Search Results for: label/bees

102 results

Spike 1998-2010

Mrs. Homegrown
Animals
59 Comments
...big old leggy Spike standing in the middle of the yard, slightly befuddled, while hens pecked at the ground between his legs. Sometimes I’d find him sniffing around the beehive, which always made my heart stop, but the bees seemed to understand that he meant no harm. I certainly couldn’t have come that close to them with impunity. Creatures are smart that way. Spike slept on the floor (well, on his own bed) next to my side of the bed...

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California Agriculture Journal Online

Mr. Homegrown
Animals, Bees, Resources
1 Comment
The University of California has put 63 years worth of its journal California Agriculture online for convenient downloading at californiaagriculture.ucanr.org. There’s plenty of detailed (peer reviewed!) nuggets for the home gardener between the pages of this scientific journal. Make sure to check out the article and video of UC Berkeley entomologist Gordon Frankie explaining what kinds of plants are best for attracting bees in your urban...

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The glass is half full–even if it’s full of greywater

Mrs. Homegrown
Animals, Food, Gardening, Mistakes, Thoughtstylings
17 Comments
...eat the flowers and fronds, or do nothing and just let the pollinators have at it. Today I was sitting by the fennel patch. The flowers are full of pollen, and the air above it looked like LAX: honeybees, wasps, orchard mason bees, tiny little pollinators that I can’t name, butterflies, ladybugs…. I’d need a fancy camera to capture all that action, but here’s a shot from the spring: And then there’s always the reas...

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Seedling Disaster!

Mr. Homegrown
Gardening, Mistakes, Seeds, Vegetable Gardening
33 Comments
...megrown tomatoes prompted me to call Garden Edibles owner Craig Ruggless to see if he had any seedlings. Thankfully he had some heirloom tomato seedlings that he gave to me in return for helping him try to capture a swarm of bees that had shown up in his olive tree (unsuccessfully, it turned out–more on that misadventure in another post). At least I’m not alone. My friends in Chicago, the Green Roof Growers, had their own tomato see...

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Fewer Linkages Today But More To Come

Mrs. Homegrown
Saturday Linkages
RLeave a comment
Not the usual link dump today since I was away all week at the National Heirloom Exposition in Santa Rosa. I camped, so the only tweeting I heard came from actual birds.  I’ll blog about the many talks I went to this week, but until that time, here’s some info from two of the speakers I heard at the conference. A very different take on bees: www.gaiabees.com From Sonoma Compost, information on: How to compost: http://www.sonomacomp...

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Homegrown Evolution Visits the Los Angeles County Fair

Mr. Homegrown
Thoughtstylings
2 Comments
...wledgeable beekeeper (didn’t get a decent picture). Best of all we made contact with our local beekeeping club, and we’ll have information next month for those of you in the L.A. area who are interested in keeping bees. From beekeeping we jumped on over to the home economics competitions and marveled at the preserved foods display. With the recent success of Pickle Fest 2008, we predict a new batch of competitors in next year’s...

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Salvia Means Salvation: White Sage

Mrs. Homegrown
Gardening, Herbs, Native Plants
21 Comments
...n grown in dry conditions (overwatering will kill it quick) and the winter temps aren’t too cold. See Plants for a Future Database for details. It has beautiful soft silvery foliage and white to pale purple flowers that bees adore. We’ve got two planted and are looking forward to having our own homegrown supply. After today, I want to find a place for another plant. Even if you think you don’t know this plant, you do. This is th...

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Loofah Sponges

Mrs. Homegrown
Cleaning, Domesticus, Gardening
14 Comments
...loofah sponges. She said: I wanted to thank you for that part of the interview in particular.  I decided to grow some this summer and it has been a great joy.  It is a beautiful vine, and the flowers are always loaded with bees, bumble and honey and all kinds of other insects. By the way, luffa are delicious.  Mine has been eatable at a diameter of 1 to 1.5 in and a foot long with no problem.  There are several recipes on line for them as w...

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All Politics Are Local

Mr. Homegrown
Thoughtstylings
8 Comments
...instance you can: start a community or school garden volunteer to teach gardening or food preservation plant trees build neighborhood resilience and tolerance create bike lanes and walking paths legalize backyard poultry and bees Not that these local goals are necessarily easy, but they can be accomplished. And they all address resource depletion. By all means go vote today, but let’s get together after this mess and work on what is reall...

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