New Space

We added a front bed partly for the tour, and partly to keep the mulch from being kicked out on to the sidewalk. I figured I'd plant neighbor-friendly tomatoes (Early Girl and Sungold) and some flowers. I may stick some pumpkins or a zucchini in the middle.

The tour was fun, although talking while hoarse from a cold isn't much fun. People were sweet, and appreciative, and I wish that my printer had been working so that the signs hadn't been made in crayon. Oh well.

And today, Cat and I pulled a sweet treat out of the garden.

I don't even remember the name of the variety, but I can see them (picked much smaller) in a mixed pickle. Next winter, I guess.

Today's the day

It's all pretty and we're ready to go. Photos after (maybe).
Bay Friendly Garden Tour

Almost Done!

Eric has been Mr. Garden Studmuffin all this week. (Plus he's either made me tea or met me with coffee every day this week, and gave me a really helpful leg and back rub one night because I started a "boot camp" type fitness program that felt very intimidating. Poor guy is getting up at O'dark-thirty in the mornings, participant or not.)

The thing I'm blogging about, though, even though it's only one thing, was part of getting the yard really ready for the tour. I'm trying to clean up, spruce up, and fill empty spots. So I bought some plants that I might have waited and grown from seed, or those that died in their pots quickly or birds ate or something.

Yesterday I put the climbing winter squashes in half of the spinach bed. This half wasn't intensively planted, and besides, some of the other spinach is bolting -- it's not going to last long. The butternuts I planted never came up, so I grabbed a couple of them at the nursery, plus a Kuri Red squash and a Small Sugar pumpkin.

But half the spinach bed isn't too big, right? What to do? Denise and Kevin had given me a bunch of huge bamboo from their yard, and Eric was a boy scout, so. . .
 

It's probably strong enough for a person to climb on, but the twine wouldn't hold. Certainly it's sturdy enough to hold pounds and pounds of squash, plus it's going to store easily or break down easily. Darn thing has to be 12-13' tall, though.

I'm going to use it as a place to put my "growing vertically adds space" sign for the tour on Sunday.

April overview

This is post #2 today. Not fair to put this many pictures and the videos in the first up in one post, methinks. Speaking of which -- can anyone SEE the videos in the earlier post??

Garden overview -- from left to right, which is west to east from the house, and then south to north.

First bed has pole beans and bush beans, and still needs yellow wax beans and Romano bush beans. Must go buy some seeds. . . and something is already eating the babies. Must buy more snail and slug stuff.

Bed of brassicas going by and ruby chard volunteering. If I knew what was supposed to go there, I'd plant it. Guess that's why I should look at the pictures.

Kale, the indispensable vegetable. I'm going to start a flat of that inside, because in six weeks, there's going to be more room somewhere!

Brassicas flowering (I'm going to put up a sign about allowing that for the bees, and maybe something about how/why/when to save seeds -- this is not the method!) and some lettuce. This bed is almost done and therefore open.

Spinach and some space. Back to the drawing board! I think it's winter and summer squash slated for this spot.

Bed full of onions. My onions are making thick necks, and I think they're all as done as they're going to be. Especially the cippolini. I'm going to harvest and chop and freeze, I think. But after the tour.

The crowded apiary. The one to go is third from the front on the right hand side.

Transplanted persimmon tree. Seems we hit the rain perfectly and it's settled in. Red clover as a cover crop underneath.

Volunteer sunflowers with lacy leaves:

 And eek! There's something wrong with the Anna apple tree. Ideas?

The asparagus jungle:

Fava beans left too long for a cover crop but it's the way it goes. Hairy vetch underneath:

Tristar strawberries -- hoping to increase to another bed this summer, but they seem slow-starting to me.

The cucumber bed, with maybe six varieties and trellises:

Hot and Padron peppers in this bed. Each pepper has either a commercial cone-shaped wire cage or a trio of poles stuck straight in. I figure I can wind twine around if they need actual caging. Otherwise, they are sort of "hugged" in place.

Looking up the long bed on the east, black popcorn in the front, tomatoes in the back. I'm using the long running fences as cages again.

Back half of the garden, behind the tomatoes -- artichokes and some oregano that won't stop coming. Need to make more spaghetti sauce, I guess! I bought three more artichokes today to fill that bed in.

Empty beds along the east fence. I'm thinking bell peppers or squash. Can't quite decide. Back to the drawings.

This is technically Ellie's bed. I was hoping to have it full of flowers by now, but my zinnias and sunflowers and breadseed poppies weren't terribly cooperative. I may go to a nursery and seek out flowers. There is a very happy clump of Lemon Balm in this bed.

And that's it. I had hoped to have more art in the garden before Saturday, but it's mulched and I still have quite a bit to do, so art may have to wait another year. Copper words, a mural. .  . something.

Now there are five

The other crowded hive swarmed yesterday while I was transplanting cucumbers. This time, I took some video and so did Cat. Unfortunately, the video that was terminated when I discovered a bee inside my veil wouldn't load, so you don't get that pleasure! I had forgotten to zip my hood. Not a mistake I make often!

Here's the first one, after I ran around and found empty frames and a box to entice them into:

Then I did the bucket trick. I had already dumped one load, from the bottom branch, and then waited for a clump to re-form. I also wasn't wearing a bee glove on one hand, and hey, presto, pushed one bee hard enough for her to nab my finger at the end. See if you can tell how calm and collected I am!! This is one reason I almost always fully suit up, although I am impressed at the bare-handed and short-sleeved keepers among us. It's just not me. You can see how sweetly they just flow into the box -- I bet they follow the same kind of form that something like molasses would. Nature seems to enjoy these tricks.

I'm trying to get rid of this swarm's mother hive. It's all on medium frames, and I am not comfortable managing that hive. I think it's going to get done before this weekend, which would be nice. Today I have to find time to assemble some wax-strip frames to make more room in the four hives I have remaining! Maybe I can then, like Kristin, remember to prevent swarming and have hives to give away or sell instead. Four is really the maximum I think I can fit in my yard.

The whole garden is looking well enough that I'm not panicked about the Bay-Friendly Garden Tour. Yet.

Got Dramamine?

In the middle of shoveling mulch in the back garden,

 my crowded hive swarmed. Fortunately, I was there to see it and fortunately they started landing in a low plum tree. Also fortunate? I had a deep with enough ready frames to tempt them in. Finally fortunately, my dear son was willing and able to shoot video of the coaxing them into the box.

You might need antinausea medication to watch the first video. Unfortunately, my cameraman sees the world faster than most people, so jerky edits don't phase him. Be grateful that I didn't post the six minutes of the whole swarm process, because that one almost made me fall off my chair.

Never before have I experienced a mid-swarm hiving -- it was a matter of plopping the queen into the prepared hive box before they had really established a midway point on the plum branch. The bees really want a safe, dark home, and are easily persuaded once given one. I have questions about the status of the original hive. Will it swarm again? There were lots of queen cells the last time I went through it.

I'm clearly going to spend some time next week assembling some more frames and waxing in starter strips on them. There are too many old wax frames in my storage area, and I'm in need of fresh equipment so I can rotate out the old stuff. How do beekeepers keep up? I don't know.

We're almost done mulching, which means the back yard is closer to completion. I wrote an "I will know I'm done when. . . " list, and have been drawing lines through items. As is the nature of lists, however, a few items have been added at the bottom.

Transplanted peppers today, tiny, tiny peppers, and I may have to redraw the garden plan for more. There aren't enough bells for my taste, although there are many hot varieties. Then, I'll need to figure out where to put the cucumbers (and what kind of trellis/stake system to use to lift 'em up with) and get on that. I had hoped that some things would be bigger by now, but I assume the tour folk will know that gardens are a process.

Finally, I managed to get a quickish overview of the garden here. If you listen carefully, you can hear our youngest sprout talking about her plans. And you can see the various stages of growing/going by/just starting in the beds.

Lots afoot

So much happening. Things being planted out (hot peppers and pole beans so far), things being harvested (peas, celery, a garbage bag full of spinach), and one big thing being built.
Kevin has been making me an unbelievable birthday present:

and Taz is going to find that her easy-access days are all over. I'm working hard getting ready for the Bay Friendly Gardens Tour on April 29th.
Denise and Cat helped process the celery.

I've posted a listing for "soup celery," which is what the San Francisco Chronicle called it this weekend, although I'd call it "trimmings," on Freecycle. Don't worry -- I'm keeping plenty to flavor broth.

Oona can now put herself IN the dog crate.

And Eric and I got to dress up and go to a wedding this week.

Clean up rather nicely, don't we? Unfortunately, Taz proceeded to eat my new shoes the next morning. I had gotten home late and tired, and left them carelessly on the couch. Instead of getting up and taking her running, I'd read the paper. 

Maybe if they'd been behind a fence. I'm very very sad about that.