The Africanized Bee Myth

...ees is just that, hysteria. I have helped move many hives here from walls, trees and kitchen vents to people who have wanted to have bees. Most likely, all of the hives I have moved have been Africanized. I have yet to encounter a feral hive that I would consider aggressive. Africanized bees should not be used as an excuse to ban beekeeping in Los Angeles or anywhere else that has Africanized bee populations. The people fanning the Africanized bee...

Read…

Fruit Tree Maintenance Calendars

...we live, it’s the time of year to prune and deal with pest issues on fruit trees. The University of California has a very helpful page of fruit tree maintenance calendars for us backyard orchard enthusiasts. The calendars cover everything from when to water, fertilize, paint the trunks and many other tasks. You can also find them in one big handy set of charts in UC’s book The Home Orchard. The permaculturalist in me likes our low-maintenance pome...

Read…

How to Plant a Fruit Tree

...and this video, from the Dave Wilson Nursery, shows you how to plant your trees once they arrive in the mail. One quibble–it’s been proven to be not a good idea to amend soil when you’re planting a tree. Other than that, this is how we’ve planted our trees and they’ve all grown well. And I wish that I had done the radical pruning you see at the end of the video. Cutting the tree to knee height will give you a shorter, more manageable tree. You ca...

Read…

Saturday Linkages: Don’t seek the truth – just drop your opinions

...6.story … Gardening Garden planter turns out to be Roman antique: http://boingboing.net/2012/10/12/garden-planter-turns-out-to-be.html … Best Reporting on the Space Shuttle Tree Debacle Science Center Given Approval to Remove Nearly 400 Trees to Make Way for Shuttle http://la.streetsblog.org/2012/09/18/science-center-given-approval-to-remove-nearly-400-trees-to-make-way-for-shuttle/#.UHkCZyjj5iQ.twitter … For these links and more, follow Root Simp...

Read…

2022 in Review: Cats, Mushrooms and Politics

...apture at least one swarm of bees and hand them off to a friend who has an urban farm and apiary. Kelly and I have a pet sitting arrangement with some friends of ours. When we go away they watch our menagerie and when they go away I head out to Pomona to look after Harpo the parrot and his dog, cat and gecko companions. Random Wanderings When you see a display of fake plastic corn dogs you have to take a picture. I tried and failed to get through...

Read…