Cut Flowers Abound July 24, 2008

 

Not much is happening in my ornamental plots right now, save for harvesting, weeding and watering.  I’m pleased with the cut flowers I’ve been producing – the colors are vivid and their vase life is quite good (average 7 days without any floral preservatives).  I continue to be frustrated with my cosmos though.  As lush as the plants are, only one of them is actually producing buds.  The others are just huge and shading out my echinacea, which are blooming only sporadically, possibly for lack of sun.   Next year I’ll plant my annuals differently to avoid some of these problems.  But for now, I’m really enjoying the blooms I am getting.  

 

Flowers in this bunch include zinnias, cosmos, yarrow, dahlias, salvia, and carrot greens.

 

I’ve also been checking out a lot of books from the library on the topic of cut flower production.  The best I’ve read so far is The Flower Farmer by Lynn Byczynski.  The library copy I have is the 1997 edition.  I like it so much, I plan on buying her recent updated edition and using it as a regular reference for planning my garden next year.

Transferring Bees July 24, 2008

This past week, the new bees we’d gotten earlier in July needed to be transferred out of their “nuke” boxes into hive boxes that they could use to expand their colonies and produce much more honey.  The process was rather time consuming, but very interesting, especially because we got to see so much of the inner workings of these new hives.  Here are lots of pictures to depict the process.

 

Taking out the frames and cleaning off excess comb.

Looking for the queen so we can mark her.

Found the queen!  Now to trap her.

Trying to put the queen in the little holding tube to mark her.

Oh crap, we lost her!

YOU try finding the queen!

Opening a new hive – all those bees were on the underside of the lid.

Smoking them to calm them down.

Bzzzzzz

Cut comb being used on new frames for the new boxes. 
Keeping this old comb in the new boxes helps the bees identify their new hive
by smell.  You can see the pollen (yellow) and eggs (white) around the edges.

Attaching the old comb to the new frame.

Workers swarm around the trapped queen about to be released into the new box.

We found the queen “cage” at the bottom of the old box – this is used
by beekeepers to transport queens.

Classic beekeeper shot for the record.

July Rotation: Production July 24, 2008

 

I spent the very hot month of July with the production group.  The first week was spent in the modern and sophisticated greenhouses in Lower Production/33G.  There I worked mostly at potting mums and poinsettias and seeding various crops with the custom-made seeding machine. 

 

 

The second and third weeks I spent mostly in the estate houses – “state-of-the-art greenhouses”….in 1921.  While these houses were very hot and not at all modern, I found the work more interesting and learned a great deal from Jason about the challenges of greenhouse production and about the cut flower industry. 

 

 

My final week was spent with the crew over in the nursery who handles outdoor display production.  There I did a lot of staking, tying, potting and watering.  We also “deconstructed” a greenhouse that was too hot to use unless we cut out the middle section of plastic.  That was interesting.  Generally speaking though, I don’t think greenhouse production is an area I’d get into as I enjoy growing plants from start to finish and putting them in the ground.

Vegetable Ups & Downs July 22, 2008

You know what I like about vegetable growing?  You’re never quite sure what you’ll encounter each time you step into the rows and bend down to look over the plants. Unlike ornamentals (particularly the perennials I covet most) that generally just do their thing without much fuss, vegetables can be either hugely rewarding or hugely disappointing.  I’ve got a little of both right now.  

 

 

In the “hugely rewarding” category, my King Midas carrots are beautiful.  They’ve all been straight and measuring about 1 inch around and 12 inches long.  I’ve harvested a dozen so far and probably have another two dozen maturing.  As pretty as they are though, they aren’t as sweet as I’d like for the carrot cake I’m so fond of making.   Oh, and another big success (so far) is the popcorn, which is by far some of the healthiest corn stalks I’ve ever seen with no deer damage at all!  

   

 

In the “hugely disappointing” category, my Eight Ball zucchini are nearly a complete failure.  The plants were beautiful up until last week when a disease – dampening off or wilt, I believe – started taking them out one by one.   I only had five planted and I’m down to one healthy one left.  I’m routing for this one and giving it extra love.  On July 15ht,  I did harvest one beautiful (and tasty!) little zucchini off one of the other plants before it died and this one last healthy one has about 5 or 6 tiny fruits forming.  I do have three sickly looking transplants I held over in the greenhouse in case my crop failed, but with this disease, I’m not sure it’s any use to plant more since new plants are likely to suffer the same fate.  I’ll probably give it a shot though.    The only consolation in all of this is that several other student squash plants are suffering similarly.  Misery does indeed enjoy company. 

 

In other vegetable plot doings, I applied another batch of compost tea on July 16th.  I was hoping this application would do something to ward off the Mexican Bean Beetle larva that are camping out all over my bush beans.  These bright yellow fuzzy oblong bugs are easy to identify but hard to get rid of other than picking them off when I’m picking the beans.   There are also an uncomfortable number of grasshoppers in my garden and I’m sure they’re doing some damage. 

 

 

My winter squash seedlings are coming along nicely in the greenhouse.  I actually wish they’d slow down a bit as I’m afraid I won’t have a space ready for them in time if they keep up their current pace.   This evening, the 22nd, I seeded radicchio and mustard greens in flats too.   In this current heat wave, it’s hard to think about getting fall crops started, but it needed to be done. 

 

I also direct sowed rutabaga this evening after pulling out the lettuce that had bolted.  I amended the soil with a few scoops of bone meal in hopes of encouraging better growth of the root.

Bee Update: They’re Hot! July 19, 2008

 

The new bees seem to be taking to their new home well.  We’ve stopped feeding them and hope they’re going out to the gardens and meadows for their sustainance.  Kerry-Ann alerted me to some cool bee action the other evening.  The days have been really warm again, and the bees were fanning their hives to moderate the temperature.  The hive on the west was obviously the hottest at the end of the day.  The sound coming from their buzzing butts was pretty intense.

 

Cut Flowers July 19, 2008

 

My cutting garden has come into its own here at the end of July.  I have been taking in a bunch each day for two or three weeks now.  However, the stems are just now getting long enough to be marketable, which was my goal.  Even though I don’t intend to sell my flowers at the moment, I do want to learn as much as I can about producing and selling cut flowers.  Thus, I was glad to see the various blossoms stretching their stems.   So far, the predominant colors have been brilliant oranges, pinks and old-fashioned white.

 

 

The dahlias and zinnias have been super productive, but I wish my cosmos would get to work more.  So far they’ve just produced an excess of foliage.  I also broke down on a recent trip to Wal-Mart and bought some sickly celosia transplants for a buck, hoping they’d give me some much needed filler material.  They seem to be taking to this late date in getting into the garden.  I hadn’t planned well enough for the filler blooms for my cuttings.  The grasses I’d seeded failed.  At the moment, I’ve gone so far as to use the fluffy tops of my carrots as fillers.  Strangely enough, they look great in cottage garden arrangements.

 

 

This week in my cutting garden, I also struggled to design and construct a bamboo ladder.  I’ve run out of space on the ground so figured it might be nice to go vertical, using this ladder to hang half baskets covered in seedums and filled with yet-to-be-determined annuals.  Building the ladder to be sturdy enough to hold baskets proved challenging.  If Kerry-Ann hadn’t come to my rescue with a power drill, I’d likely have given up.  With the drill on hand, I was able to put holes where I wanted rungs, sliding the smaller bamboo pieces through and then wrapping twine around each “joint” for added security.  

 

 

My container has filled in tremendously and has a lush atmospheric affect on the garden.  Dan Hill stopped by and gave a compliment that pleased me, saying it looked like the red foliage was flames licking at lighter textured green plants.   I’ve actually started to prune the plants about once a week as they tend to get out of control.  As much as I love this summer container, I’m already considering ideas for the fall.

 

Harvest Time July 15, 2008

Rea Oak Leaf Lettuce and a Lemon Cucumber

 

I’ve begun harvesting lots from the garden now that it’s mid-July.   On July 8th,  I picked my first lemon cucumber.  It was a bit small still but I couldn’t help myself.  Since then, I’ve gotten four more.  I really like this variety of cucumber because of their “single serving” size.  

 

Unfortunately, the same day I picked my first cucumber was also the last day I harvested lettuce.  The antique cutting lettuce mix I grew was superb, and one I’ll definitely be planting again in the fall.  But for now, the heat has sent it bolting. 

 

Carrot and Chives

 

On July 10th, I picked my first handful of string beans and suspect my plants will be very productive.  I also picked my first carrot (again, rather prematurely but it was still a decent size) and plenty of basil, chives, rosemary and sage. 

 

 

In my cutting garden, I’ve been taking in bunches of beautiful zinnias, dahlias, and blue balloon flowers.   I’ve been using the yarrow and borage from my tea garden as fillers too.  The borage flowers have been a new favorite of mine in salads, as have the nasturntiums, which are giant at this point.

 

Borage Flower

 

At this point in the growing season, I’m quite pleased with how healthy and large my plants have gotten overall.  There are a few lagging behind still though – the squash have blossoms and a few small squash on them, but the plants are quite small still despite my extra watering and feeding with compost tea.  The eggplants are also stunted at the moment.  I suspect the eggplants might have been happier in a different spot of my garden since they receive just a smidgen of afternoon shade from the chestnut trees flanking the rear of my rows.   Eggplants like it as hot as they can get it so the shade, even just an hour or two, might be too much.  I’ll try another location next year.

 

Nasturntiums and Borage Flowers

 

One plant that got too happy and out of control were my cosmo seedlings.  They went from about four inches high to 30 inches high less than a week.  They also spread their width, shading out many of my smaller echinacea.  While I had been looking forward to the addition of their airy texture to the garden scheme, they ended up overpowering it so I had to give them all a severe haircut.   Next year, I’m planting fewer cosmos.

17 Facts About Honeybees July 8, 2008

Bees

 

We recently had a very informative workshop on beekeeping with Jim Bobb, the president of Pennsylvania State Beekeepers Association.  This man knows his bees, and I could hardly keep up with my note taking.  Here are the snippets I found most interesting:

 

#1 – A single hive can have 50,000 to 60,000 worker bees in it at summer’s peak.  In addition, there are about 800 drones and 1 queen.

#2 – In the honeybee world, females do all the work

#3 – Worker honeybees live on average for 35-42 days during the summer before literally     falling over with exhaustion.  In contrast, they live up to 4 months during the winter when they stay in the hive most days.  The queen, however, can leave for 2-3 years since she very rarely flies. 

#4 – A hive needs about 60 pounds of honey to get through the winter.  Any less and they’ll starve.  For hives that are being kept by humans, they usually produce about 120 pounds of honey during the summer so we get half the fruits of their labors.

#5 – Feathery hairs on a worker bee are what actually gather the pollen.  This pollen then gets pushed back by the bee’s legs into a “pollen basket” on one of their back legs. 

#6 – Bees have 5 eyes: two big ones like us, but then three little ones on the top of the head to help them fly straight.

#7 – Bees can’t see red.  To bees, red looks like black.  As such, honeybees won’t go to a purely red flower.

#8 – Scouts go out and literally choose what to pollinate.  If a scout picks a patch of clover and tells the worker bees to go collect it, those worker bees won’t be put off course no matter how many sumptuous flowers they fly over.  

#9 – Bees are actually somewhat picky eaters.  They will eventually pollinate just about every flower available to them, but they start with their favorites (salvia ) and leave their least favorites until last (pears).

#10 – There are over 30,000 species of bees in the world.

#11 – It takes about 21 days for a new bee to go from the egg stage to working in the hive.

#12 – In the bees’ diet, pollen is protein (fed to the larva only) and nectar is sugar (fed to both adults and larva).  In case you’re curious, honey is nearly all nectar, although some pollen does appear in small amounts.

#13 – 96 degrees Fahrenheit is bee utopia.  

#14 – Hives “split” by swarming, taking about 75% of the worker bees and the original queen to a new location.  The remaining hive has a queen larva and lots of worker eggs ready to hatch so the hive can re-establish itself.  This splitting process is a natural means for reproducing the overall bee population.  If a hive has split during the summer, be careful not to harvest too much of its honey as the old population that took off for new ground gorged themselves on honey before they left, diminishing the amount stored up.

#15 – 3/8 of an inch, known as “bee space”, is the exact amount of space bees like to have between their honeycombs. 

#16 – The drones, or males, only have one purpose in life: to mate with the queen.  Few of them ever get to do such and those that do immediately die after completing their mission. 

#17 – There is a little-known alternative treatment for severe arthritis and MS called apiatherapy.  This treatment involves purposefully stinging the patient with bees a few times a week in an area where they wish to stimulate nerves and relieve pain.  It is proven to work dramatically on some patients.  The “venom” in the bee’s stinger triggers weakened nerves and joints.

New Bees July 3, 2008

 

Four new hives of Russian bees arrived for the PGs on June 30th.   So far we haven’t done much with them, other than feed them store-brand grape soda spiked with extra sugar.   When hives are getting established, it helps to feed them since they haven’t found all the best pollen sources yet.  According to our bee supplier, Buck, they like this grape soda, smashed bananas, fondant, and cherry lozengers.   He was very specific about the flavors too. 

 

 

I’m looking forward to taking stewardship of these new hives.  However, I do feel some loyalty to the old hive that on the other side of the shed.  It’s still struggling since it swarmed and split.  I plan on feeding it some grape soda too to see if that increases activity.  Tomorrow we have a class on bee keeping and I hope to learn more about what to do with all these bees then. 

 

Tomato Pruning & More July 3, 2008

 

On June 30th, I went to work on pruning my long row of 19 tomato plants.   There are two schools of thought (that I know of) on tomato pruning: those that do and those that don’t.  On the farm I worked at last year, the farmer chose not to prune in favor of more growth and potentially more fruit.  And, no doubt, on the scale of a farm, pruning tomatoes could get very time consuming. 

 

 

I, however, have been eager to prune my own tomatoes because I happen to be in the school of thought that pruning improves plant health and the quality of the fruit.  For me, I don’t need bushels of tomatoes, but I would very much like to have the best quality I can get.   As such, I don’t mind if I inadvertantly limit the blossom potential on my plants when I cut them back.  With fewer leaves and suckers, I’ll have more upright plants that make harvesting easier. 

 

 

I used this detailed article to fine-tune my pruning technique. The article also gives plenty of reasons to advocate for pruning.  It’s a good read if you’re curious.

 

 

After the tomato pruning was done, I put some transplants I’d grown in the ground: calendula and wild bergamot in the tea garden and china asters and fragrant stock in the cutting garden.  I also added bone meal around my City of York rose.