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Honey Extraction by Crushing Comb
Honey Harvest Commercial bee hives, and most backyard beekeepers, use Langstroth (American standard) hives with frames lined with pre-pressed wax comb. This allows the bees to spend less time making wax and more time filling the hive with honey. To harvest this honey, keepers usually take out the honey-filled frames, run a de-capping knife down either side to cut off the white beeswax caps, run a knife or comb rake down across the cells to start the honeyflow, then place the oozing frames into the extractor. The extractor is closed, on some models it is heated, and then started. The frames whirl around the inside, using circumfugal force to get the honey off of the comb. The heated sides allows the honey to flow down through screens into a collection chamber. The frames with their cells can then be re-used into the hive for several years before the wax needs to be replaced. There are different scales of extractors, from a home-made one that holds two frames and is run with a drill motor, to large extractors that hold many frames and are heated so much that the honey runs like water. Extractors don’t work very well with frames that don’t start with pre-pressed comb, or Top-Bar Hive frames because the comb is too brittle to be reused.
There are a growing number of people who are not only pursuing organic beekeeping, but going to natural beekeeping. What is the difference? Organics don’t use pesticides to kill mites or treat the bees for various problems. To kill mites, they dust powdered sugar over the frames filled with mite-laden bees. The powdered sugar not only makes the mite’s sticky feet unable to stick, but also forces the bees to groom themselves more, which knocks the mites off and down through a bottom screen on the hive where they can be done away with. Natural beekeepers allow the bees to take care of themselves, using as little interference as possible. By observing what requirements the bees need to survive, by location of the hives and by not over-harvesting the honey, natural beekeepers are more in tune with their bees. For instance, the pre-pressed cells on wax foundation is larger than the larvae cells that bees would normally make. Varroa mites, a terrible scourge of bees, like the larger cells. If bees are allowed to festoon and make their own smaller-celled comb, there are fewer mites because the mites reproduce better with larger cells.
Naturally formed comb doesn’t work well in an extractor, so there are two things a beekeeper can do with it. One is to cut it up and sell it as pure honeycomb. The second is to crush it and allow the honey to drip through a mesh screen into a collection bucket. The latter is the process that we do, since we don’t have a lot of hives. Even with one hive, this process is a long one and physically demanding. As with all honey collection, it is best done on a warm day so that the honey will flow.
Honey-filled frames awaiting crushing The following photos are from a honey harvest last summer from our hives, and also from a wild swarm that I put into a hive just a couple of weeks ago (see my blog post Moving Bees on May 5th).
To crush comb, first we get our basic equipment. You need a long flat pan with sides, a potato masher, a spatula and a knife. You also need a clean food-grade bucket with a spigot on the bottom and a screen on the top and a lid. You can buy these, and believe me they are worth the price.
Empty bucket, screened top, and waiting comb If you don’t want to buy the bucket, you can always do what we did for our first honey extraction. You put clean buckets on the ground between two chairs, over which is suspended a sturdy and steady pole such as a broom. Once the comb is mashed, you put it either into layers of cheesecloth, or into cheap paint strainer bags sold anywhere paint is sold. Then you suspend it over the buckets and let it drip. If you squeeze it, the honey becomes darker. The cons of this are that dust will settle in the open buckets, and the chance of knocking the broom down is always a threat. Even on hot summer days, the dripping may take a week or more until almost all the honey is extracted. That is why covered screened buckets with bottom spigots are so worth the little extra money.
The Cheesecloth-Broom method! Cover the floor with newspapers, put some wet paper towels close by, put on some lively long-playing music and go to.
Cutting the comb from the frames First, remove a frame of comb and cut out the cells into the crushing pan. I stand the empty frames up on another pan which will catch the drips. Using the potato masher… start mashing.
Mashing the comb The goal is to crush the comb enough so that all the honey will drip out of it, taking pollen with it. Since you won’t be heating the honey artificially, and will only be screening once, most of the pollen and all the good vitamins, minerals and anti-bacterial goodness will flow right through and not be destroyed or screened out.
Cut comb laden with honey When that frame is thoroughly mashed, scrape it into the screen that is on top of your bucket… making certain that the spigot is tightly closed. Then start with the next one. This process will take some hours to do, even with two working on it.
Dark, brittle comb from a wild hive When the strainer becomes full then you can give it gentle stirs with a soft spatula, so you don’t tear the screening, or if you have another bucket put a lid on the full one and move on. Place full, lidded buckets in a warm area safe from ants where the sun can help with the warming and dripping process, without destroying the good stuff through heating.
Screen full of mashed comb When your bucket fills up with honey, then its time to decant. I use sterilized Mason jars with screw-on lids. Just open the spigot and be ready for honey to flow. Be ready to shut the spigot off quickly and wait for the inevitable drip.
Drawing Honey Honey should be kept in a dark cabinet, not in the refrigerator. It is naturally anti-bacterial, and has been used for centuries on wounds. It will not mold. It may crystallize, which is a reaction to the ambient temperature, since bees keep their hives between 91 and 97 degrees F. There is nothing wrong with crystallized honey; if you would like it liquid again, set the jar in a pan of hot water, or microwave it briefly. You even can get instruction on unclutterer on how to microwave specific foods like honey.
Once you are done extracting, you can set all the equipment and pile of discarded crushed honeycomb (unless you have other plans for it) out in an ant-free place near your hive for the bees to clean up.
The honey from our hive is very light in color and flavor, although it crystallizes within a couple of months (no problem there… it is also called creamed honey). The honey from the swarm that was in the nursery containers was almost caramel-like in color and consistancy, and had a darker flavor. Avocado honey is often dark, and there were many avocado trees in the area of the swarm.
Differences in Honey Crushing may be time-consuming, and not practical if you have a lot of hives, but for those of us with a hive or two it is worth the time and effort to not heat our honey and let it drip. Anything worthwhile is worth the time and effort it takes to do it. Just always, always, always be sure to allow the bees to keep at least one whole full super of honey for themselves, rather than robbing their honey and substituting it with sugar syrup. Hopefully you wouldn’t put soft drinks in your infant’s formula bottle, and neither should you give sugar -devoid of all the miraculous properties that honey has for the bee’s existance – as a substitute food for your bees. Bee a good bee parent.
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Unsticking the Snake
A Stuck Snake This morning as I was wandering through my vegetable garden, I saw the middle part of a snake with his tail and head covered. This was late morning, and he wasn’t moving so I thought him dead. Fortunately he wasn’t. At first I thought he was a rattlesnake by the way his scales were rougher and the sound of a faint rattle when I moved the bamboo that lay under him.
All I could see of his body He wasn’t; he was a three and a half foot gopher snake, the same one I’d seen about a month ago for the first time in my yard. Just about all snakes shake their tails when giving a warning, but rattlesnakes have stacked hollow sections of keratin… the same material that is in your fingernails and hair… that bump together when shaken to create that rattle sound. No, there aren’t any balls inside. Rattles appear with age but can come off, so a very young rattler with only one button or a snake that has his broken off won’t make a rattle but will still shake his (or her) tail. But I digress.
This gopher snake was in distress because it had crawled through plastic netting that I had carelessly left on the ground. Once about 25 years ago I had a similar situation when I lived in Vista, when a gopher snake became emmeshed in the holes of a plastic garden netting I’d set up. It took me a while to free it, and it wasn’t nearly as badly stuck as this poor guy.
This netting was the type used to cover fruit trees to protect them from bird predation, and I had some that I’d used briefly over my pea shoots when the crows were eating them. I’d left the netting in a nursery can but over the months it ended up on the ground with a snake stuck in it. I had to carefully cut the poor thing out.
His head poking through About two inches of his head was showing once I pulled the netting back; not enough to swing around and bite me. He was stuck multiple times with the netting cutting into his skin in several places. I brought back a kitchen knife with a flat top and a sharp edge to it, so that I wouldn’t hurt him when I pressed down to slide the edge under the netting, but the tip of the knife wasn’t sharp enough. I ended up with some very sharp sewing scissors… the miniature kind shaped like a swan. And, of course, my camera.
The dilemma was that if I freed up enough of it’s middle it would try to push forward and become even more tightly stuck in the netting higher up. If I freed more of its top part first then it would have the leverage to turn and bite me.
When dealing with frightened animals (and people) you have to find the quiet part of yourself and work from there, without distraction and using a calm voice. Not only are your actions imperfect when you are tense or scared or angry, but that feeling emanates out from you and whatever you are working on will react to it. In other words, sensing your fear is a very real thing. I was very glad that this wasn’t a rattlesnake. The snake shook it’s tail at me several times and kept flicking it’s tongue out to smell me, but even though he wasn’t badly hurt or sick yet he was a very nice snake. I pulled the netting away from his head so that his trajectory when freed wouldn’t send him into more of the plastic loops.
"Help me!" Then I started sliding the scissors as gently as I could under the plastic netting that was pressed into his soft skin and cutting him free. He was badly stuck so it took some time.
Plastic pressed into his delicate skin All the while I spoke calmly to him, and knew that he would only feel relief after each of my actions so he’d know I wasn’t doing him harm. Finally I got to the netting around his… um… neck? He turned his little head but wasn’t rattling or coiling in preparation to move suddenly.
The last bit of netting With the last snip he raced away several feet to the shade under a nearby lime tree.
"Thank-you, Diane!" There he sat looking back at me. I waved and told him he was welcome to all the gophers he could eat, and threw away the netting.
The lesson here, of course, is to be careful with the debris you leave around your yard. Could it be an animal trap? Think beyond it to the animals at the dump where your trash ends up. Snipping your 6-pack plastic rings might save the lives of seagulls, water creatures (if it ends up somehow in the water), or rodents. Of course, going plastic-less would be the ideal but still wouldn’t eliminate injury to animals. Tin cans are stuck on animals’ heads all the time. Just be aware of what you have lying around and consider if it could be a hazard or not. That way it might save you from snipping plastic rings off a snake someday.
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The Nest
Creative thinking, recycling, scrounging for materials, looking through books for ideas… it can add up to wondrous creations. After seeing a hut built like a nest in a book, Roger Boddaert who is installing my permascape garden pulled together a lot of scraps and came up with my own nest. He and his team worked magic.
Beginnings Three palm trees that had been, well, decapitated, then stripped of their calyxes, became the main pillars for the structure.
Creative Direction Old wire that was left over from old gardening trellises and even from the previous owner was wrapped around more palm trunks moved over for the framing.
Bundling Grape Vines Wood from the sheds that had been destroyed was used for a window and doorways. Then grape vine cuttings that Roger’s neighbor had left over from his vineyard were bundled up and tied onto the wire frame with wire.
Old shed wood for frames Wisteria and jasmine, among other plants, will eventually grow all over this trellis.
Straw will be strewn on the ground More vining plants are planted inside.
Abutilon planted inside An old gate left over from the original owners… who probably reused it from something else.
Old Gate To do the roof, Juan made due with what he had.
Roof access Then stretched just a little more!
Precarious Perch With a wall made of broken cement to define the walkway and planted areas, it is finished.
Finished! Inside a palm tree forms a bench.
The Inside All the times I mowed around these palm trees can be forgotten as they are now exotic support beams.
Rooted palm pillars A little bit on the crazy, fairy-story side, this structure will only mature as the vines take over. What a great addition to the garden!
Magic Hut - Animals, Bees, Gardening adventures, Permaculture and Edible Forest Gardening Adventures, Photos, Vegetarian
Moving Bees
Honeycomb with Capped Cells Backyard beekeeping is catching on in the United States, and there is more pressure on local governments to relax laws that prevent people from doing so. There are many misconceptions about beekeeping, and many keepers treat the bees cruelly in their pursuit of bee products. Bees are honey hoarders, so taking some honey from a hive isn’t going to do them harm. Taking too much starves the hive during non-pollen times and is cruel. Bees are complex, fascinating, and are disappearing for unknown reasons. The most evidence to explain Colony Collapse Disorder links it to a combination of Genetically Modified crops, pesticides and herbicides, and the waves from cell phone and power towers. In other words, we are screwing them up, and we will suffer for it.
About six years ago, a bee swarm set up house in an old couch I had outdoors for my dogs to lay on. They stopped laying on it. I left the hive until I had to get rid of the couch. I was writing for the magazine Edible San Diego and interviewed a couple who were beekeepers (http://www.ediblecommunities.com/sandiego/pages/articles/summer08/secretDances.pdf ). They came over and helped me move the hive. Actually, I took photos and watched as they worked as a team. When they turned the couch over, the honeycomb hanging in contoured patterns from the springs was incredibly beautiful. I thought at the time that I understood organic beekeeping, but I doubted many of the things that I was hearing. Since then, I’ve learned a lot more about working with bees without doing harm. I glean a lot of information from Organicbeekeepers@yahoogroups.com , which is a listserve that fields questions about natural beekeeping.
What Was Under the Couch 
Comb and Bees around Couch Springs That hive was put in Langstroth boxes and my daughter and I kept them for several years. This last December during the same week, this hive and a swarm that had settled in my shed wall both disappeared. Bees don’t die in their hives if they can help it, and for both hives to abscond was strange, so it sounds like Colony Collapse. Since then I’ve planted a Bee Garden in the lower half of my property, flush with flowering plants, particularly in the color blue, that bees love and that flower at differnent times of the year. I also had a couple of Top Bar Hives built to accompany the Langstroth hive which is the American standard hive you see everywhere. I’ll talk about TBHs in another post. A friend had a swarm in a stack of enormous tree-sized black plastic nursery containers, and I took the opportunity to move them to my new bee garden.The best time to move a hive of bees is after dark. Bees are all home at that time, and they don’t fly. They will crawl, however, so you have to watch your pant legs. The stack of containers was far heavier than I had anticipated, and getting them onto the back of my truck without jolting the hive too badly (don’t want to kill the queen) was more than what we had bargained for. However it was done, roped on, and I made my unusual journey back to my house… not that far away, thank goodness!
Bees at Night are a Delight My son and I off loaded the heavy thing and left it in front of the Langstroth hive where the colony would be moved to. That way the bees could familiarize themselves with their surroundings and mark pollen-gathering sites while still in their comb. The other day I took apart the containers and moved the colony into the hive. It was a good thing that I did because the comb was so convoluted that the swarm would probably have suffered soon. Bees build comb hanging down from a surface, securing it to sides if it is available. They do this by festooning, which is where they hold on to each other’s legs across and down, and make wax from bodily secretions into linked chambers in perfect distances apart. The containers had been tipped over, stood up and moved over the roughly year and a half that the swarm inhabited them, and the comb was proof of it. The following image is of the container on its side.
Inside the Container 
Bees on Underside of Second Container It wasn’t a large hive, only about 15,000 bees. A large colony like what was in my couch could contain 30,000 to 60,000 bees during peak pollen season.
Feeling awful about having to disrupt the bees, but knowing that I was actually helping them (ants were also getting into their hive), I began to cut out the comb, looking for larvae, and attaching it to frames that would fit into the Langs. To do this you need a knife, empty frames and pieces of pre-cut wire, rubber bands, or I’ve heard, those jaw-like hair clips. All your equipment should be ready to go because it is very, very hot in the bee suit, the bees are angry with you and the more time you spend the more harmful for them, and your gloves are covered in honey and you stick to everything that you touch. When bees are under attack they send out a pheramone (which smells a little like banana) telling the returning workers that there is trouble. When they sting, they also release a smell that tells other bees that there is an intruder. However, it also alerts bees from other hives that there is a ruckus, and they are attracted so they can try to rob the hive of honey. Very much like looters taking advantage of an emergency.
Being Gentle 
Carefully cutting out comb My son was nice enough to take these photos, up until the bees took exception to paparazzi and stung him on the end of his nose. Fortunately he doesn’t swell up.
Honey Dripping from Comb I do use a smoker. Smoke doesn’t calm the bees, it just makes them order their priorities away from attacking you. They think that fire is imminent, so they begin gorging themselves with honey in an attempt to save as much food as possible in the event of hive destruction. I use only a little smoke because too much hurts the bees and doesn’t make them eat any faster. Mostly the smoke ends up blowing in my face the whole time. I used to not have any reaction to bee stings, but in the last couple of years I develop a large swelling with blisters, so I wear the full bee suit with thick clothes underneath despite the heat, rubber bands around the pant legs or boots, I use smoke and take allergy medication before I begin (I’m usually sneezing from hayfever anyway so it helps keep my nose from running while I’m suited up.)
Placing Cut Comb onto Frames The comb must be cut to fit, hanging the same way it did originally, and must be attached so that it hangs evenly. Otherwise the bees will attach it to the next frame with burr comb (comb that is used to attach honeycomb to support surfaces) and it will be hard to later remove the frames for examination without harming the bees and brood.
Placing Comb Into Hive Comb with brood goes into the middle of the bottom box, which is larger and called a brood box. A couple of frames with honeycomb go on either side of the brood for insulation and food. The frames are spaced evenly… bees like a particular width between combs. In the second box which is shallower, called a super, more honeycomb goes in along with enough frames to fill the box. Frames are traditionally fitted with pre-made wax comb on which the bees build more comb, ensuring that the comb is straight and giving them more time into honey production rather than comb production.
Pre-formed wax foundation in a frame Some use a plastic comb. Also, if you are extracting honey with a centrafugal extractor, the pre-made comb doesn’t break off as easily as regular comb, and it can be re-used. I’ve always wondered about this, since I’m not a large-scale honey producer and am mostly interested in giving the bees safe harbor, although I do like honey and pollination. I’ve recently learned from a seminar from the Backwards Beekeepers (http://beehuman.blogspot.com/) in Los Angeles that using empty frames is just fine. Giving the bees a place to start, like a thin line of beeswax or a popsicle stick helps. For these first two boxes I put in pre-formed wax frames… just a couple… between the moved honeycomb. In the other boxes that I’ll gradually stack on top as the hives grows, however, I’m going with empty frames. Let the bees do what they want. Also it has been shown that bees naturally make slightly smaller rounds in their comb than the ones of the pre-pressed wax foundation, and may be less suseptible to the mites that are a deadly scourge of honeybees.What comb I couldn’t fit into frames I swept clean of bees as well as I could and dropped into a covered pail for later crushing and honey extraction.
With most of the comb gone, there were still several thousand bees in the container that needed to be moved. I hadn’t seen the queen, and she may well have been in that last batch. I had to lift the container (which was big, round and heavy) and gently tap the bees into the open box.
- Tapping Them Out Into Hive
The ones that didn’t tap out I gently brushed with a bee brush.
Brushing Bees into Hive Still more bees were on the bottom of the other container. I placed the hive lid on the ground in front of the opening to the hive like a ramp and tapped and brushed those bees onto it. Bees like to climb, so up they went into the box! There was a lot of debris in the containers such as dirt and leaves, so I had to be careful not to get too much of it into the hive with the honeycomb.
After I moved all the bees I could into the hive, I moved my equipment away and left pieces of honeycomb on the piece of plywood next to the hive. The hive stand rests on long screws, which are placed in cans of oil to prevent ants from invading the hive, so I didn’t worry about all the drips of honey being invaded. Many bees sat on the outside of the hive and waggled their bottoms in the air producing pheramone messages. One of the messages was to inform returning gatherers how to get into the new hive, another would be the state of emergency and who to look out for. I’d hate to know what they were waggling about me!
Spreading Pheramone I covered the hive with a California off-set cover, which allows ventilation in our hot climate and another place for entry. The bees settled in and by this morning they were gathering pollen, cleaning up the honey and going about their business.
There is so much to say about bees, and there is so much we don’t know about them yet. Some interesting facts are that honeybees are not native to the US, and of the 3,000 types of bees they are the only ones that make honey. Almost all bees are female except a handful of drones who have the purpose in life of hopefully mating with a new queen. Worker bees start out tending their queen, where they acquire her particular pheramone, then they move up to housekeeping and then feeding larvae. When they get to middle age, they go out for their first flights and spend the rest of their lives as gatherers. That yellow blotch on your windshield is first-flight bee poo. Worker bees make the larvae develop into drones, queens or workers by feeding them different foods such as bee bread, honey and royal jelly.
If you are interested in backyard beekeeping, attend a meeting of the San Diego Beekeeping Society (http://www.meetup.com/The-San-Diego-Beekeeping-Meetup-Group/ ), which meets the third Monday of each month at 6 pm at Casa del Prado, Balboa Park, room 104. Read books such as the Barefoot Beekeeper by P. J. Chandler or Natural Beekeeping by Ross Conrad, or read this wonderful blog http://beekeeperlinda.blogspot.com/2007/06/honey-harvest-crush-and-strain.html. I live in San Diego County, and I have a permit for beekeeping.
Honeybees sting in defense of their colony, and with the sting comes part of their abdomen and they die. Here is a photo of the stinger that was left on the tip of my son’s nose while he was photographing me. Although stung through the suit many times (with the regretful loss of bee life that entailed) no sting reached me during this process.
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Eating from the Garden
Mesculn Mix Beginning last week, I’ve been able to serve at least one thing from the vegetable garden every night at dinner. Peas, Swiss chard, lettuce, cilantro,radish, more peas, chives, carrots, strawberries, and, of course, peas. I munch as I water and weed, and feel that for a moment, here at least, all is right with the world. Like so many gardeners everywhere, I await the taste of my first tomato, but since my plants are no more than three inches high, I have awhile to wait.
Purslane Every year I have a bumper crop of purslane growing as a weed in my beds, and this year is no different. However, I’ve read where purslane has more Omega-3 fatty acids than many fish, something we vegetarians should be aware of. Originally from India, and supposedly Ghandi’s favorite food, this succulent member of the Portulaca family offers other nutritional benefits as well. See http://www.nutrition-and-you.com/purslane.html . If uprooted and left on the soil, the plant uses its stored liquids to produce seed and scatter them. “So there!” it says. I must admit that the thick leaves and stems are off-putting for me texture-wise, but I’ve begun to snap off young stems and include them with the lettuce I’m harvesting. I’ll have to be bold and find better uses for it in my kitchen. After all, its free!
Purslane I created two new raised beds, lined with aviary wire (which is a devil to work with. I have scratches all over.)
New raised beds I still have two more raised bed kits, which I bought last Fall in a clearance sale. I’ve leveled them, placed cardboard on the ground to deter weeds (especially the dreaded Bermuda grass!), used a staple gun to attach aviary wire across the bottom and up the insides a little, then filled with topsoil and very wormy mushroom compost, then watered it all in. I still have to add more good soil, then I’ll mix in some Garden’s Alive non-animal organic vegetable fertilizer and some microbes, just to start the beds off right.
Seed Sprouting These beds will be for the vining plants such as squash, pumpkin and melons. There is room for vines outside the beds. Already I have the seeds sprouted and awaiting transplanting, but that won’t happen until early next week.
Roger and his crew hauled over prunings from grape growers, and have used them to sparkle up the trellises to wonderful effect.
Grape vines on trellises I think they add a wonderful ethereal look to the structures.
Viney trellis As far as the ponds go, contouring is slowly being done and we all await the coming of the pump on Monday. I will not be blogging for the next few days because I will be attending the Southern California Permaculture Convergence in Malibu http://www.socalconvergence.org/ , and as I will be sleeping in a bunkhouse at Camp Hess, I’m thinking that bringing my laptop would be a bad idea. I’ll take photos and be excited to share what I’ve learned with you when I return. Have a wonderful weekend!
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Chickens in the Tractor
Grass? Easter Sunday brought new horizons to the chickens. Finally they were allowed out into the tractor. The largest bird, one of the Americaunas, was almost touching her head to the screen over the top of the Sterilite container in which they lived. The girls were a little startled at the sunlight, and didn’t quite understand about grass at first. Then they got into scratching with their already huge feet and pecking off weed tips.
First Scratches Unfortunately, the Barred Rocks girls are still smaller than the others and were being pecked and chased by the larger girls. They chose their corner and the big girls grouped on the other side of the tractor. They all wandered and changed positions with some pecking going on. The BRs were just too frightened, so I set the bird cage in which they had been living into the chicken tractor and put them into it. They have their own food and water, perches, and are able to be with the big girls without being set upon. Funny thing, though, the BRs would hop up onto the two cross-boards when escaping the big girls, but I’ve never seen one of the big ones up on the boards. I think this is because the BRs lived in the bird cage and learned to perch!
Barred Rock Corner I was wary about allowing the dogs out into the yard with the chickens in the tractors. In their younger days, these two killed all of our chickens who were loose in our backyard. It was a Valentine’s Day massacre. That was the day DC met her end (see post about DC the chicken). Now that the dogs are senior citizens and mostly deaf, they didn’t take as much interest as before.
General Interest in Chickens When they came too close to the cage, I used a spray bottle of water and admonishments. It seems to have done the trick. That spray bottle is what keeps the cats under control in the house, too. I just have to pick it up and all bad activity stops. I wish it worked on kids as well!
At night, the chickens still don’t know how to get up onto their loft. After dark my son and I go out there and drape a blanket around the BR’s birdcage for warmth, and find the big girls in a group on the ground. Chickens at night are like footballs, and can be picked up easily and placed into their loft. We’ve tried to get them to walk up the ramp, but it is too much of a learning curve for them. We’ve also set them up on their loft during the day, but they just flutter down. I have to believe that they’ll grow into it.
It is nice to have the chickens out of the side room, and really good for them to be scratching and pecking and enlarging their diet with grass and bugs. They certainly eat a lot of chicken food. Pretty soon it will be lay mash time!
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Pond Progress
Happy Earth Day!
As of today, I have a very large hole in the ground with a little puddle in it!
A Vernal Pool? The major tractor work was finished by Dan Barnes (if you need mowing, disking, or any kind of tractor work, he’s the guy to call at 760-731-0985). A pump was set up in our shallow well and it started… then stopped. The water was so silty that it plugged the pump, and the refill rate isn’t very quick in the tube, either. So unfortunately the goal of having a full pond by the end of the day today was not realized.
The Pump Work will resume on Monday with a flushing of the well. Dan found a lot more bottles buried in the middle about three feet down. No Inca gold, though. Dan also moved some boulders around and disked the soil along the pathway that rainwater will take through the property.
Dragging Boulders 
Tilled watercourse Finish work with the small tractor will be done beginning next week. The good thing about the pond not being filled yet, is that my dog General, who is a cross between two waterdogs, won’t be soaking wet for Easter. He’s still enjoying being in the house while there are trucks and tractors in the yard.
Pond in the Evening with a set rock Also today more stairs were created at my request by Roger’s team of Juan and Francisco in the area leading down the hill, which was just too slippery. They squared up the hearts of some palms this time rather than just cutting off the tops. The resulting white rectangles look incredible.
Palm Stairs I’ve noticed a lot more birds and lizards in the yard, even with the workmen disturbing the peace. I really can’t wait until the project is finished and I have regained tranquility on my property. After the ponds are in there is still more planting and irrigation to be installed. Sigh. Have a wonderful Easter Sunday!
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Partial Pond
The Grading Begins Today the work finally began on the series of ponds, swales and rain catchment basins that are the heart of the permaculture project. Their object is to catch, channel and hold rainwater so that it percolates slowly down into the ever increasing loam of the forest garden, making water available longer for the plants rather than sheeting off the top of my property and eroding the embankments.
First Scoops The blue stakes delineate where the water will fill to. The edges are irregular to create more edge space for plants and animals.
Tractor Dan with Greenie Dan Barnes Tractor Work ( at 760-731-0985) has worked with Roger Boddaert in the past, and has done some work on my project already. Dan is an artist with the tractor. Although much of his work is mowing and disking, he has created ponds and swales in the past and really knows what he is doing. If you need tractor work, Dan is your man. He owns several different sized tractors, or he rents the appropriate size and does what you need in excellent time for very reasonable rates. Plus, he’s just a great guy.
Dan, Jacob and Aart Discussing Grades Here Dan, Aart de Vos and Jacob Hatch discuss the grading plan. Aart owns Aquascape Associates pond landscaping, specializing in natural ponds. Drawing from his Northern European heritage and knowledge, Aart believes in simplicity, old technology that is proven to work, small footprint and natural environments. He and his manager Jacob Hatch knew exactly what I wanted, and the work that I’ve seen of theirs looks as if man had nothing to do with forming the ponds. Not only did they know what I wanted and were already experienced at it, but their prices are very reasonable in comparison to some quotes we received for ponds that would have looked artificial and have been electricity monsters.
Canine Clay Treatment At lunch break, my dog Sophie loved the excavation and gave herself a very good roll in the clay.
Mostly Done At the end of the first day, the rough work on the lower pond is almost done. Tomorrow Dan will finish this and move on to the rough work of the next area. Jacob and his team will begin the contouring of the big pond with the small tractor and by hand.
Shiny Clay.. for once a good thing At the depth of six feet, there was a wonderful layer of clay. The ponds are not going to be lined with plastic or polymer; instead, Aart believes that the compacted natural clay should be good enough to keep the pond filled. The water source for all the ponds, besides seasonal rainwater, is a four-inch wide drill hole that was augured near where the lower pond sits. Water was found nine feet down. A small submersible pump will be lowered to pump water into the ponds. At first the pump will be run by an extension cord. Then it will be replaced by either solar or a windmill… I’m looking into the noise that windmills make because I need and desire my quiet.
Culvert Cleaned This is where all the neighbor’s runoff funnels through to my property in the upper corner. Before it would make a 90 degree turn (or attempt to) in a narrow cement culvert and be diverted all the way down my property and off into the streambed below. Except for when it really rained hard or the culvert became silted in from the neighbor’s topsoil. Then it would flood the entire property and erode everything in it’s wake. This entrance area was cleaned today by Cody, who works with Jacob. The water will still channel through here, but it will be diverted into a dry streambed and on into the swales and ponds. Then it will be held, slowly perculating into the loam and soil to be available for the deep roots of the trees and plants.
Entrance to the Bee Garden Also worked on today by Roger’s team was this arbor to the entrance to the Bee Garden for honeysuckle and other vines to grow over. I’m sprouting luffa gourd seeds; perhaps some can grow up these and hang down over the entrance.
When me and my chilren moved here twelve years ago, we hoped to find buried treasure on the property. What we found in the areas most suseptable to erosion was piles of palm fronds, auto tires, and a buried toilet (which is still there). At the end of the day today Dan called out to me that he’d found the buried treasure.
Treasure One of the bottles was capped and was half full of liquid. I sniffed it…. only muddy water. Shucks.
More tomorrow!
- Gardening adventures, Permaculture and Edible Forest Gardening Adventures, Photos, Vegetables, Vegetarian
My Gardens Today
Entranceway with Running Dog April and May are months that I often don’t remember when reflecting back at the end of the year. Spring is such a busy season. When I was raising children, and when I was working as a school librarian, these months rushed past in the haste towards summer break. As a gardener, Spring is one season when I turn into one of those Garden Designers London and since it is also the season of intense growth of both weeds and desirables, insects and increasing dryness, and for me and so many others, the inevitable allergies that keep me out of the garden for days. So I thought I’d post photos of my gardens as they stand today, in the middle of April, on threshold of Summer.
By the Front Door I’ll start at my front door and work downhill. The walkway to the front door is lined with purple lantana and a mixture of red geraniums, honeysuckle, butterfly bush and Double Delight rose. It is being enjoyed by my very silly old dog General Mischief, who just realized that I was going to let him into the house. He looks a bit like a vampire dog in this photo, though!
By my front door I have a collection of miscellaneous plants, as most people do. Two staghorn ferns given me by my mother have attached themselves in a very satisfactory way to the chain link fence. There is also a dark red ivy geranium, needlepoint ivy, some bulbs just out of bloom, a traveling (or Egyptian) onion (it’s seeds are bulbets grown on the flower) that my brother gave to me, and some sedums. When I water here I usually disturb a Pacific Chorus Frog or two. I’ve thinned and weeded and replanted this collection, but there are always more that magically appear.
Front Pond The front yard pond is full of algae, but that is all right for the moment. I don’t want a crystal clear pond; I want habitat. Because of the clear blobs of frog spawn and wriggling tadpoles hiding from the hungry mouths of the mosquito fish I keep the algae until it is no longer inhabited. Waterlilies (even the monster one! Look at other posts for an explaination) are blooming with last weekend’s sudden heat. In the foreground are Jewel Mix nasturiums with heirloom tuberoses emerging, a grey mound of lamb’s ear which has begun to pop up where I don’t expect it, and rosemary by the bird feeders. Our kitchen table has the view of the feeders, and it is from this yard that we count birds seasonally for Cornell University’s Project Feederwatch. Oh, and try not to focus on the weeds, please.
Side Gardens On the South side of my house I’ve painted the wall a Mediterranean blue to reduce the glare and create a colorful backdrop for flowers. I keep annuals in this bed, along with some bulbs and a rose that is still small that my daughter gave to me. In th photo just blooming are naturtium, alyssum, foxglove, pansies, and a delphinium that fell over and started growing upright again. My library window overlooks this yard. I was trying to keep the color scheme focusing on apricot to show up well agains the wall, but I end up planting whatever I want in here. Cosmos have again reseeded and are starting to grow rapidly; they’ll block the window by summer and be full of goldfinches. I’ve also planted a couple of bleeding hearts that I picked up in one of those bulb packages at WalMart. Usually the plant is pretty spent and they aren’t worth the money, but I somehow think that I am rescuing the poor thing. These came up but haven’t yet bloomed.
Lady Banksia Along my driveway is a Lady Banksia rose that has taken off, along with a bush mallow, a Hidcote lavender, and a late daffodil. Farther along the driveway (not shown) is a Pride of Madera (I love that name!) that is going gangbusters, a small liquidamber, rockrose, a mixture of natives and incidental plants such as a tomato that survived the winter, a Joseph’s Coat rose, and an established pine tree with a crow’s nest at the top. There are other roses and plants here, too, like a prostrate pyracantha for berries, a white carpet rose, native milkweed for the Monarch butterflies (perennial ones; the annuals are usually gone by the time the butterflies migrate here), an apricot penstamon, aloe vera, and probably the kitchen sink, too, if I root around long enough. I love tinkering around with this mess of plants, seeing what will grow and trying new combinations.
Raised Vegetable Beds In my raised vegetable beds the peas have been producing well. The shorter ones had been nibbled by crows as they were emerging, but after I put a rubber snake amongst them, the nibbling stopped. Potatoes are nearing harvest time, and I’ve already snuck out a few new potatoes and they were very good. Sometimes I’ve had potatoes with brown fiber in them and a bitter taste; no doubt due to irregular watering and soil problems. I worked hard on improving my soil and giving it a boost with natural fertilizers from Gardens Alive. There are so many peas in the garden because I planted all my old packets so that the roots will set nitrogen in the soil.
I also have growing carrots, broccoli, cilantro, parsley, endive, salad mix, parsnip, strawberries, blueberries, breadseed poppies, horseradish, asparagus, bush beans, fava beans, a yellow tomato and a red slicing tomato, garlic, shallots, red and white onions, Swiss chard, leeks, collards and basil. Most are just small guys right now.
Seedlings In my temporary nursery area I have sprouting pickling cucumbers, zucchini, quinoa (first time!), more basil, Dukat dill, cantalope, and a cooking pumpkin. I’ll sprout more squashes and maybe popcorn and sweet corn soon.
View up the Middle This is a view of the middle of my property, from the lower end up.
Palm Tree Walkway This is the palm tree walkway as it stands now.
Pre-Pond And this is the lower area. Notice the stakes in the ground and the tractors? They are there because today is the day the ponds will be excavated! The rain-catchment ponds, permanent habitat pond and swales will be carved, shaped and filled in the next two days, fed by water from a 4-inch well augered in the lower property. I have hired Aquascape to create habitat and rain catchment ponds; the demostrations of their work look as if humans hadn’t messed with anything. In about an hour from now, the action finally begins! After the ponds are installed, then the final plant guilds will be established, the minor amount of irrigation installed, and that will be that! I’ll keep you posted on pond development! -
Permaculture Garden Update
Entrance Lots of hard work is being done on the property, and the garden is taking on character. Bits of the palms that were cut down are being used in so many ways. The upright trunks that were left have been stripped, and metal poles were tied between them. I didn’t care for the look of the poles, so Roger immediately came up with the idea of wrapping them with palm fronds… and it looks great. The above photo is of the future ‘formal entranceway’ to the garden. Francisco and Juan were working from the tops of ladders in full sunlight on this unseasonably hot day… it must have been over 90 degrees out there. Summer weather too early! I’m glad that it is going to cool down a little starting tomorrow.
Arbor They also covered metal poles that they criss-crossed the trunks in the palm walkway. Up all of the trunks are a variety of flowering vines, and also climbing heirloom roses. I ordered the roses from Heirloom Garden Roses (http://www.heirloomroses.com/), and the plants are small but healthy and virorgous. I made little cages out of leftover chicken wire from the chicken tractor to set over them; otherwise, the bunnies would nibble the young rose leaves down to nothing. Beneath the palms, many plants that will create the plant guilds are in the ground and mulched with chipped palmsand surrounded with rocks. Rocks have also been placed around the property to add character and interest. The palm sheaths that were skinned from the trunks will be used on top of the mulch as a secondary layer; its interesting to look at, is textured and therefore makes interesting hidey-holes for lizards, salamanders and all sorts of creatures. Most planting will now cease until the important decisions about installing the rainfall retention ponds, dry creek beds, swales and the permanent (swimming?) pond are made. We met with more people this week about the pond installation and are awaiting bids and ideas. I’m looking for the most sustainable, least impact and easiest way of installing them, and we may have found a company that understands this. More about the ponds when decisions have been made.
Other work has concentrated on the embankment and the erosion areas there. This is the area below the fence; the embankment with the streambed is on the right, and the main property is beyond the upper left corner of the photo. This area had been leveled, firmed, mulched, and old broken pipes and wires that had been a junky retaining wall was replaced with old chainlink fencing and aluminum from the sheds. Then palm logs were used to line the cut-out area around the left to help hold the soil. Palm fronds were installed all along the top of the chainlink on the right…
Erosion area and also on the next level which is in the process of being firmed, repaired and made available for bird watching, including a very
- Lower level
handy bench. This area had been greatly eroded, especially by the December deluge. An enormous toyon has tipped over and its roots are exposed on the embankment. From this vantage point out over the embankment my daughter and I could watch a lot of birds flying between the canopy of the streambed trees. You can see from this photo also how the palm fronds have been used to block the lower side of the fence. In the bottom left corner is some of the old corrugated aluminum that had been there from the previous owner, and which is still holding up. It will be blocked by fronds as well. Past this point and around the corner is a big erosion area which ends the pathway. It is being worked on. With the ponds, streams, mulch and swales in place, as well as these bulwarks of wire and aluminum, the chance of such heavy erosion happening again even in the worst rainstorms is almost nil. The property will be augmented to deal with excessive waterflow as well as insufficient amounts.
I am still tossing around ideas about buildings to replace the sheds. I need a tool/mower storage shed, a small ‘bee house’ where we can store our bee equipment and work on honey extraction without the bees bothering us (we’ve extracted honey in our kitchen), and I’d like a small greenhouse or growing house for seedlings. I also would like small building or trailer that could be used as a guest house, as well as an area for groups of people to gather for teaching purposes. I’m getting prices and ideas on how to do all this cost-effectively. I’ve looked into Quality Sheds in Menifee, asked the carpenter who did my other projects to give me a bid, and have researched trailers, yurts, geodesic domes, straw bale… everything. So many decisions! But how fun it all is. That’s all for tonight, and thanks for reading.
