MamaStories

I did a lot of work in the garden today, another glorious Spring day. I filled up almost the entire new bed against the fence (4 x 16 feet). I am using the soil from the potato towers, which after sitting still for a good 7 months is showing its true nature: it’s full of pebble-sized cement crumbs. I’m sifting them out. The bed is about 2/3 full. It was back-breaking but feel-good work.

I’m only able to take off the top foot of the soil in the towers, the rest is still frozen. I covered it with black plastic so it will defrost quicker.

I also covered up most of the beds. They have straw on them, which has a high albedo, being light-colored and shiny, and the soil underneath it is more frozen than the beds without it. Amie said they finally do look like “beds” now.

She also laughed when Laura and Ma speculate that the moon is made of green (unripe) cheese, at the end of Little House in the Big Woods. “That’s so silly,” said Amie. I asked here “So what do you think the moon is made of, then?” And she very seriously replied: “Creamy soy milk.”

Well, that aside.

I brought my beehive home today, along with the veil, smoker, gloves and tools. I’ll write about that tomorrow. I’ll be moving the hive around on the property to see where it would be best - and to see how the neighbors react! About those neighbors, I have more ideas…

In the hoop house:

Outside: garlic

And this is where the bee hive will stand:

So I ordered a bee package, that’s 3 lbs of bees (10,000 of them), and 1 Italian queen, to be picked up at my teacher’s place on 26 April. I admit I am a bit freaked out about it. It’s not like anything I’ve ever done. But that shouldn’t stop me, right?!

Yesterday at bee class our teacher told us about the operation in Georgia where he picks up his bee packages (700 of them). They “shake bees” into the packages all day long, 400 of them a day. Amazing.

I’ve been looking at “installing a bee package” videos on YouTube. I most like Rick’s video. I will be watching this video and all others I can find on the subject every day until 26 April, so the way to do it will be grafted on my brain. (I do the same with pottery: I watch videos of people throwing on the wheel in all their many ways. It helps.) I also have a couple of local beekeepers whom I can call on to come and help me on the day if I feel too nervous.

I suggested to the teachers at Amie’s preschool that I could bring my bee package over to the school right after pickup, to show the kids. 10,000 little living buzzing creatures in a box (well-contained, of course!): what a show!

Now I need to order the equipment, clothing, tools, and medications. I need to find a good place to put the hive on the property - it’s really not self-evident to me. When the boxes arrive, I need to paint them, place them, and build a windbreak and whatever else necessary around it.

I ordered the bees!

Yesterday evening we had our second beekeeping class, after a two week hiatus due to bad weather predictions (you can parse that either way) and school vacation. Rick brought in a full hive and guided us through the components, discussing their uses, alternatives, advantages and disadvantages, and some beginners’ pitfalls.

The magical moment, for me, was when he pulled a frame out of one of the brood chambers (the boxes at the bottom, where the queen lays her eggs and the hive resides). That frame had on it worker cells, drone cells, and queen cells.

It was passed around and suddenly the bees were in the room with us. Not pictures of them, or stories or scientific theory about them, or the invaluable evidence of Rick’s experience with them. But their actual home.

Up until that point I had been hesitating: should we do it this Spring / should we wait until next Spring? The pressure was on: there are only two to three weeks left of decision time: after that, there will be no more bee packages for sale. But when that frame came out, I knew I could, I should do it.

After seeing all that equipment, I also concluded that I would start out with what is commercially available: plastic frames pre-coated with wax, pre-made hive boxes, purchased bee packages, and conventional medications like mite-treatments and antibiotics.

But I intend, as I go along, to learn the carpentry to put the equipment together myself and to investigate how you propagate queens and nucs in case a hive is lost and bee packages are not available online. The medications will be the most challenging, but I’m keen on learning more natural ways of keeping bees healthy and treating them if they’re sick. All of that is for later… but not too late!

Right now my concern is with the many, many Mountain Laurels (kalmia latifolia) that are on our and our neighbor’s property. That’s a picture of their flower on top. Oh, and not to mention the acre of Rhododendron next door. Both plants (as well as Azaleas) are toxic (though not to bees) and honey made from their flower nectar “has been known” to be poisonous to humans.

I doubt my neighbor would allow me to remove them so I can keep bees! Rick is asking around what I can do about this, if anything. Keep your fingers crossed!

~

And I caught another mouse, but not before it mowed down all my celery seedlings, the only flat not under a dome, because the plants were already quite large. It’s not a good start to the season!

Well, yesterday evening was eventful. I heard a wild cat (or a fisher? - see the comments) in the street. Someone in a drive-by knocked our mailbox right off its perch. I saw the brake lights, heard the crash, the door slam and it speeding off, but it was too dark even to see the color of the car. And before that, I had my first class of Bee School - and this one’s about that.

~

I take Rick Reault’s class at Codman Farm in Lincoln. About 35 people showed up; there was barely enough room to contain all of us. The instructor told us this matches the growing trend of the number of (small) beekeepers in our county and in New England.

He also told us that, these days, about 50% of the honey bee population (in hives) dies every year.

Half the bees!

Suppliers (growers) of bees cannot keep up with this rate. He didn’t want to go into the causes yet - that will be the third class, which is on diseases and stresses. But things are not going in the right direction.

I am keen on starting a hive. My neighbors gave us the thumbs up. There is no red tape to trip me up: no town rules and no need for permits in my town. Rick said there should be plenty of food for a hive in a New England suburb. He stressed beekeeping is challenging, in both senses of the word. He emphasized the need for honeybees. He gave us a sense of their plight, and I know about our plight, if we lose more honeybees.

If I want to get a hive this year (set up is in April), I would have to order by the end of February at the latest.

I need to decide soon!

My first Beekeeping class this evening! I’m very excited and plan to report in full.

I realized that with all the soil (clay) we’ll be digging up to create the pond, we’ll be able to make an earth oven. There might even be enough to build a small adobe structure around the oven. We’ll just have to lug it all up the hill…

I also realized that I might have to hold off on buying the elderberry and blueberry shrubs, because chances are we won’t have their part of the garden (the flower garden up front) prepared by the time they are shipped. But I do have a wonderful space in mind for one or two hardy kiwi vines, and I’m sure I’ll be able to get that ready.

Be sure to scroll down to Part 7 of the Calcium in the Soil and Plant series.

The flower garden (to be). Yes, all the way down there.

I ordered more seeds, for those plants that were on back order in my previous order, and lots of everlasting and perennial flowers, many of them beneficials.

2068RO-Atomic Red Carrot OG (A=1g) 1 x $1.80= $1.80
2512LY-Olympia Spinach (A=1/4oz) 1 x $1.00= $1.00
3228MZ-Early Mizuna (A=1/16oz) 1 x $1.10= $1.10
3624VT-Ventura Celery ECO (A=0.1g) 1 x $2.20= $2.20
4517RO-Caribe Cilantro OG (A=1g) 1 x $1.00= $1.00
4592LV-Lovage (A=0.5g) 1 x $1.00= $1.00
4592LV-Lovage (A=0.5g) 1 x $1.00= $1.00
4644SO-Stinging Nettle OG (A=0.2g) 1 x $1.20= $1.20
4687GT-German Thyme (A=0.2g) 1 x $1.10= $1.10
4699WY-White Yarrow (A=0.1g) 1 x $1.00= $1.00
5215CP-Crystal Palace Blue Lobelia (A=0.2g) 1 x $1.20= $1.20
5234QS-Queen Sophia French Dwarf Double Marigold (A=0.7g) 1 x $2.00= $2.00
5705PL-The Pearl Achillea (A=0.05g) 1 x $1.00= $1.00
5799PE-Pearly Everlasting (A=0.1g) 1 x $1.40= $1.40
6008CQ-Cerise Queen Achillea (A=0.1g) 1 x $1.20= $1.20
6013RS-September Ruby New England Aster (A=0.03g) 1 x $1.40= $1.40
6028BC-Blue Clips Bellflower (A=0.05g) 1 x $1.40= $1.40
6068ES-Early Sunrise Coreopsis (A=0.1g) 1 x $1.40= $1.40
6204MC-Maltese Cross (A=0.4g) 1 x $1.00= $1.00
6272SD-Alaska Strain Shasta Daisy (A=0.5g) 1 x $0.90= $0.90
6333BM-Beneficials Mix (B=7g) 1 x $7.50= $7.50

I need to source more flowers and beneficials to ensure there is something in bloom from early Spring to late Fall. A beneficial that I would like to grow in my flower garden paths is either Dutch white clover or New Zealand white clover. Buying them online, in bulk, doesn’t make sense, shipping-cost-wise. I’d like to find them more locally.

I’ll order the strawberries, (lowbush) blueberries, hardy kiwi, elderberry bushes and hazelnut shrubs as soon as I’m assured that we’ll have spot ready for them when they arrive (in Early April).

I also need to investigate and source plants that will grow in very wet spots and in and around the pond. Any ideas?

~

Oh, and “for a laugh,” you could read this, from The Onion. How true! A friend of mine said there must be so many Massachusetts-ers out there kicking themselves for not voting last week. I said I doubt it, for the very same reasons.

Our back garden, house and veg garden are on a little hill. The slope (in red) is quite steep, and we terraced the part where the soil had been disturbed and was eroding. We put beds on either side (only the two lowest ones shown in brown) and a path of grass in the middle. This path leads down to the “front garden,” the large stretch of land at the bottom of the hill.

This piece of land has issues.

1. It is home to the large septic leach field, so we shouldn’t put deep-rooted plants there, or any heavy stuff, like an asphalt parking lot for our truck (kidding).
2. It is the lowest part of this part of our street, so it catches all the rainwater runoff from all sides. Luckily  most of it is from our own roof and hilltop, which we plan to divert (blue line) to a small pond and wetland at the lowest spot.
3. It was badly disturbed by the installation of the septic (by the previous owner). In direct violation of one of the first rules of permaculture (never leave disturbed soil undisturbed!), we paid no attention to it for almost 2 years now and it is overgrown with weeds and brambles. And the soil is, of course, still bed: light brown, full of rocks, waterlogged.
4. That soil is also very fungal, so it’s a challenge to grow and maintain grass on it. To put it simply, greens like bacterial soil, woodies like fungal soil.
5. It borders on the street, with in between a strip of land that belongs to the town (where a lot of snow gets dumped, so we won’t be investing in any expensive bushes over there. I don’t even know what we could do there, it not being ours.
6. We never go down there. In the past it was understandable: it was not inviting, and until last Fall (when we put the grass in), there wasn’t even a path that led to it.  But I know that, if we don’t make it absolutely gorgeous, it will be still be a neglected area: it is so out of the way of all our traffic.

Of all these issues, no.5 seemed to me the most challenging. What good is a fancy garden down there if we would never visit it? So I kept hesitating, pushing it out of my mind. Then Amie catalyzed an insight.

She kept insisting on lots of flowers. “I want to grow lots of flowers, Mama!” Yes, why not. And we do have a beehive in mind, so we’ll need them. And flowers are beautiful, and down there they will be the first thing people will see. And if we put a bench there, visible and accessible from the street: community!

So. Strip the weeds, lay out beds in curves and organic shapes with the large stones that are native to our property. Fill those with good soil and put in perennial shade-loving flowers. Plant deep-rooted flowers and bushes (elderberry!) to the east, clear of the leach field. Make these plantings transition into the wet area. There plant reeds, put in the pond with fish, a little boardwalk. In the middle have a small patch of lawn. There put a bench. Lay a gravel path to it from the street. Sit down. Enjoy the colors and scents, the sounds of water and of the breeze in the reeds around the pond. And invite the neighbors!

Amie welcomes the first non-human animals on the homestead

I signed up for Bee School (7 Thursdays and 1 Saturday morning) and while I was at it I also enrolled for a backyard chicken class (2 Saturday mornings, maybe Amie can come too).

It took me so long to sign up because I know that the kids living right next door to us (on the side of the property where the beehive would be located) are very allergic to many things. Though I have been told that the neighborhood kids’ chance for being stung by honey bees is minimal, I decided that if the kids are allergic to bee stings, I would can the project. But the neighbors gave us the all-okay yesterday. They’re quite albeit carefully interested in our experiments.

A visit to the wonderful Drumlin Farm chicken coop made me realize that I really have not a clue about chickens. The only chicken I have experience with is the killed, plumed and cut-up kind, raw or cooked. The one or two childhood visits to the relative who kept chickens are long forgotten, and not one of the neighborhoods I frequented in my life boasted the presence of chickens. So, there I was, staring at those beautiful, mysterious birds at Drumlin, and thinking it would be good to at least hold one, just once, before I go ahead and buy chicks. The added advantage to such a class is also that we might all pitch together for a batch from a hatchery.

Amie is very keen on the chickens, and we’ve been reading library books on the subject. Once she read that the unhatched chick finds most of the nutrition it needs in the egg yolk, she also started eating it - she now devours the whole egg. And she started this beautiful chicken drawing:

(unfinished chicken)

The fish, lastly, were Amie’s Christmas present from several people combined. It’s a 20 gallon tank with, for the moment, 4 Zebra Danios. We had such fun at the store, ogling all the colorful variety of fishes. It was a bit of a comedown when the store assistant told us we should start with a “school” of these tiny little ones, four of them (we’ve learned, in the meantime, that six should be the minimum). Still, they’re fun to watch, and we’ve already learned a lot about fish, mainly that we don’t know anything about them. It’s Amie’s job to feed them in the morning. Just a matter of starting small…

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Also, check out this basement garden!