Beekeeping 101

These honey bees have been living in the wall in the back corner of the backyard for at least a couple of years now.

It's great to have them in the yard as they do lots of the pollination work, but there's no way to access their honey.  Bobby noticed it yesterday morning and decided to build a hive for them so we could collect honey.  He's kept and raised all sorts of animals, including bees.  By looking through the garage he found 99 percent of the materials he needed to build this cool bee box together in one afternoon.

This is the inside of the base level of the hive.  Wooden dowels are inserted at various angles for the bees to hang their honey.  The honey at the base level (the only level we have so far) is for the bees only.  By placing additional levels, or "supers," on top of the base hive you get access to honey which can be collected.

Caulking the wood to make it watertight.  This is the base box, with the lid on it.

This is the side of the box with a lip and a slit opening for the bees to use for entry and exit.  Very similar to the crack in the wall where they live now.

And here's the box in place, the opening facing the crack in the wall where the bees currently live.  Slowly the bees will migrate over to the box and will establish their honey production center there.  Alternatively you can buy a queen and put here in the the the drones and workers will come. 

24 Hours Later...

Lots of sod-cutting action yesterday and hauling and removal today and this is what I found when I got home from work.

Nice!

A couple more "after" photos.  Orange, lemon, fig, apple, avocado, peach and crape myrtle trees all saved.  The rest all chopped and hauled...

Besides that, the tomatoes are coming in brilliantly in the bucket along the driveway.
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And the dogs seem to like the empty, dusty backyard...

Matt and his guys will be back on Monday to remove more bricks and the tree stumps and bring mulch to build up the soil......

Backyard Demolition Finally Begins

The day has finally arrived!  Matt Dell and his team from Atomic Oak are starting the demo on the backyard today.  I snapped a photo before they started this morning:

Looks like a deserted lot right?  I let it go, bad.  Matt said the demolition should take four days.  I will post a photo a day for those interested in watching the transformation.

Had a salad made exclusively from veggies from the driveway garden yesterday.  Lettuce, tomato, green onions, carrots, basil, amaranth, snow peas.   Dressing was olive oil, lemon (from the tree in backyard), salad and pepper.  Awesome.  Also the tomatoes so far have been exquisite - they can be discussed and analysed the way one would a fine red wine.  Really....

The Secret to Growing Cilantro in the Sizzling Hot Socal Summer

I wish I knew it.  Every time I plant cilantro it bolts.   Bolting means that a plant sends up a tall flower stalk in a very short period of time. This means that the plant has gone to seed and will decline in terms of flavor.

This bok choi seedling bolted when still in it's little pot!

Most plants bolt due to hot weather. When the ground temperature goes above a certain temperature, this flips a switch in the plant to produce flowers and seeds very rapidly and to abandon leaf growth almost completely.

This is the flower from the arugula that bolted a few weeks ago.

The arugula....

Bolting is a survival mechanism in a plant. If the weather get to be above where the plant will survive, it will try to produce the next generation (seeds) as quickly as possible.

Some plants that are known for bolting are broccoli, cilantro, basil, cabbage and lettuce.

Once a plant has fully bolted, the plant is normally inedible. The plant’s entire energy reserve is focused on producing the seeds, so the rest of the plant tends to become tough and woody as well as tasteless or bitter.

Anyway back to the cilantro story.  I had five seedling I needed to get into the ground yesterday so I looked for cooler, partially shaded spots to put them.  Two little cilantro  seedlings I planted along the driveway (two photos below).  The other three I put in the front yard, partially shaded by the trees.

You can't really see the cilantro is this pix because it is tiny but it is just in front of the water heater, which should give it some shade.  The little bush you can see in front of the water heater is bay. You can see the cilantro in the photo below.

I will see if I can stop these from bolting right away.  Since I was planning this blog entry I looked around the internet and here are some suggestions I found to delay your cilantro from bolting:

• Keep the ground cool by covering with mulch.
• Plant cilantro close together - the leaves will keep the sun off the ground (this is one I didn't think of before!).
• Plant cilantro where it will get only early morning or late afternoon sun - not midday sun.

And then of course the other suggestion is just not to plant cilantro when it is too hot - plant either in the spring or the fall.  This makes sense to me because spring is when my avocado are ready :-)

Life and Death of My Bok Choi

Yesterday I harvested the remaining bok choi and cleaned it, cooked it and ate it.  Delicious.  The recipe, classic stir fry bok choi with ginger, garlic and oyster sauce, comes from "The Wisdom of the Chinese Kitchen" by Grace Young.  It's a great mostly Cantonese style cookbook, easy to use and authentic.

Anyway, here's a little photo essay-style document of what happened yesterday, except for the photo at left of the seedlings, which comes from a blog entry from April 30...

Salt guards the crops.

The empty row after taking out the plants. I pulled them all out with roots, except for the one on the far end near the wall - I want to see if the new leaves taste as good as the first batch.  It works with lettuce.

Close up of bok choi stump with some new leaves coming up after only a couple of days.

*@/&^o(#$":)!! Cabbage worms that eat the leaves.  They fell off the leaves when I pulled the plants out.

Washed leaves.  Although no pesticides you still have to wash them and waste a lot of water to get the bugs and dirt off.  I plan to build an outdoor washing station which would be a plastic shop sink over a bucket so that you can recycle all that water for irrigation.  Such a shame to waste it....

Finished product: stir fry bok choi al la Grace Young......