PlanterTomato Vegetable Gardening

Honey: A Golden Treasure

The BBC produces some excellent science programming.  In a recent Podcast from BBC Discovery, biologist Adam Hart explores the history of bee keeping from ancient times to the present.  The Podcast presented here covers topcis ranging from single source honey to the use of honey in treating wounds.  If you love honey or have an interest in bees, this is well worth a 30 minute listen.

 

PlanterTomato_2_27_2011 Honey

If you liked this Podcast, you might want to subscribe to the BBC Discovery series. 

 

Winter: Time to Tend To Your Fruit Trees

Last Winter, I purchased a variety of bare root fruit trees. In this posting, I'll cover what needs to be done to prepare your fruit trees for Spring.

Transplanting Into Larger Pots

I'm growing a variety of dwarf and semi-dwarf fruit trees.  I planted these in 15 gallon Smart Pots; these are fabric pots that keep the soil cooler and provide better drainage than traditional clay pots.  They also make it easier to do root pruning which is believed to extend the life of the tree when potted. 

My first task was to transplant all the trees into larger pots.  So each plant got a new 25 gallon smart pot.  Removing the tree from the old pot was easy;  I just rolled the fabric down to expose the roots and soil until it became easy to just lift the tree out of the old fabric pot.  It's a process that's very similar to creating cuffs on the legs of your pants.  This process also "prunes" the roots since any roots that have grown into the fabric of the pot are cut during the process of transplanting the tree.  Next year, or the year after that, I'll transplant them again into a 45 gallon Smart Pot.  This will be their final home.

Pruning

Fruit trees should be pruned to keep them healthy, pleasingly shaped, and productive.  I'm new to growing fruit trees, so I took a 3 hour course on the subject at our local garden store, Common Ground of Palo Alto.  Kevin Raferty, an Arborist shown below, taught the basics of pruning and he took us into the garden to demonstrate how to prune various fruit trees such as apples and peaches.  If you too are new to fruit trees, I really recommend taking a course like this.  It's well worth the $30 I spent.

Here are some tips on pruning trees:

• Under certain conditions, it's fine to prune trees in other seasons, but for beginners, it's best to prune in the Winter when the plant is dormant and insect activity is low.
• There are two basic kinds of pruning cuts.  Thinning cuts are done to shape the tree and are done at branch points.  The object is to create an overall structure and shape by reducing the number of new shoots and directing their growth.  For example you might thin a new branch that is growing too close to another, or one that is growing towards the center of the tree etc.  Heading cuts on the other hand, are done to remove a part of the shoot or branch.  This is done just above a bud and not at a branch point as is the case in thinning cuts.  Heading is done to stimulate growth by forcing the tree to form new shoots.  Heading makes the tree more compact, and, for trees that grow fruit on "new wood," heading creates sites for fruit production.
• To effectively prune your trees, you should have a pruning shears and a pruning saw.  Two really excellent brands are Felco (Swiss) and ARS (Japanese).  I have a pair of the Felco shears and love them.  You can remove the blade to sharpen a Felco. You also have the option to buy a new blade and thereby extend the life of the tool.  Good tools are 2 to 3 times the cost of cheaper ones on the market but they are worth the money.  You buy a good pruning shears once and then have it forever.
• It's important to know where to prune so you don't eliminate the sites on which your trees will bear fruit.  Unfortunately, pruning varies by tree specie.  Below is a list of commonly grown fruits and their fruiting habit:
  • Current season's shoots - most citrus, persimmons, grapes and raspberries produce fruit only on new growth. (see photo A)
  • Long lived spurs - spurs look like shall branches with pointed ends.  Apples, apricots, cherries, pears and plums all bear on spurs.  These sites produce fruit year after year. (see photo B)
  • Previous seasons shoots - avocados, figs, filberts, nectarines, olives and peaches all bear fruit on last years growth.  These trees need to be managed so that they are constantly forced to create new growth from which you will harvest. (see photo C)

The above photo comes from the book, The Home Orchard published by the University of California.  The book is designed for home gardeners and covers is a very good resource for beginners.  If you would like to buy a copy of the book from Amazon.com for $25.

Dealing with Pests

After pruning  your trees, you have an opportunity to use a dormant tree oil to protect them from pests such as aphids, mites, white fly and other nasties.  Bonide makes a dormant oil that environmentally friendly.  Its essentially an oil and wax mixture that suffocates bugs and their eggs.  This needs to be applied before the tree leafs out.

If you are an experienced fruit grower, please feel free to to comment to this post.

Above is a photo of granny smith apples still on the tree in Winter.  Granny Smith apples are frequently sold under-ripe in the grocery store.  Ripe they are yellow, not green.

Give Peas A Chance

All we are saying, is give peas a chance.  Ok, that was dreadful joke, but I still do encourage you to think about adding peas to your garden.

I like peas for many reasons but certainly one of the first is that you can plant them early in the season and get a wonderful first harvest of the year.  Here in Northern California, I've planted them in pots in my greenhouse on New Years day and successfully harvested plenty of peas for the kids in the early Spring.  This year, I'm planting peas in a raised bed without protection, so I planted on February 13 and they should be ready for harvest in 60-70 days. 

Generally speaking, you can plant peas about 6 weeks prior to your last frost date.  Below is a list of frost last frost dates for select cities around the country to give you a general sense for when to plant peas in your neck of the woods.  To find you exact last frost date, check out this helpful guide from Victory Seeds.

 
Peas generally grow on vines but some varieties have a growth habit that's more like a bush and don't need trellising.  Traditional shelling peas, or English peas, are a personal favorite, but we tend to buy these from the farmers market where we have a local grower who sells the most wonderfully sweet peas.  With such a good supply of the English variety, I shift production in my garden to Sugar Snaps.  These are peas where the pod is completely edible. 

If you want to try a low maintenance variety of sugar snap pea, give Sugar Sprint a whirl.  This is a bush type that requires no support.  And as an extra benefit, they are almost string-less, making them a particularly kid-friendly crop.

If you sow pea seeds directly, plant them about 1 inch apart and eventually thin to every 3 inches.  You can grow the bush varieties in rows that are about 1.5 feet apart.  If you are growing peas that are supported, you should space your rows about 5 feet apart. 

Peas fix nitrogen via nodules on their roots that take advantage of beneficial bacteria.  You can increase the yield of your peas by adding a bacterial inoculant to your soil.  This inoculant is often available at garden stores, but Burpee also sells it mail-order if you can't find a local supplier.

Peas Shoots Can Be Eaten

Here's one last tip...Tender young pea leaves and tendrils can be eaten.  We've had these as the green vegetable in Asian noodle soups and you can also add them to stir fry dishes.  They are a nice change of pace from pak choi.

Give peas a chance.  You'll be glad you did.

 

Modern Potato Eaters

Starry Night is arguably Vincent Van Gogh's most famous painting.  It depicts a brilliant and swirling night sky with stars and a crescent moon shining their brilliant light on a small village.  It is a beautiful vision of nature and very different in both style and emotional impact than Van Gogh's early work.  The most famous of these early paintings is called The Potato Eaters.

The Potato Eaters was completed in 1885 and is not a pretty picture of peasant life.  It shows a grimey looking peasant family eating potatoes, lit by a single gas lamp.  They eats their potatoes with the same dirty hands used to harvest their meal.  Even their skin is, by Van Gogh's intention, the color of a dusty potato.  The painting reflects his ambivalence towards manual labor -- course and ugly but at the same time honest:

"You see, I really have wanted to make it so that people get the idea that these folk, who are eating their potatoes by the light of their little lamp, have tilled the earth themselves with these hands they are putting in the dish, and so it speaks of manual labour and — that they have thus honestly earned their food. I wanted it to give the idea of a wholly different way of life from ours — civilized people. So I certainly don’t want everyone just to admire it or approve of it without knowing why" -Vincent Van Gogh, 1885

Last weekend, My nine year old son and I planted four varieties of potatoes.  As we dug into the ground, I thought of this Van Gogh painting.  Sowing seed potatoes puts your hands deep into the earth and harveting potatoes is messier still since you need to sift through the soil to find the spuds.  It's definitely the kind of work that gets dirt under the fingernails.

I would not want a life completely dependant on agricultural toil to survive.  By the same token, a life divorced from the pleasures growing and eating your own crops would be very unsatisfying.  In a few months, I will go into my garden and dig through the soil looking for buried treasure -- Maris Piper, German Butterball, Yellow Finn, and All Blue.  If I do well, I'll harvest 10 pounds of potatoes for each pound of seed potatoes sown.  That would yield about 160 pounds of delicious potatoes for our family to mash, bake and make into crispy fries.  Plenty of food for us modern potato eaters.

Modern Coop Design: Stylish Estate for Your Backyard Flock

So who's the most famous chicken coop architect? Mies van der Rooster?  I. M. Peck?  Christopher Hen?  No, it's Jeff Troutman, a graduate of the Colorado at Boulder School of Architecture.

Troutman designed the coop as a school project and it was subsequently displayed in the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art.  A number of museum visitors expressed interest in buying it, so Troutman and Eric Millinger, an evironmental engineer, founded Colorado Chicken Coops.  The company now sells a modified version of the original coop on their web site. 

The coop is shipped in a flat container and customers then assemble it using supplied hardware.  The pieces slide together in tongue-and-groove fashion, and are held together with screws and metal brackets.  Based on the video on their web site, it appears very easy to assemble, so those with limited construction skills should feel comfortable purchasing this coop.  The design also allows owners to easily access the nest box through and exterior door and to clean the coop via another larger door on the back.

 

The Colorado Coop measures approximately 3 feet x 3 feet and the optional adjoining pen is 7 feet x 4 feet.  This makes it a great size for the urban or suburban farmer who wants to keep 3 to 4 chickens and has limited space.  (For those considering adding chickens to their backyard garden, each young hen lays an egg a day during most the year.)

In my opinion, the feature that really distinguished this coop from others on the market is it's handsome design.  You can buy a Colorado Coop for $699 + shipping.  The coop and run package is $949 + shipping.

Feed Your Bees Naturally: Best Flowers For Honey Bees

In the lean months of the year, many bee keepers supplement their bees natural diet by supplying them with sugar water and pollen patties.  In this post, I cover some natural alternatives that I plan to try in 2011.

Over the Winter months, bees live on stored supplies of honey and pollen.  In very cold climates, or in cases where the bee keeper has harvested honey aggressively in the Fall, bees may not have enough food to survive the Winter or provide for new brood in the early Spring.  It is fairly common for bee keepers to supplement natural stores with a 2 to 1 mixture of sugar to water and protein supplements.

I was fairly conservative with harvesting this Fall and it looks like the bees have survived the Winter.  In a week or two, I'll open my hives for the first time this season and check to see if any supplements might be required for Spring.  My hope is that I can avoid supplements altogether.  This got me thinking about ways that I could provide bees with the Fall and Spring nectar and pollen sources that would reduce my need for any un-natural intervention.  

I've done some research and here are some plants you can add to your garden that will help your bees.  I've concentrated on those that produce in the Spring and Fall.  Where possible, I've also tried to select dual purpose crops that are useful for both your bees and your garden.

Borage - this is an annual plant that is used medicinally.  This plant can over-winter and provide nectar for bees in the Spring.  It requires full sun.

Echium - a very showy shrub that produces large "spikes" of blue, red, lavender or pink flowers.  There are about 60 species of this plant and they can be annual, biennials or perennials. Echium are mostly for temperate climates (zone 9-11) but you can find some varieties that can survive in zone 6 if you search the Internet.  Echium Candicans (Pride of Madeira) is a perennial that blooms from spring through summer.  Echium Wildpretii (Tower of Jewels) is a huge biennial that blooms in the late spring.  Ecium Vulgare is the most common of the species, but is very prickly and most would consider it a highly invasive weed. Echiums should be planted in full sun and provide bees with both nectar and pollen.

Goldenrod - I'm going to add this perennial plant but grow it in a large pot.  It's considered by many to be a weed and is very invasive.  I have less than fond memories of Goldenrod since I suffered from allergies as a child.  Growing it in a pot will leave me the option to remove this plant if I find my allergies kicking up again.  Goldenrod blooms form mid-Summer through the Fall so it will help bees stock pile nectar for the winter. 

Tansy - This annual plant has an extended blooming season of up to two months beginning in the early Spring.  It provides bees with both nectar and pollen.

White Clover (Melilotus alba) - If your a gardener, white clover packs a double punch; it's a green manure crop and it provides both nectar and pollen for your bees.  Clover is an annual that blooms in the early Spring.

Coltsfoot - A perennial plant that provides nectar and pollen in the early Spring.  Coltsfoot is a medicinal herb that has been traditionally used to make cough suppressants.  Apparently, it is also smoked in Amsterdam since the Dutch government placed additonal restrictions on tobacco in 2008. (Is it me, or are the Dutch crazy?)

Elderberry - A dual purpose perennial bush for your garden, Elderberries can be used to make jellies, desserts and wine.  They flower in Spring, producing nectar and pollen for your bees.

Hazelnut/Filbert - This perennial bush provides prolific quantities of protein rich nuts for you... and for the squirrels if you don't take precautions.  In California, hazelnuts flower in mid-Winter and early Spring and are a good source of pollen for bees.  Hazelnuts are not self-fertile, so you need to plant more than two varieties in your garden.