last night-about 4 inches of very heavy wet snow. The good news is we really needed some moisture as it’s been so dry here. The plants and trees are loving it and the snow should knock down the pollen counts. The temperature this morning on the news was 33°F. But at the house the temperature read 31°F. Which one is true?

Bad news-We got some snow last night. The bad news is the apricot, plums and peach trees were all in full bloom here so we will probably not get any fruit from those trees this year plus the bees had been visiting the flowers of these trees so the blossoms will probably drop as well. If the temperature was above freezing, we might of lucked out and get some fruit. Time will tell…

Eggstraordinary update!

Ok, the culprits have revealed themselves! Late Saturday night (at midnight) our friends Adam and Caleb plotted to come out to the chicken coop to plant over 200 eggs. Using a red headlight, the chickens were a little uneasy with this stranger in their midst! and even more shocked in the morning when they tried to figure out which one of them had such a productive night! This is one of the best April Fools pranks I’ve ever experienced- Thanks guys for a good laugh!

April Fool’s-An Eggstraordinary Day!!

Today was April Fool’s day and was an eggstraordinary day! After coming home from a movie we checked for eggs in the chicken coop and discovered an unbelievable sight-the whole coop floor was covered with eggs!!

“Look what we laid!! Boy are we tired! It’s been a full day to lay all these! We’ll have to sleep for a week to recover!”

Under our old girls who were now sleeping was lots of eggs!  And I don’t mean a few-lots and lots! Did they lay them? How could this be? How did they get there? Ah, a mystery! We’re not sure who put them there but it was a great April Fool’s Day joke. We laughed and laughed. We must have collected at least 10 dozen eggs, filling up every bowl and bucket we could find! Then we discovered another joke-some of them are hard-boiled and some are raw! Even more funny! Now the refrigerator is totally filled with eggs everywhere! We thinking of having a giant 120 egg omelet for breakfast tomorrow! Maybe we’ll set a Guinness World record for largest omelet! Breakfast anyone?!!