The Bees Are Back!

Saturday: The bees are coming today! To get ready for their arrival, I’m preparing their sugar syrup and making a homemade version of Honey B Healthy, a nourishing supplement that is added to the syrup.

I’ll be teaching my co-workers how to be beekeepers and they’ll be installing the bees on Sunday with my guidance. Ray built us some beautiful Top Bar Hives (Thanks, Ray!) which will be their new home. We are very excited!

We have, over the last couple of weeks in our (very little) spare time, been creating a bee and butterfly sanctuary. It’s in its beginning stages and will soon be filled with plants that all the local pollinators will want to come and visit. We are also adding a labyrinth that will be planted with medicinal herbs and a vegetable garden filled with heirloom vegetables. The hives will be nestled in this wonderful little spot we’ve created located in the Animas River Valley.  It’s coming together beautifully and I’ll be posting pictures of the hives and gardens soon.

Happy Spring everybody!

Recipe found on the Beekeepers of the Ozarks:

Honey B Healthy (generic)

• 5 cups of water
• 2 1/2 lbs of sugar
• 1/8 teaspoon lecithin granules (used as an emulsifier)
• 15 drops spearmint oil
• 15 drops lemongrass oil.
• 6 drops of thyme oil (optional)

Dissolve lecithin in 1/4 cup of water. This may take several hours. Bring water to a boil, remove from heat and stir in sugar until dissolved. Stir in lecithin until dissolved. Stir in essential oils until everything is evenly distributed. Cool before using.

I use 1 tablespoon per quart but I don’t use thyme in my mixture. One to two tablespoons per gallon works if using thyme oil.

Makes about 2 quarts.

Tuesday’s Tips — Easy-to-Build Raised Bed

I’ve been in my house for most of the time that I’ve lived in California — 19 years. And in all that time I’ve missed having the big, productive vegetable garden that I had in Pennsylvania. There are a lot of reasons that I haven’t been growing vegetables here; too little time, not enough sun, etc., but the big one is the really crappy soil in our area.

Soil is so very important for growing veggies. Of course light, water and nutrition are key elements, but you can have all of those and still not be able to grow much in the way of vegetables if your soil is lousy.

My soil is compacted and low in organic matter, a result of building practices in developments such a mine. Builders come in and level the ground, bulldozing away the fertile topsoil. Add the fact that the soil in this area is full of heavy clay, which stops tiny little roots dead in their tracks, and you have very inhospitable veggie growing conditions.

The solution is to build raised beds that you can fill with beautiful, fertile soil and loads of compost. Which is what I did last week.

This project is pretty easy. In spite of having only the most basic woodworking skills, I had no problem getting good results. I started with plans, which I modified it to match my needs, that I found on Sunset Magazines website. Now some of you may laugh at how little mine is (4′ x 4′), but I have only one tiny spot that gets enough sun for growing anything but part-shade plants.

I decided on a smaller version than Sunset’s also because this is test run that I didn’t want to sink a lot of money into. If it works, I’ll get some of the eucalyptus trees that surround my yard trimmed or removed (Have you priced this kind of job lately? Yowzers!) and redo my landscape to accommodate larger beds. In the meantime, this project cost me about $90 and took about 4 hours. Here’s how I did it.

Materials

• One 16-foot long 2 x 12 cut into 4 equal pieces (ends up being a tad less than 4′ each due to the saw cut)
• One 8 foot long 2 x 4 cut into 4 16-inch pieces with some left over
• A box of 2 1/2″ decking screws – you’ll only need 12 of them though
• One roll of 1/4″ hardware cloth (I had to get a 3′ x 10′ roll — a 4′ x 10′ would have been better)
• Five 1 cu. ft. bags of organic topsoil
• Three 1.5 cu. ft. bags of organic planting compost (total topsoil + compost should be 9 – 10 cubic feet)
• 2 cups organic Tomato & Vegetable food
• One small Jack Russel Terrier, optional

I went to Lowe’s (wish there was a real lumber yard in the area) and bought top grade pine. You can use pine, redwood or cedar. The latter two will last a while longer but there are sustainability issues with the cedar. DO NOT BUY TREATED WOOD even if they say it’s the new, safe kind. I don’t believe any of it is food-safe and it’s certainly not organic.

When you are selecting the wood look down the length of the board to make sure it’s not warped. A tiny bit bowing or twisting is ok, but it should be very, very slight. Also eliminate any lumber that has more than very minor splits on the ends or lots of knots.

Lowe’s will cut any lumber you buy to your measurements for no additional charge — good thing because these boards would never have fit into my car, nor could I have managed the larger piece by myself.

Some of the changes I made to the original plans were: I used 12″ lumber for the sides because I couldn’t see any reason to use two 6″ boards as they did in the Sunset plans. And I switched out their recommended 4″ x 4″ corner posts for 2″ x 4″ because my bed is smaller and I thought it wouldn’t compromise the sturdiness factor — besides it saved a little $$. I didn’t add the piping for the row cover hoops because it never gets that cold here, however my resident bird population may cause me to regret not being able to float some bird netting.

Tools

• Electric or battery-powered drill, plus a screw driver bit and a drill bit that is slightly smaller in diameter than the decking screws
• Carpenter’s square
• Metal snips or shears

I assembled the bed upside down right where I was going to place it. In retrospect this was probably a mistake that accounted for my not getting the box perfectly squared. So I recommend assembling it on a flat surface like your patio, deck or garage. I did the whole thing myself, but if you can recruit a helper (one with opposable thumbs) so much the better.

1. Lay down two of the 2 x 4s and place one 2 x 12 on top of them so they are right angles, lining up the 2 x 4s at opposite edges.
2. Drill pilot holes to prevent splitting the wood. Use 3 decking screws for each end. Screw through the 2 x 12 into the 2 x 4s.
3. Repeat for one more side. You should have two sides with legs and 2 sides without. (As you can see I switched out my little battery-powered drill which didn’t have enough torque for my electric drill)
4. Attach one plain board to one board with legs, making sure that the corner is square and the legs face inside the box. Be sure you place the screws so they go into the wood and not the gap between the side and the leg.
5. Attach the second legged board to the opposite side.
6. Attach the final side.
7. Next you should try to get the site as close to level as you can. 
8. Then turn the bed right side up and mark the soil where the legs will go.
9. Dig holes four inches deep for the legs.
10. Place the legs in the holes and fill them in tamping the dirt around the legs.
11. If there are slight gaps under the sides, take some dirt and mound it along the sides to fill them.
12. Cut the hardware cloth to fit and lay it on the bottom. This is important if you live in an area with moles and gophers.
13. Dump the soil and compost in and mix thoroughly using the shovel and the cultivator. Soil should come to within 3 inches of the top.
14. Add the organic fertilizer and mix that into the top 4 -6 inches.
15. Using the bow rake, level the soil
16. Gently spray water to moisten soil.

Now you’re ready to plant!

It is little, but I’m very excited to have a vegetable garden again — no matter how small. Now Emmie needs a nap and so do I!

Update: I should have mentioned that you can increase the size of this raised bed by at least two feet in length with no issues. I wouldn’t recommend increasing the width. For raised beds 3′ to 4′ is as wide as you’ll probably want to go. It makes it easier to reach into the bed for weeding, planting and harvesting.

Gardening News

Here are a couple of things I read over the past week that you might want to take a look at.

The Cost of a Green Lawn. There’s a new law in New Jersey limiting the amount of fertilizer that homeowners and landscapers can use on lawns. The law was passed after environmental activists warned that state legislators that “Barnegat Bay, the state’s largest enclosed estuary, was dying, in part because of the pollution caused by runoff lawn fertilizer as it washed into the sewer system. Such overstimulation has caused an increase in algae and jellyfish in the bay, and a decrease in sea grass, fish and shellfish.”

People, do we need our green lawns so much that we poison the waterways and kill everything that lives in them? Really?

So what should you do about it, wherever you are? At the very least FOLLOW THE DIRECTIONS ON THE PACKAGE. A lot of pollution comes from people not applying the recommended amount of fertilizer, pesticide, etc. Use only the recommended amount; more is not better. Better yet, reduce the amount of lawn to the bare minimum (which might be none!), use only organic products, and learn to live with a few weeds.

In an interesting speech William Rosenzweig, accepting the Oslo Business for Peace Award, talks about the lessons he learns from his garden and how he applies them to business. I especially like this quote: “In essence, the gardener’s work is a life of care. We cultivate abundance from scarce resources. We nurture, encourage, fertilize – and prune when necessary – while being respectful of the true and wild nature of all things.”

Love that!

Come back tomorrow for a new Tuesday’s Tips on building a raised garden bed.

Tuesday’s Tips — Succulent Terrariums in 10 Easy Steps

A couple of weeks ago I spent a relaxing, fun afternoon creating a few succulent terrariums for myself and for birthday gifts. It’s super easy and they look really beautiful.

You’ll need the following:

• Succulent plants or cuttings. Mix and match different leaf shapes and textures.
• Containers
• Small stones — whatever you like. I used small polished river stones.
• Charcoal or activated carbon
• Succulent soil — sometimes called succulent and cactus soil. Or you can use regular potting soil plus a handful of sand. Just make sure the sand is meant for plants.
• Small shells, rocks or other interesting accent pieces to finish your design.

Step 1: Buy or make cuttings of the succulents you want to plant in your terrariums. If you are using cuttings, it’s best to let them “cure” by leaving the cut ends exposed to the air so they scab over. (I have to confess that I sometimes don’t wait and haven’t noticed any difference, but I’ve read that the cuttings can rot if you don’t let them “cure.”)

Step 2: Beg, borrow or buy glass containers. Vases, mason jars or any other wide-mouthed container will do. Clean throughly with a mixture of 1 quart warm water and 1 tablespoon white vinegar. Dry thoroughly.

Step 3: Very carefully place an inch or two of small stones in the bottom of the container. You can use more if you want the plants to be higher up in the container as I did in the tall cylinder pictured below.

Step 4: Add a 1/2 inch layer of charcoal.

Step 5: Add 2 to 3 inches of soil; more if the rootball of your plant is large.

Step 6: Arrange and plant the succulents.

Step 7: If you like you can add a layer of sand or stones on top of the soil.

Step 8: Add any accent pieces that please your eye.

Step 9: Wipe stray soil from sides with a damp paper towel. Use a straw to gently blow away any soil or sand from leaves.

Step 10: Very carefully water your new terrarium. Not too much! Stop when you see a water begin to accumulate at the bottom of the container.

That’s it! Make sure your terrarium gets partial sun (about 4 hours a day minimum) and don’t water too much or too often — about every week to ten days.

This is the one I made for my friend’s birthday gift. I found an orange shell, her favorite color, in my collection and added it to the arrangement.

I love this tall cylinder and the red-orange tipped leaves. I also planted some low pots with the extra cuttings I had.

Sometimes simple is best. For this small round container one rosette was all that was needed.

Here’s another creative idea. I gave my daughter some cuttings and she planted them in this old cream cheese box. It looks great!

Have fun!!!

The Power of Green

…and other news. Here are a few stories that we’ve come across in the past few days that we think you might find interesting.

School Wildlife Habitats

We loved this one in particular. We all know about the life-enhancing lessons that kids take away from school (food) gardens. Well here’s another powerful way to engage them, help them learn, and improve their lives in the short- and long-term.

The Leo Politi Elementary School, in one of the most densely populated areas of Los Angeles, removed 5,000 square feet of concrete and lawn and replaced it with native plants and trees. Amazingly (or not, as most gardeners know), insects, birds and other creatures appeared so quickly that the principal said it was almost as if they were waiting for this oasis to appear. Not only were the kids fascinated with the activity in their new habitat, but the school’s science scores increased six-fold.

Let’s hear it for school gardens, both edible and habitat gardens. They enrich the lives of students, teachers and their neighborhoods by creating green spaces for all kinds of creatures. Read the whole story here.,

Historic Garden Photography

Anne Raver (one of our favorite garden writers) writes in the NY Times about a collection of garden photos taken from the late 1800’s to 1935 by Frances Benjamin Johnson. A catalog of her hand-colored glass lantern slides is available here. It’s a wonderful resource for anyone planning a new garden.

Conservation

Finally, here’s a thought-provoking editorial, Drop That Bog, that appeared in the NY Times on April 11. It’s a pretty convincing argument against using peat moss. We’ll quote it here in its entirety:

“To gardeners, there is something deeply gratifying about opening a bag of sphagnum peat moss. It’s the smell and texture, as well as knowing that peat makes a good ground cover and soil improver. But, like so many other things in our lives, peat moss looks different, and far less gratifying, when you take climate change into account.

What gardeners are buying in those compressed bags of peat is the remains of what was once a living bog. Extracting peat requires a kind of surface mining — laying back the top layer of a drained wetland and digging out the peat. The stuff you’re forking onto your garden is a broken-down version of stuff that has been used for centuries as fuel in Scotland, Britain and Ireland.

Here’s the trouble. Peat results when bog and wetland plants decompose partially in the absence of oxygen. Instead of emitting carbon dioxide as they decompose, they become the carbon in peat. In other words, peat acts as a carbon sink, trapping carbon that would otherwise have been released into the atmosphere. But once peat has been dug up — even before it is burned or dug into the corner of the garden where you’re hoping to plant blueberries — it begins to release its stored carbon, adding to the climate-altering carbon dioxide we are already pouring into the atmosphere.

Compared with the amount of carbon dioxide emitted when gardeners drive to the nursery, the problem may not seem that big. But every reduction helps, and there are easy alternatives. The best substitute for peat in the garden is compost, which you can make at home, unlike peat, which takes thousands of years to form. Peat should stay where it does the most good: in the place where it formed, beneath the complex ecology of a living wetland.”

That’s it for now.

P. S. Yes, we have been on an extended hiatus which was quite a bit longer than we intended, but we’re happy to be back. Tomorrow’s Tuesday’s Tips will be a primer on creating succulent terrariums. It’s super easy!

Be Back Soon

You may have noticed that we haven’t posted anything new in a while — since before Christmas as a matter of fact. Mary Beth and I are busy with other projects, but we wanted to let you know that we’ll be back soon.

Stay tuned.

Sunday Zen