Sg2009wc:garden

From She's Geeky Wiki

Title: Beekeeping and Organic Gardening

Session: 1-L Bay Area Jan 2009

Convener: Vicky Tuite

Attendees:

• Melanie - apartment gardening
• El - brownthumb.wordpress.com (About killing plants) Suburban plot.
• Sue- gardening in urban environments,
• Laura- growing food in containers, guerilla gardening
• Denna -First year of gardening was successful, have gotten bug, was raised bed and gardening
• Alicia - organc gardening
• Sasha - Grew up in an apple orchard but now down to container gardening. Different geranium flavors and organic farming.
• Laura - took organic class in college, container gardening (fire escape gardening). Organic.
• Mary - Love gardening, grew up with ornamentals, fruit and nut tree. Have been re-doing a garden in the last two year. 25 citrus tree- hedgee and fruit. Ten tomato plants getting 25 lbs of tomatoes every week. Now have containers in Berkeley. Interested in local composting.
• Susan - House in Oakland with a big yard very recently, interested in sustainable and organic gardening. New gardening (or returning, actually). Free worm bins.

Notes:

First on the agenda is a short bit about beekeeping from Vicky. A friend got her in and now she's VP of the local club. Note that there are local laws regarding beekeeping so check that out. There are clubs in San Francisco, Santa Clara, lots of local places. They will help you get started with old equipment and participating in bulk buys.

There are many things that can go wrong with beekeeping: mites, fungus, ets. Trying to avoid chemicals. State apiarist (bee guy) comes to talk to the club about once a year- why are bee colonies dying? He doesn't know, maybe fungus, maybe air pollution.

The cool thing about bee hives is that if they are doing well, half of them leave. Which means you can replace your losses. Vicki got about 5lbs from her hives (one living, two have passed on). It is possible to get 10 gallons from one hive. Vivki is hoping for 5 to 10G this year.

Back to bee-genocide, does it vary by area? Yes, northern bees with less time to forage are less robust. Also, there are different issues that can be local- beetles.

Is local honey help with allergies? We've heard that. The honey definitely tastes like local flora. Vicki's is like fennel and rosemary. Honey is like wine- terroir is very important to how it tastes.

San Mateo club is SanMateoBee.org, meet first Thursday of the month. They also have dispays at the San Mateo county fair.

What does a bee house look like? (Description with hands and paper)

How much does it cost? Start up cost (suit + smoker ($100), package of bees ($65), starter hive ($100) is about $300.

How to get the honey out? Heated knife, spin out the wax. What about larva in the honey? You can encourage the queen to lay elsewhere.

What to plant to encourage bees? Rosemary and borage (blue flowers, edible, tastes like cucumber). Mustard, bee balm. Better Homes and Garden has a plan for bee garden. Lavendar plants. Butterfly bush (really for butterflies). www.bhg.com/gardening/plans/dramatic/gardens-plans-that-attract-birds-and-butterflies Sunset magazine website has a blog about bee keeping. Very nice intro to beekeeping.

Gardening resources: Freecycle.org - for getting rid of things. Including plants. Nice people give away good plants. Craigslist has a farm and garden section.

Tomatoes in SF? Any success? Not really. Hanging plants, too much wind. Very thick skinned. Tomatoes will grow upside down, so you can plant them so they grow down... they are vines. This worked but the tomatoes were iffy.

What is the best stuff to grow in an apartment? In SF. Basil is an annual- it will die. You can cut the seed pods but then it gets tough. Mary has had some success cutting the top stem off and put it in the dirt and it grows a new plant. Vicki suggests root hormones (available in the nursery). El worries about the frightening warnings on rooting hormones. There might be less toxic ones. Thyme, catnip and catmint. Make sure the catnip pot is big enough that the cats can't knock the pot over. Cats will roll in catnip as well as eat it. Sometimes they will eat down to the nibs. Mary suggests chicken wire and only letting them eat the leaves outside the wire.

What else in a container? Tomatoes, peppers, beans, peas Go to google and search for Master garden in San Clara. They have an awesome calendar of when to plant what. Most areas have a simlar agricultural extension. Merrti college in the East Bay. Foothill College in Los Altos.

California Rare Fruit Growers. Scion exchange in January (we missed it). Vicki got figs. Apple, pear, plum, fig scions are available. Graft on to a tree... Don't forget to label what you put on it. Common Ground in Palo Alto has many excellent resources, including seeds by the teaspoon.

Containers- geranium (scented are very amusing) are VERY easy to grow. Rosemary and lavendar are easy in this area. Sasha and El to exchange.

Mary bought plants at farmer's market (in Mtn View but most farmer's markets have plant dealers). She kept asking for a specific variety so the plant dealer grew from seed for Mary. Farmer's market tomatos are so much better than grocery store tomatos. Home tomatos are that much better. Eggplant, peas and carrots also have a leap in quality when taken from the gardening.

Worms! Look for local composting classes, many will give out worms and compost bins. Theses are usually subsidized or sold wholesale. Laura and Susan were excited about exchanging worms in Oakland.

Urban Ore in Oakland is a good resource for container gardening. Look online for video "Do the Rot Thing" from Alameda County. Store Dry Gardening in SF. Book: Plants and Landscapes for Summer Dry Climates. Kind of expensive but available in most librariies. SUPER awesome book for what grows in this area. Google Eath box.

Back to container gardening. Watering is a balancing act- containers will dry out faster than the ground but they will also get water logged. How to irrigate containers? Timer with a drip system. El wants a wireless accessible plant timer. This seems like something that will work.

Guerilla gardening- planting urban areas, generally uninvited, usually at night. Put in plants. Vicky has done fava beans. Paul Stamats is trying to heal the planet with mushrooms (which help get id of toxins). Fava beans get planted in the fall and grow with winter rains.

Two mainling lists: East bay permaculture SF permaculture Good discussions about similar things. Kind of active. But very good resource.

Usenet group rec.gardens.edibles Good backlog of stuff there, less active now.

Oakland has a tulip planting. Probably in the fall.