Cheap landscaping projects 2012 - Before and after images

Because of the bees and because of the amount of lawn to mow without gardens and patios, this year I focused on creating more gardens as inexpensively as possible.  Here were this year's projects before and after:

1.  Patio using existing wood chips cost me only the landscape fabric underneath.  I found stone to trim the patio.

Before (spring 2012)

woodchip patio area (summer 2012)

2.  Pathway on the north side of the house was added, again using woodchips and landscape fabric.  The garden to the right more than doubled in size. I purchased a few plants but moved and divided mostly my existing plants to fill the space.

3.  The area in front of the hives was enhanced with a rustic archway and four half circle(ish) gardens with a grass path that divides them.  Over the archway, I planted the gourds for fast growth. Once morning glories are established, they would fill an archway nicely too. Perhaps another year :).

Birdhouse gourd growing on rustic archway

4.  This is the beehive area where I moved my cherry,  peach and apple trees where they'd be protected by the electric fence, at least during the summer.  I left another apple tree outside the fenced area  I did get 8 peaches, perfectly ripened and made a peach tart which I then froze and will serve it at Thanksgiving.  I didn't expect anymore fruit this year but am hoping to see a bit more next year.  This is the beginning of the landscaping project.

setting up beehive area and planning the garden - before shot

Spring garden in process

August 2012

The bush on the left is a PeeGee Hydrangaea.   I planted White Alyssum around the edges

Behind that bush I already had the gooseneck loosestrife around the edges and the tall sunflower-like plants there, with a Valerian plant at either side in the back.  I then added a few Cosmos for late fall color.  Those are not in bloom yet...almost. The gooseneck loosestrife is invasive so I've been deadheading the blooms to keep them under control.

On the right, the back garden has a few butterfly bushes toward the back which may need to be moved because it's not getting enough sunlight there.  I'll need to plant something that likes partial shade there next year  I'm actually thinking that a rhododendron might work there.  And I planted creeping thyme around the edge of that garden which blooms pink in the spring so will need a color to coordinate

In the front on the right is mostly annuals with the exception of a Broomstick plant that I'm hoping will take off here.  If it does, it will bloom in yellow in the spring  

The gardens themselves will change over time and I'll try to make them as  carefree as possible...probably using shrubs rather than annuals or perenniels.  But that planning is all part of the fun and it is winter fun so stay tuned for more ideas during the winter.

First year investment for hobby beekeeper

Here's the extraction equipment bundle I purchased this year.  I could have used an extraction service, but chose to have my own equipment.  Local Beekeeping Associations will generally offer an extraction service so every beekeeper doesn't need to go buy their own equipment unless they want to.

Extractor (stainless steel on legs) - reminds me of a salad spinner only a lot bigger.  It stands about 30 inches high and 14 inches round.  Then it attached to some legs so that the part you spin like a salad spinner is at the right level.  Inside go the frames.

Uncapping tank with spout to pour honey out that captures the wax and honey drops below to the spout that you open and close.  There are other types and commercial products but I found this is pretty slick tool for the home beekeepers.

Escape screen
Use a bee brush to gently coax them along and off your frame, or you can put this screen under the super you want to empty to take the honey. Place it there, triangle down and the bees leave from the top of the screen and can't figure out how to get back in. Leave it on for a maximum of 36 hours and you'll have few bees to get off your frames.  (It worked wonderfully) Then you grab the frames, put them into a covered container and get inside where there are no bees to do your extraction. 
This extraction equipment investment cost about $500

Other equipment and clothing and training cost an additional $1000.

August reflections on gardening and keeping out garden pests

Keeping out pests in a garden is one of gardening's biggest challenges.  I think that about a month or so ago...or less, I wrote something about how lovely my tomatoes were.  This photo was taken on July 12th

But then something began to happen.  I noticed large bites out of the tomatoes as soon as they began ripening.  I had to begin picking early so that I'd get a tomato crop.   and my crop has been good...but it could have been better if it weren't for this "large bite out of tomato" situation.

Yesterday, I was in the woods around my house looking for mushrooms, and I saw a couple of green tomatoes with tooth marks on them...like they half attempted to save them, but in the end, dropped..probably knowing there was better fruit to be had in another day or so.

I also think my heirloom pineapple tomato plant tricked them for a while because they were yellowing but not reddening and they escaped getting the bites taken out of them.  But after a few weeks, even they began to have bites. I wondered if the creature(s) determine ripeness via color, or scent or perhaps touch? The photo above is one of the pineapple tomatoes..so this is proof that they've been discovered.

Also the dreaded late season blight hit the tomatoes.  I have struggled with that for a few years, as we all have.  I did purchase some seeds that were resistant but I also had heirlooms which are not  resistant, so the disease came, but it came late.

Late summer blight on tomatoes

About the only thing you can do at this point is to cut off all the dead or diseased leaves and bag them in plastic immediately and then throw them into the trash.  Never throw this onto the compost pile since it will infect plants in coming years.  The disease spreads by spores so you don't want these floating through the air.

I cut them off this morning so the plants look pretty naked.  But sometimes they come back if you cut off all the disease.  Because we should have at least another month of growing season, I will add some fertilizer and see what happens.  I have nothing to lose at this point.

And then cucumber beetles attacked the summer squash and decimated it overnight.  I reached for a pesticide with them because I didn't want to lose my zucchini, cucumbers and melons and pumpkin too! It worked.  The others are still doing ok.  But I lost the summer squash and pulled it and added to the dead tomatoes in plastic.

Then, one morning last week, I look out to see most of my corn flattened to the ground.  I knew this was a bear.  Only a bear would trash the entire area, and I could picture him or her sitting in the middle of all the chaos eating the corn and dropping the cob.

There is literally nothing left on the corn cob. You know how,when you finish an ear of corn, there's always remnants of the outer kernal left behind?  There is nothing on these cobs.  They were ready to use in decorations, almost dry!  Well, perhaps a slight exaggeration but they were very much cleaned off.

Between, the tomatoes and the bear, and the turkeys, and God knows, the chipmunks and squirrels, I need something to deter them. So I'm planning to put in a fence. For the past few years, a product called Repels All  has worked out really well...it's coyote urine packaged into a powder or spray that you can sprinkle or spray around your garden or plants you want to protect.  It's worked before but not this year.  Maybe because this is the best garden I've had here so far. 

I think I'll buy the fence prior to next spring so it's ready to go. Maybe even within a few weeks. If I can do within a few weeks, it might even save a little of this crop, especially if first frost is very late like it was last year.  I'll include my pear trees within the fenced area too, hoping to help them keep their crop, a small crop, hopefully, next year.

But will a 5-foot wire fence keep out a bear?  Or deer?  It will at least deter them.  If I have to, I'll have to electrify my garden fence too. I just don't want to deal with that with children around, but of course, I will always shut it off when they come. These will be things to think about over the coming days, weeks and months.

Another fall plan is to add a pathway to my front steps, using the wood chips, like I did on the side of the house.  I already started demolition by moving some plants from there to another part of the front yard.  And I want two sections of picket fence out front near the driveway so that plows can't plow snow onto the front lawn. They practically ruined it last year and plowed into this beautiful shrub that, to me at least, is a centerpiece of the lawn. That's a subject for another day.

A wonderful crop.

Finally, after all the planning and the work involved with this venture, this was the weekend when I  extracted the honey.  Actually last week, I needed to remove two frames from  the deep hive to give them more room for brood.  So I removed two frames of honey and tried the extraction process.  So I had a "taste" of how the process worked.

But yesterday was the day to extract all the honey from the first 10-frame super.  This is my season's crop, along with the honey from the other.  I got at least 3 gallons of honey this year since it's now in a 5-gallon bucket and the honey comes up to within 5 inches of the top of the bucket.

Now the honey will sit in the covered bucket for a week.  This is to allow any air bubbles to dissipate before putting into jars.

I'm very happy with this crop since I had no idea what to expect this first year.  Beekeepers who only bought a package of bees may get nothing this year.  I bought a nuc and did that hoping to get some honey this first year.  It is certainly enough to give as gifts to family, friends and neighbors...plus me, of course!  And next year, increasing to two hives, will give me more and then maybe I can begin selling a bit.

The rest of the honey in the hive is for the bees during the winter.  So now, I will just keep giving them sugar syrup and they will fill up those two frames during the remainder of the season.  And I will begin to gather hay, roofing paper to begin preparing some insulation for the winter.

Once the bear go into hibernation, I can also take down the electric fence for the winter and bring it inside. They recommend not leaving it in an unheated shed because it won't last as long.

Ouch, ouch, ouch
Of course, live and learn. With my new beekeepers suit that looks like a space suit, I had bees flying all around me.  They weren't all that happy about me taking their honey!  I did not get stung.

After the extraction, I had been told that the bees will clean off all the honey from the extracted frames so I decided to go put them back into the empty super.  Which I did.  The bees loaded these frames immediately to clean them off.  But when I lifted it to place on top of the other super on the hive, it had a big gap...I had put the frames in an upside down box so I had to remove them all and flip over the box.

The bees went crazy and found my weakness...just where the sock goes into the sneaker is a vulnerable spot.   Basically it's the only spot that isn't covered by something that keeps bees from getting to your skin.  So I got stung around the ankles several times.  Sigh.  They swelled up last night and are very itchy at this moment.

But other than that, it all went very smoothly.

Then that big extractor needed to be cleaned so it went into the shower with me!

Steps to extracting honey

1. Purchase a triangle board and put it triangle side down under the super where you want to take the honey.
With this board, the bees leave the super and can't get back it.  It honestly worked.  I put it on at 5:00 PM Friday night and went to get the bees at around noon on Saturday.  There were only a handful of bees left on the frames so I used a bee brush to brush them off and put the frame into the big plastic bucket used for uncapping and quickly covered it.  Until all the 10 frames were in the covered sstorage-like container.  I had placed the bucket on a little red wagon and wheeled it over to the porch.  I then slid the container onto the porch, put the wagon on the porch, lifted the bucket back onto the wagon, and right into the kitchen where the uncapping took place.

2.  Uncap each of the frames.  You can use a hot knife for this, but because I had 10 frames in the hive, the comb wasn't built out beyond the frames so an uncapping tool is what I used.  It's a pronged tool that looks like this:

You put your full frame of honey over this extraction tank that comes in three pieces.  A cover, a bucket with a metal slatted bottom to catch the wax but allow the honey to flow into the bottom bank that has a spout.

 The piece of wood you see across the top if this has a screw in the middle that you rest the frame on as you are running the comb down over the frame to allow the honey to flow.

The top tank above fits into the bottom bank below.

 

Once the frames are uncapped, they are ready for the Extractor.  My extractor holds 3 frames, it seems, since I couldn't seem to make it hold 6.  You spin it for a few minutes and the honey flows to the bottom of the tank.  Then, when you're done, you open the flow into a double strainer to strain out any wax capping, etc. and the final product is now in the bucket.

filtering honey into 5-gallon bucket with spout for pouring after honey sits for about a week

Filtering the honey through two sieves

I have let the cappings strain into the lower tank all night so that today I will strain that little bit more honey into my bucket and it will rest there for a week or so.  Then I will bottle it.  I have been saving jars to recycle for this purpose to I will use what I have.  I also have some small jelly jars that will be useful.  What fun it will be to see these all up on a shelf.

Making a nuc

Yesterday...which was at least a few weeks ago when I began this entry...I've just been so busy that I haven't had time to write:

Anyway, I made a nuc from my hive.  It was my first time, as all of this is my first time, so I'm sure I stressed out the bees more than I needed to.  But it's done now and I can only hope for the best.

I got to the bottom hive yesterday for the first time in a month and lifted every frame and cleaned off burr comb that was in odd places.  I saw some brood, pollen and nector....and larvae so that I can be pretty sure I still have a working queen in there. Unless it took off in all the commotion yesterday while I was doing this work in the hive.

I also looked in the upper deep hive which is jammed with honey.  I saw very little brood in there and think that next time, I may need to do something about that but for now, I did nothing with that since I had other work to do.

My one super...where I get my honey...is almost full so I added another super and that will give the bees more space to build it out and make honey.  There seems to be enough in bloom so that they can get enough nectar and pollen to work with.  The hive is getting tall!

This is what it looked like yesterday after my work was completed.  They spent the rest of the evening outside trying to recover from the trauma of my messing with their hive.

To start the nuc, you take about 3 frames from the brood chamber at the bottom.  You want to make sure you insert frames that have brood, eggs or tiny larvae, nectar and pollen.  With those ingredients, they will make their own queen within a few weeks.  With this nuc, I only want it to be strong enough to survive the winter and then in the spring, I will add the five frames to a new hive...and not have to spend the money on purchasing a nuc from someone else.  We'll see.

Next thing I needed to do is move the nuc a few miles from my home.  Otherwise, the bees would just go back to their original hive (their home) rather than make the nuc their home.  So I drove it up to my daughter's land and found a great spot there with lots of wildflowers around...and away from the family.

Notice the orange wheel in the front.  That spins around so that you can open it fully to give bees full access to come and go.  But there could be stealing from other bees so I opened only one of the holes to minimize the threat.  It's secured with a wingnut in the center.

This morning, I needed to take the nuc away from here and so lifted it and placed it on the floor of the backseat of my car.  All of a sudden, I see bees everywhere!  I hadn't secured the front! So they were flying at me, all over the car.  I ran in, donned my beekeepers hat, veil, gloves, and ran back out to close up the opening.  A bee got up my pant leg so I stripped them off getting just one sting.  Then I decided I needed long pants and socks to tuck my pants into.  Then I went back out to deal with it.  I started my smoker.  Then tightened the wingnut so it was closed. The bees then went into my trunk, just in case there were a few I missed crawling on the outside of the box.  You can see I used duck tape to secure the top.  Then I drove them about 5 miles away.

Wow, that's a lot of adrenaline for first thing in the morning!  I doubt I'll ever forget to tighten the wingnut again. :)

I picked up this hive from my daughter's land and it was all intact.  It was there for a few weeks.  Now it's back here next to my more mature hive and I've added a feeder to the top of it as well.  I need to pick up some cement blocks to set it on.  Right now, it's on a tree stump but it isn't secure enough to my liking.

Splitting the hive and adding a super

It's July 18th, 2012. I got up to a few of three deer in my yard.  One in the lower pond, one at my blueberry bushes which explains why I didn't get one blueberry this year, and then another down by the birdhouse.  I grabbed my camera and took great shots, but none came out.  I can get a great photo in my kitchen but through the screen, it comes out a gray blank image.  Darn because they were so close and only ran when they heard me snap the last photo. Next time, I'll need to quietly step out onto the front porch to get an unobstructed shot.

Well, the very next morning, I looked out my bedroom window to see a couple of deer in my backyard.  This time, I quietly sneaked around the side of the house and got this wonderful shot!

As for the blueberries, next year, I will build a shelter for them with 4 posts and netting over the posts that drape over the bushes too..I've seen others do that and it seems to work.  Left alone, the animals eat the blueberries (and bushes) before you can get to them.  Live and learn!  I may have to move the bushes though. It will obstruct my view down the hill to the birdhouse which now has gourds flowering unless I can figure out some attractive way to do it..which is doubtful. I've been thinking that I'd like to see some evergreen shrub in the area so I will be thinking about that for the future.

I have to laugh at the unrealistic expectations I personally start out with year after year.  I suppose it's like this with other gardeners too...you expect everything you do to be in peak condition, lush, with no insect or other disease damage.  But it's never perfect.  I suppose that if it were. there would be nothing left to do and what's the fun of that?  But some things surprise you and sometimes surpass your expectations.  I can't speak of my beautiful tomatoes this year..knock on wood...I don't want to jinx them.

Over by the beehive, my little rustic archway has gourds blooming.  I will try to get a shot of this early evening...or as soon as I see the flowers open. It was pretty last night and will get much more filled in over the next few months until the frost gets it. Gosh, I don't want to think about that right now!
I sure hope this turns out to be as lush as my imagination saw it.  It's coming along and it now, at least, catches the eye.

I've been busy trying to figure out what to do with the hive.  It's been difficult to not go in for an extra week. I believe I have a super filled with honey, or at least some frames should be filled.  I'm ready to add on the second super this weekend.

The other chore this weekend is to get into that bottom hive and pull out some frames to see what's going on.  I fear there is comb being built that needs to come off and I need to make sure I have a healthy queen who is laying eggs.  If I see that....then I'm planning to split the hive and make a Nuc so that next year I won't have to buy one to start my second hive.  More on that later.

Let me just say this. Yes, I want another hive.  I'm told that I can start a Nuc now and winter it over (I need to learn more about how to do this...seems like they'd freeze in such a small box for the winter).  Then, in the spring, I will use that to start my second hive. But that's for discussion later on.

Right now I need to focus on extracting the honey.  And I've order what I need and the various items are being shipped. I ordered all the extraction products I need with high hopes that I'll have honey to extract.  It does seem like I will but until it's in the jar....

More on extraction next time. I'm finding this to be a very busy time so apologize if I bounce from subject to subject in these posts. It's how I am in the yard too, bouncing from task to task. :)

Air in the hive makes all the difference

If you recall a few weeks or so ago, the bees were all hanging outside the hive.   For a while, I thought they were going to swarm, but it was because they were so hot inside. I did two things to help them, inserting a stick or rock under the top cover lets in air, and I removed the entrance reducer. Between those two actions, what a difference!  I haven't seen this kind of scenario again so now the bees can concentrate on gathering.

In the interest of full disclosure, my grandson got stung in my yard last week. We were hand picking japanese beetles off some plants on that side of the house but not really near the hive. Rather than spray them with poison, I pick them off and drop them into a can of water and then cover them. Cruel but safer then pesticides.  He was helping me.

Somehow a bee found him and stung him on the.  I am not sure why but there may have been a bee in the clover that he stepped on.  He was very brave after the shock wore off!

It happens.  I refuse to give in to a few bee stings but family will be better off on the other side of the house where the hive isn't.