On the other hand, many plants start to stress this time of year. Yes, some thrive in heat: rosemary, sage, cornflowers, and bee balm, to name a few. Others, however, require special care (or to be retired completely) in the sweltering months.

This article covers 10 heat-sensitive plants, how the sun affects them, their ideal growing conditions, and how to care for them during summer. If you’re unsure whether to plant those cold-season crops into the garden right now, keep reading.

Rose

Weather pattern changes are affecting gardens all around the United States (plants in zone 8b, for example), and roses are no exception.

Increasingly hot temperatures cause heat stress, scorched leaves/blossoms, black leaf, and leaf spot.

Every rose is different, but yours may stop blooming to stay alive in tough conditions. Care for them by making sure they get adequate water and don’t fertilize them too much. A water-soluble fertilizer will supplement them, but again, keep it light.

Calendula

While easy to grow and manage, Calendula is known to “sulk” in hot temperatures. It’s a cool-season annual that blooms from fall to spring but drops off during the heat of summer.

Excessive sun causes Calendula to wilt and drop blooms. It also damages the plant’s structural makeup, making way for disease to take over.

Calendula will typically grow back when the weather cools down. Try to provide them with afternoon shade and water them as usual.

Pea

One of the first plants I grew as a beginner was peas. Much to my disappointment, they didn’t perform well. This was because I grew them during the 100+ degree weather of central Texas. Don’t be like me!

Most peas are cool crops and don’t stand a chance during heatwaves. Intense sun causes stunted growth, wilt, and less production. 

If you want peas in summer, grow Southern varieties. Black-eyed, purple hull, and cream peas will yield a crop during hot months.

Bare Root Strawberry

If temps where you live exceed 85 degrees, it’s too hot for your strawberries. On occasion, they will tolerate warmer weather. This doesn’t happen very often, however.

Direct sun and scorching temperatures stunt strawberry growth and cause misshapen fruits. 

To keep your strawberries alive during heatwaves, give them some shade cloth. Keeping them in regular shade helps, too. You can also choose heat-tolerant strawberry varieties that will produce longer!

Lettuce

Most of us have done it—thrown some lettuce seeds in a pot or out in the garden for a quick summer salad on demand. You likely noticed a pungent, bitter flavor while tasting the leaves. Lettuce is notoriously bad during summer.

Lettuce, especially smaller varieties, is quite hardy. During hot weather, they wilt but do eventually come back if their soil is kept moist. The issue is that heat causes “bolting“, which is the plant shifting its focus to flowering. During and after this process, the leaves become bitter.

There are several types of heat-resistant lettuce varieties, including summer crisp and romaine. If you’re growing a cooler variety already, make sure to water it daily and give it afternoon shade. That should keep the plant from getting bitter too quickly.

Kale

Similarly to lettuce, kale is a cold-weather leafy green. I will say this: it’s surprisingly longer lasting than similar plants. My parents used to grow kale in the dead of summer… and it tasted totally fine.

Heat can cause stress, wilting, and bitter flavor. To combat bitterness, you can rinse your kale thoroughly in cold water or cook it. I prefer “kale chips” toasted in the oven with lemon pepper seasoning and onion powder. SO delicious!

To keep your kale stable during summer, provide afternoon shade (or shade cloth), keep soil moist, and water deeply.

Carrot

I’ve tried growing carrots during summer, and, unfortunately, it never works out. This is because carrots are a cool-season crop.

Extensive heat causes bitterness, woodiness, misshapen roots, and bolting. 

Gardeners in cooler climates have success growing carrots during summer when they keep the soil moist and shady. Carrots don’t need full sun all day.

Bleeding Heart

Bleeding hearts are cutesy, enchanting plants that grow in shade. These perennials are best suited under trees, shady areas, and woodland gardens.

Heat causes bleeding hearts to die back during summer. First, they’ll stop blooming. Afterwards, their leaves will turn yellow and disappear.

During summer, you may be tempted to dig them up after they go dormant. Don’t do this if you want bleeding hearts next year! They will grow back come spring.

Forget-Me-Not

Forget-me-nots are one of our first signs that nature is waking up from her winter sleep. Their delicate blue blooms carpeting grassy landscapes are such an incredible wonder.

These flowers love spring but can’t hang during summer. Once they set seed, they decompose back into the earth, only to be awakened again during fall.

There isn’t much you can do to prevent these biennials from dying. Rest assured, though, you’ll see them again soon!

Garden Violet

My herbalist heart loves violets. They’re lovely for coughs, colds, and sore throats. They aren’t great in heat, however. You’ll want to harvest them quickly.

Summer weather causes violets to wilt, making them tired and more susceptible to disease. 

Like forget-me-nots, violets are short-lived. Enjoy them while they last! Don’t forget to pick some leaves for your tea, too.

Are Your Plants Summer-Ready?

While some of your favorites may disappear this summer, you can either replace them with heat-friendly alternatives or expect to see them again next year.

The beauty of gardening is that nothing is permanent. Our plants are constantly growing, interacting with their environment, and changing. Kind of like life in general, right? Enjoy what you have in the season you’re in now. It could all change in an instant!

The post Your Garden is Cooked: 10 Plants That Don’t Like Heat appeared first on Homestead.org.

Mushrooms are a powerhouse when it comes to our physical health.  They have been shown to boost the immune system, lower cancer risk, maintain heart health, boost gut health, lower blood pressure, supply vitamin D, support weight loss, protect the brain against MCI (mild cognitive impairment) and neurodegenerative diseases.  The health benefits alone are enough of a reason to grow mushrooms at home, but that is not all they do.  Growing mushrooms improves your garden by breaking down hardwood and other growing substrates, building and enriching your soil, and attracting earthworms which aerate and fertilize soil.

Scientists have classified 2,189 mushrooms as edible, with 2006 species safe to eat as is and 183 species needing pre-treatment before eating.  We are going to concentrate on a few of the most popular mushrooms to allow you to test the waters and decide whether mushroom growing is right for your next homesteading project.

Almost every edible mushroom can be grown successfully from a kit available online.  Make sure you are buying from a reputable dealer, preferably one that only sells mushrooms and mushroom products.  The kit comes with everything you need, including step-by-step instructions. Starting with a kit is a good idea because it allows you to grow a crop or two of mushrooms without the time and resource commitment.  Once you determine mushroom growing is a good fit, you will feel good about the time and energy you invest in building your own mushroom bed, which you can inoculate with purchased spores or learn how to capture and cultivate spores at home.

King Stropharia (wine cap mushrooms) are one of the easiest mushrooms to cultivate in a backyard bed.  Getting their name from the wine-colored caps of young mushrooms, they have a mild flavor and their stem has a texture similar to asparagus.  To grow these at home you need:

• Sawdust spawn
• Fresh hardwood chips
• Cardboard (all metal and tape removed)
• Straw or leaves
• Water

The location of your mushroom bed needs to receive indirect sunlight for most of the day, Along a retaining wall or wood line is a good choice, as is underneath perennial garden plants.

1. Cover the entire bed with cardboard.  Water until the cardboard is saturated.  Sprinkle spawn evenly and lightly over entire surface.
2. Add approximately three inches of hardwood chips and sprinkle with more spawn.  Pack the surface to remove any air pockets.
3. Tear enough cardboard to cover surface.  Torn cardboard ensures moisture can make it to the bottom layer.  Sprinkle another layer of spawn to cover the surface.
4. Add another three inches of hardwood chips, mixed generously with your spawn.  Pack to remove air pockets and mist to moisten chips.
5. Cover with 1-2 inches of straw or leaves.  This will help preserve moisture and provide shade.
6. Water every day for the first week.  For weeks two – four, water every other day.  After the fourth week, water once a month unless the bed receives adequate rain.

In four to eight months the mycelium will have colonized the chips and mushrooms will begin fruiting.  Check your patch often, as once fruiting begins, they grow quickly.

Most mushrooms are relatively easy to grow as long you provide them with the right environment.  Oyster mushrooms prefer to grow in logs or dead trees which you can recreate using a hardwood log, cut within six weeks of use, and dowel spawn.  Simply drill 10 mm holes at regular intervals along the log and insert spawn.  Keep moist and watch for fruiting in six to twelve months.  Shiitakes use the same process using holes drilled at 6-inch intervals.  Once you insert shiitake spawn, seal with food-grade wax to ensure spawn doesn’t dry out.

White button and portobello mushrooms like to grow in compost.  The best compost for these mushrooms is a mixture of horse manure and wet straw.  Mix together and pack tightly to raise the temperature and turn every other day for two to three weeks.  Once the mixture is dark and smells sweet, it is ready.  Put enough compost in a tray to cover it to a depth of three inches then spray with a spore syringe to inoculate.  Mix and cover with damp newspaper.  You should see mycelium in two to three weeks.  Once the tray is covered with mycelium (tiny white threads). Wet and cover with a layer of peat-free compost mixed with two to three handfuls of lime.

If you would like to move to a level of mushroom cultivation beyond store-bought kits, you can make and cultivate your own spores and then create your own spawn.  Although this is time-consuming, it is relatively easy, and once you understand the process you will have a never-ending supply of mushroom spawn.

To make your own spores, gently remove the stem and skirt from the cap of your desired mushroom. Lay it flat, gills facing down, on a piece of paper, and place a glass over the mushroom.  Leave it alone and in 24 hours remove the glass and gently lift the mushroom off the paper.  You now have a spore print.  Keep the print in a sealed plastic bag until you are ready to cultivate.

In order to cultivate the spores you need to create a spore syringe.  You will do this in a sterilized environment, using distilled water that has been boiled three times, and a syringe with a needle you have sterilized by holding in a flame for a few seconds.

Draw some of the cooled water into the syringe.  Using the syringe needle, gently scrape spores from your spore print into a sterilized glass.  Expunge half of the water from the syringe into the glass and draw the spore water back into the syringe.  This spore water is ready to use to inoculate your growing medium.

Because spores do not contain chlorophyll, they need other material to feed on.  This material is dependent on the preference of the particular mushroom you are cultivating, but most mushrooms prefer either sawdust, stray, wood chips or plugs, or grain.  If you decide to cultivate wine cap mushrooms and want to DIY the process, you would use your spore syringe on sawdust to create the spawn.  Information about the requirements for individual mushrooms are widely available online, at the library, and your local extension office.

Growing mushrooms is a great project for your homestead.  Not only is it simple to do, it has tremendous health benefits for both humans and the environment, and they are a proven market winner.

The post Small-Scale Mushroom Farming appeared first on Homestead.org.

Like many aspiring homesteaders, getting chickens was the logical starting point. Fresh eggs, insect control, and a manageable flock size seemed like the perfect introduction to owning our own animals.

Then reality stepped in.

The more we learned about caring for chickens responsibly, the more we realized we weren’t quite ready yet. That may sound strange in a world where chickens are often marketed as the easiest livestock for beginners. If you spend any amount of time in homesteading groups or online forums, and you’ll quickly find advice telling newcomers to “just get a few chickens.”

The problem is that chickens aren’t decorations. They’re livestock. And if you’re serious about animal welfare, that distinction matters.

Everyone operates their homestead differently. There is no single right way to raise animals. In our case, we wanted to create the best and most natural life possible for our livestock before asking them to provide food for our family. That meant building proper infrastructure, developing predator protection systems, understanding seasonal challenges, and educating ourselves before bringing animals onto the property.

As a result, we made a decision that surprised many people. We postponed getting chickens. Not because we didn’t want them. Because we wanted to do it right.

That process taught us something important: chickens may be among the most rewarding animals a homesteader can own, but they may not be as simple as many people are led to believe.

Let’s look at a few of the biggest myths surrounding backyard chickens.

Myth #1: Chickens Are Cheap

The phrase “cheap as chickens” has probably convinced more than a few aspiring homesteaders that poultry is an inexpensive hobby.

The reality can be very different.

The cost of your setup depends heavily on your goals. A small flock of laying hens has different housing requirements from a group of meat birds. Layers need a secure coop, nesting boxes, roosting bars, and protected outdoor access. Meat birds often require movable chicken tractors and rotational grazing systems.

Then there’s everything else:

• Feeders.
• Waterers.
• Bedding.
• Fencing.
• Predator protection.
• Medical supplies.
• Replacement equipment.
• Winter preparations.

The list grows surprisingly fast.

There are certainly ways to reduce expenses. Building a DIY coop can save thousands of dollars. Mixing portions of your own feed, fermenting grains to stretch feed supplies, and growing supplemental forage can all help lower long-term costs.

But even the most resourceful homesteader should expect a significant upfront investment before the first egg ever appears in a nesting box.

For us, that realization became one of the reasons we delayed bringing chickens home. We wanted the infrastructure in place first, rather than scrambling to build it after the birds arrived.

Myth #2: Chickens Take Care of Themselves

This one always makes me laugh.

Somehow, chickens have developed a reputation as low-maintenance livestock. Anyone who keeps chickens will likely tell you otherwise.

Do automatic feeders help? Absolutely. Can automatic watering systems save time? Without question. But those systems don’t replace daily management.

Chickens still require daily health checks. Feeders need cleaning. Water systems need monitoring. Coops need maintenance. Eggs need collecting, and bedding needs replacing.

A responsible chicken owner is constantly observing the flock.

We are ready for small issues that may become major problems surprisingly quickly. We fully expect our future flock to become part of our daily routine. Not because we have to, but because good livestock management requires consistent attention.

Chickens aren’t a weekend hobby. They’re a daily responsibility.

Myth #3: Predators Are Someone Else’s Problem

One thing we’ve learned from living in a remote area is that wildlife pays attention when food becomes available. Your property may feel predator-free today, but add chickens, and that equation changes quickly.

Predators are remarkably good at discovering opportunities. Depending on where you live, your list of concerns may include foxes, raccoons, weasels, coyotes, hawks, owls, dogs, bears, and countless other opportunists.

For some homesteads, a secure fenced run may be sufficient. For others, including ours, predator protection requires something closer to a fortress.

We designed our chicken area to be protected from every direction. Side protection. Ground protection. Overhead protection from birds of prey. Secure doors and latches. Buried barriers to prevent digging predators. Because ultimately, keeping livestock safe is our responsibility.

The predators aren’t doing anything wrong. They’re simply being predators. It’s our job to create systems that protect the animals under our care.

Myth #4: Winter Is Just Another Season

Here in Northern Ontario, winter isn’t a season. It’s practically a lifestyle. We spend much of our summer preparing for it:

• Firewood needs processing.
• Buildings need maintenance.
• Equipment needs servicing.
• Access routes need planning.
• Livestock systems need winterizing.

For us, winter routinely lasts five months or more. That’s a very different challenge than keeping chickens in a mild climate. Frozen water systems can become a daily battle. Egg production often declines. Deep snow will affect your movement and access. Predators become more desperate as the winter drags on. A chore that seems inconvenient in July can become a dangerous mistake in January. That’s why winter planning starts long before the first snowfall.

Myth #5: Every Chicken Breed Is Basically the Same

When you walk into any farm store, you’ll quickly discover that chicken breeds come in an incredible variety of sizes, colors, temperaments, and purposes.

Every homestead has different goals. Some prioritize egg production. Some prioritize meat. Some want dual-purpose birds, and some simply want friendly backyard companions.

The key is matching the bird to the environment and your objectives. If you live in a northern climate, cold hardiness should be near the top of your priority list. Researching breeds before purchasing birds may not be the most exciting part of chicken ownership, but it can dramatically improve your chances of growing a successful and happy flock.

The Reality Behind the Coop

After all this research, are we still excited about getting chickens? Absolutely. In fact, we’re more excited than ever.

The purpose of this article isn’t to discourage anyone from raising poultry. It’s to encourage realistic expectations.

Chickens offer fresh eggs, entertainment, fertilizer, insect control, and a closer connection to your food system, but they require more planning and daily care than beginners often anticipate.

The good news is that none of these challenges are reasons not to get chickens. They’re simply reasons to prepare. Sometimes the best decision a new homesteader can make isn’t to rush to bring animals home, but to take the time to build the systems, knowledge, and infrastructure that will allow those animals to thrive when they finally arrive.
That’s the path we chose.

And while our chickens may be arriving later than originally planned, they’ll be arriving at a homestead that’s ready for them. In the long run, that’s a delay we’re happy to accept.

The post Beyond the Coop: Why Chickens Might Not Be the Easiest Starter Animal After All appeared first on Homestead.org.

Taking its common name from the Algonquin Indian word seganku meaning “urinating fox,” there are four species of skunks in the United States: the hog-nosed (Conepatus leuconotus) and hooded skunks (Mephitis macroura) in the Southwest; the spotted skunk (Spilogale), including the eastern spotted skunk found throughout the Great Plains to Texas and Florida, and the western spotted skunk, found pretty much everywhere west of the eastern spotted skunk; and the striped skunk (Mephitis mephitis), the most common and recognizable species, found throughout the country except for the deserts of Nevada and Utah.

While animals like copperhead snakes, lizards, and the snowshoe hare use camouflage to “hide” by blending into the scenery, the skunk actually advertises its identity with its bold black and white coloring. The sharply contrasting colors warn predators that they pose a threat (think of the red, yellow, and black coloring of the coral snake and the flamboyant colors of the poison dart frog), and would-be attackers should proceed at their own peril.

To survive in a world full of predators, skunks have developed a highly effective biological weapon. Owing to their short legs, running is not an option. Instead, the skunk backs away from the predator, raises its tail as a warning flag, and stamps its front feet; sometimes they throw in a handstand. Should the aggressor fail to back off, the skunk curves its body with both nose and rear end pointed at the threat and lets loose with a foul-smelling spray from its anal glands.

Nature’s version of tear gas, the skunk’s spray is so potent that one well-placed spray can leave its victim gagging and gasping for breath. Large dogs will sometimes kill skunks but are more likely to retreat after being sprayed, and it usually takes only one altercation to instill a higher appreciation of this lowly creature. The sulfuric acid in the spray can cause temporary blindness. It also contains ingredients that get trapped in fur and released when damp, which is why it is so difficult to deodorize a dog after a run-in with one.

Skunks can live pretty much everywhere. They sometimes excavate their own burrow but more often they use the abandoned burrows of woodchucks, muskrats, foxes, or badgers. They will also use hollowed-out logs or trees, caves, rock or brush piles, or underneath buildings as den sites. Dens have one to several entrances, each about eight inches in diameter.

They are active mainly at dawn and dusk and search for food along established routes. Signs of a skunk’s presence include tracks, droppings, a musky odor, and evidence of their digging. A persistent smell and freshly excavated soil next to a hole under an outbuilding or woodpile are indicators that a skunk may have taken up residence.

Although not normally considered a major threat, skunks can attack honey-bee hives. In order to get to the bees, they scratch at the front of the beehive. Guard bees that come out to investigate are swatted down and eaten. Putting the hives up on a stand or a stack of pallets make it harder for them to get at the bees. Another option is to put the entrance at the top of the hive. Our bee yard is protected with electric fencing, mostly as a bear deterrent, but it also keeps out skunks (and raccoons). Burying chicken wire underneath the fencing will deter most critters from digging underneath the fence.

Skunks can be carriers of rabies and other diseases, so avoid direct contact with them. Symptoms of rabies include abnormal behavior such as aggressiveness, seizures, stumbling, and vocalizing. Although skunks tend to hunt at dawn and dusk, spotting one in the daytime does not necessarily mean they are rabid; females with a litter often hunt during the day to feed their babies. Vaccinating your pets is the best way to protect them.

Skunks are a necessary part of the ecosystem. They eat many of the critters we’d like to keep in check including moles, mice, cockroaches, spiders, scorpions, bird and rodent carcasses, and even some poisonous snakes. To the benefit of the farmer and gardener, they also eat grasshoppers, crickets, snails, and beetle grubs. For the most part, they only become a nuisance when their burrowing and feeding habits cause us problems.

Although perceived as aiming their stinky jets at any hapless creature that crosses their path, skunks are really passive in nature and actually try to avoid confrontations. In almost every situation, they won’t bother you unless you bother them.

Tips to “Skunk-proof” Your Home and Outbuildings

• Make sure garbage cans have secure, tight-fitting lids.
• Clean up bird seed litter. Pick up fallen fruit from fruit trees. Don’t feed pets outside; if you do, clean up any uneaten food. Make sure compost is inaccessible.
• Keep poultry coops and runs secured at night.
• Keep potential den sites closed to discourage denning on your property. Fill abandoned groundhog holes and fence the bottoms of decks or porches to prevent access by skunks.
• If you find a skunk trapped in a window well, (carefully!) place a rough board in the well that extends to the top and it will climb out on its own.
• If a skunk gets into the house, open a door and calmly allow it to exit.
• Block access points into sheds, garages, basements, and attics so a skunk can’t find a warm place to sleep in buildings.
• Consult your local Animal Control office or a pest removal service for trapping and disposal recommendations.

The post Keeping Skunks at Bay appeared first on Homestead.org.

Here’s what you’ll need:

Dry ingredients:

• 1 c. whole-wheat flour
• 1 c. all-purpose flour
• 1 c. quick oats
• 1 t. baking soda
• 1 t. baking powder
• ½ t. salt
• 1 ½ t. cinnamon
• ½ t. nutmeg

Wet ingredients:

• 3 c. grated zucchini, (3-4 medium zucchini)
• 2 avocados
• 2 eggs
• 1 to 1 ½ c. sugar, depending on your taste (I used 1 ¼).  You could also do a mix of white and brown sugars.
• 2 t. vanilla

First, preheat the oven to 350 and prepare two 8×5-inch loaf pans with butter and flour, or baking spray.

Next, mix all of the dry ingredients in a large bowl.  Be sure you incorporate them all well with a fork or a whisk.

Then, in a smaller bowl, cream together the avocados, eggs, sugar, and vanilla with a mixer for 3-4 minutes on medium-high speed.  Add the zucchini and mix on low, just until incorporated.

Pour the wet ingredients into the dry bowl and mix on low, being sure to scrape the sides and bottom, until well combined.

Divide the batter between the loaf pans and bang them on the counter to smooth the top and get out any air bubbles.  Bake for 50-60 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean.

Allow to cool on a wire rack for at least 20 minutes and enjoy a sweet treat without all the guilt.

https://www.homestead.org/cookbook/lemon-poppy-seed-bread/

Fresh Summer Peach Quick Bread

The post Avocado Zucchini Bread appeared first on Homestead.org.

Paramount to being a good homesteader is economy: economy of money, of resources, and most of all, of your land.  A lot of time and planning go into utilizing every inch to the best purpose.  Especially with small acreages, it’s tempting to “domesticate” it all—from the vegetable garden to the woodlot to the pastures, the perfect homestead looks like one big AgExtension Calendar Cover, right?

Wrong.

Leaving patches of wild growth is good for the homestead and the homesteaders who dwell there.

First of all, it looks good.  There is something very appealing about a patch of overgrowth pasture or untended woodland—like a living canvas; an ever-changing landscape of nodding blossoms, graceful grasses, and twining viney things gently punctuates your homestead, softening an otherwise too-orderly-for-nature scenery and reminding us that we chose this life to escape from or as a protest to a sadly sterile suburbia.

Second of all, even a tiny wilderness provides an area just screaming to be explored by young Lewis-and-Clarks armed with plastic compasses, butterfly nets, and warm oatmeal cookies nestled in their linty little pockets.  If your place looks like a manicured subdivision yard, where is the benefit to your barefooted, country-raised youngens?

I mean, REALLY, if ya’ll are going to tame the whole mess, you may as well have stayed tucked safely into “Quail Hills” (where they killed all the nasty, pooping, feather-shedding quails and flattened the hills to make way for row upon row of identical structures loosely referred to as homes).

Third of all, it’s less work, and less work is good.  Oh sure, you could spend an entire weekend whaling the tar out of your fencerows, but if you just left them as a “natural wildflower buffer” think of all the OTHER things you could be doing with that time.  You could build a greenhouse, learn to make cheese, teach your kids the difference between a moth and a butterfly by actually LOOKING at real wild moths and butterflies, hang a hammock and crawl into it with a good book, a glass of tea, maybe a cat, but absolutely no watch or clock in sight.  Heck, you could even study a foreign language (maybe Canadian).

Lastly of all, be aware of the fact that your land is not only yours.  This is not a commentary on the government or taxes or the government taxes, but a call to LOOK AROUND you at who you are displacing with every tree cut and every foot of garden tilled.

Humans may be at the top of the food chain (something we like to say, even though there are plenty of life forms quicker, stronger and possessing of larger, sharper teeth than we have) but if we push out all the other links there won’t BE a food chain, just us and those things that are quicker, stronger and with larger, sharper teeth.  Now I’m not a degree-holding scientist or a professional odds-maker, but I do know where I’d put my money in a one-on-one contest of that nature.

Oh, I am aware that the large predators are endangered already by the domestication of the wilderness, and that if we insist on progressing with ‘progress” the only links in the food chain will be us, cockroaches, mice, and bacteria, (and the “us” link will be extremely fragile at that point) but the image of a passel of Starbuck’s-toting, urban-dwelling executives from say, Monsanto, rounding a corner and encountering a large cat is somehow perversely comforting.

We need to keep in mind that this land we claim to “own” will be ours for but a nanosecond in time.

We currently “own” several acres and have been here for 10 years.  There’s a big, dead, half-fallen pine in the back yard that has no bark on it, but at least 8 round holes that have been pecked or chewed around the top.  Woodpeckers, squirrels, and at least one family of hoot-owls have made that tree their home off and on over the years.

There’s a half-acre spring-fed pond down in the woods that has been home to beavers, fish, and lately a pair of blue herons who come silently sailing low across the front of the pines and veer gracefully behind them in and into the pond.  The neighbor had a nice pond too, until he decided to shoot the beavers who were tending the dam.

On a much smaller, but no less important scale, for the first four years we lived here each spring brought a Luna moth to our kitchen window every night for a week or so.  This was enchanting and amazing to me and I looked forward to when “my” moth would return.

In researching theses creatures, I learned that they only live a short time after emerging from their cocoons.  So short a time that in their moth stage they don’t even possess mouth parts (a bad sign for a long life). This made me sad for the individual moths, but no less enchanted and awed by their visits. Something had implanted my kitchen window as a stop in their genetic memories, and that was humbling.

When they stopped coming, I was extremely saddened.  Obviously there had been a change somewhere in the environment.  My kitchen window was no longer a convenient stop in their short lives and I hope fervently that the change was not something that I did in the name of making my farm “better”, since we’ve lost more than a big bug sitting on the window, we’ve lost some magic that was woven into the story of our farm.

I recall reading that The Perfect Lawn is a sterile environment.  Those envied vistas of green, uniform in color and length, carefully maintained and diligently doused with Weed-N-Feed and insecticides, are as dead as the surface of the moon.  Between the miles and miles of concrete we’ve laid and the poisons we’ve poured into the scraped parched soil to manipulate it into a false beauty, much of our earth is as appealing as a garishly painted mannequin.

After spending too much time in urban and suburban America, I return to the tiny speck of land that I call home, reeling from the stress that forced naturalness brings.  My blood pressure drops with each truly natural sight: the wild daylilies under the chinaberry bush, wrens nesting outside the bedroom window in the overgrown untrimmed hedge, even the momentary glimpse of a coyote at the edge of the woods.

This is my home, but it’s mine for a short time only.  It is my pleasure and honor to use it gently for my needs, and preserve and protect it for the needs of all its other occupants.

The post In Defense of the Weed-lot appeared first on Homestead.org.

Josephine announced that she does not like strawberries.

Surprised, I invited her to give the berry to me, and this she did, and then with a flourish, she forked over the cabbage sprig as well, with the disdainful comment, “And I don’t like broccoli!”

Without knowing it (I consider all my grandchildren geniuses, but only up to a point), Josephine had correctly surmised that the curly, colorful leaf was a brassica—just not the right type. Clever child!

It was not until I was well into adulthood that I learned the Latin name for my green, leafy veggies, the ones your mother always ordered you to eat (but the brassica family does not, repeat, does not include spinach). The basic brassica is cabbage, a humble plant found growing wild just about everywhere in the world. Its name appends to all sorts of smelly cousins like swamp cabbage and skunk cabbage, and many brassicas are known for their hefty perfume. The brassica family is large with many eccentric relatives (my family is a bit like that). Inbreeding and a little genetic experimentation (maybe you have that in your family too?) have resulted in many alterations to the simple cabbage plant.

Let’s start the brassica introductions with my favorite, brassica juncea: Mustard.

Since it’s commonly used in cooking in the Middle East, it could be one of the many plants that originated there. It is cruciform (a nice word meaning that its leaves form a cross). Its seeds, ground to powder, provide the color (ranging from bright yellow to coal black) and flavor (sharp, sharper, sharpest) for mustard, that condiment so beloved of hot dog and deli sandwich fans. When homegrown, it’s loaded with selenium because its roots go deep, mining the earth for minerals. From its tender youth to its mighty adult state, mustard leaves are tasty—either velvety sweet when small, or later, pungent, biting back a bit. We in the South combat its bite with a bitter, better biter—vinegar—making a salsa-like delicacy from what could be seen as merely a limp “mess” of greens.

Mustard seed is a symbol for potential. Jesus of Nazareth said, “I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.” He didn’t mean that one’s faith should be small; he was speaking allegorically of the power of a tiny seed to produce great works of nature. Mustard has been fruitful and multiplied, spreading itself to the far corners of the globe, and allowing its simple form—dark green leaves, straight tall stalk and attractive yellow flowers—to be transmogrified into such weird conceptions as broccoli, cauliflower, collards, turnips, and kale, with colors that range from white and pale green to deep green and purple.

Because frankly, the brassica is a class-bounder, a wild, rather promiscuous leafy clump that has leapt way above its station in life, feeding the poor happily, but also gracing the plates of the elite in the form of purple cauliflower and Dijon poupon.

All the mutations and permutations of the brassica clan can be explained by the mysterious Triangle of U. U was a Korean (real name, Woo Jang-Chu) who in 1935 confirmed that three brassica varieties – Nigra (black mustard) , Oleracea (cabbage, kale, sprouts, and caulie) and Rapa (turnip and Chinese cabbage), were able to interbreed to create three more, and so ad infinitum.

The new combos were Napus (rapeseed and rutabaga), Juncea (Indian mustard) and Carinata (more mustard). And they went on combining.

But the question remains, how did brassica change its shape, its product, from a flat green leaf to huge weighty roots and pristine multi-colored florets?

The bio-dynamic gardening method introduced by Rudolf Steiner (and widely accepted in Europe as good husbandry) speaks of plants “expressing” one of their four essences: root, leaf, flower, and fruit. Depending on the desired outcome, one plants at the proper phase of the moon. If you want a brassica that is leafy (such as kale) you would plant it when the moon is in a water sign. For a good root brassica like turnip, plant in the earth phase; air signs affect flowers that must interact with the air (like cauliflower), and fruits need strong energy, or fire (like the unfortunately named “rape” whose seed produces oil).

I don’t suggest that all brassicas were developed by this careful, thoughtful method. But I do know a little about how breeding works. The rule seems to be, we humans get what we want, eventually. If a woman wants a lap-dog, she will cause one to be teased out through a few generations of mutts, by eliminating big dogs and aggressive dogs until she gets Fluff-fluff, the ideal pet. Whether it be producing Yorkie-poos from the grey wolf, or making a mustard plant renounce its flowering ability in favor of more leaves (cabbage, kale), or throw itself wholeheartedly into flowering (broccoli, cauliflower) or put all its energy in its roots (turnips), you can be sure that all these permutations came about because humans had a yen for them.

My husband Donnie and I moved a few years back from a rural small-holding to a millhouse on a postage-stamp lot in town. We have gradually bloomed our tiny pied a terre into an intensive small scale garden, with tomatoes, squash, mustard and berries abounding. Donnie, a man of the hills, opines that I should call brassicas “cole plants” to avoid being thought pretentious. He is correct—brassicas are cole plants. Indeed, you can use this useful fact to never again misspell the word “broccoli.” It can’t have two l’s, you see. Many other brassicas can be identified by the “cole” in the name: kohlrabi, collards, cauliflower, kale, cole porter (just kidding). But if you think of brassicas solely as plants named cole, you might ignore Colonel Mustard. And you would be omitting cabbage and watercress, and those evil, reputedly edible little balls of green leather known as Brussels sprouts (and Brussels can have them, as far as I’m concerned—I’m sure Josephine would agree). And what about chard? And that most intriguingly titled rutabaga?

Besides, “Brassica” has a lovely musical lilt that “cole” lacks. It is regal as befits the Queen of Green, an elegant but hard-working lady with many offspring, who has managed to keep her figure.

To my mind, the turnip is one of the least appetizing brassicas, but it offers itself as both a carbohydrate-rich root and a vitamin-rich green, so who am I to complain? And, cross turnips and cabbage, and voila! Rutabaga! Not only is this huge ball of wax a zesty-sweet addition to any stew, but it will feed your animals all through the winter, and you can carve masks out of it, as the Irish traditionally did, to scare off evil spirits on Halloween. The Irish made much of their brassicas, awarding them special status in the naming of a famous delicacy, Colcannon, or “cabbage white,” a wintry mixture of potatoes and cabbage or kale, itself immortalized in an old ditty:

Oh, wasn’t it the happy days when troubles we had not,
And our mothers made Colcannon in the little skillet pot.

If you take a broccoli and keep it out of the sun, will it turn into a cauliflower? The answer is: sort of. Even though, according to U, the cauliflower was a progenitor, not an offspring, it has a pesky way of not obeying the rules. Or maybe the problem lies in our belief that a cauliflower is a big white ball, when that wasn’t how it began life at all. If you have ever tried to grow cauliflower from seed you have collected, you will have found that left to its own devices, it reverts to any number of predecessor forms. It will want to be cabbage with a few spindly pale green florets, or just a rather unappealing collection of yellow stalks and leaves harking back to its days in the wild.

To make the big white “curds” that you want, you need to start with modern hybrid seed. As they grow, wrap the florets in their own large, cabbage-like leaves to keep the light from making them green. Or buy varieties that are “self-wrapping”—what a neat concept! Cauliflower will also want to change color: orange and purple are deviants that may arise, but if you seek those colors you need to buy mutant varieties that will produce true from bought seed. Otherwise, you will probably get a sloppy, slatternly cole that is barely edible and unappetizing in appearance, genetic monsters that will make adequate fodder for goats but hardly the gourmet treat you were hoping for.

And another caution: brassicas are notorious for bolting—too much heat (they like it cool and dreary) will make the plant panic and stop producing leaves, concentrating instead on flowers and seeds. It’s annoying because once the plant goes into bolt, the leaves won’t be good to eat. Cut your losses (and your plants) and move on. Luckily, though, some brassicas, like mustard, make excellent green manure.

So why mess with a plant group that can be so consarnit uppity? The secret to brassica’s survival is her sassy, brassy flavor. To be appreciated it should be eaten as fresh as possible. Store-bought is no substitute. Since late March, Donnie and I have been able to enjoy mustard greens every night, picked fresh. Our corpuscles are singing! Our taste buds are zinging! (Please note: we are modern, cholesterol-conscious Southerners, and never sully our greens with pig fat.)

Brassicas give us more than selenium, though that little-appreciated element is important enough and hard to get in a world where factory farming, with its pernicious top feeding, keeps roots from getting down deep into the soil where they long to go. Cabbage used to be known as the “poor man’s medicine.” Brassicas provide Vitamin C, beta carotene, folic acid, and… flatulence…..whoops!

I like the way Hannah Holmes, on her website The Skinny On, explains the gaseous properties of cabbage (and this applies to some other brassicas as well though cabbage has a well-deserved reputation for producing the rudest moments). Please skip this next section if the whole idea of flatulence offends you:

“Beans, as well as such gassy goods as cabbage, soybeans, peas, and onions, are naturally sweetened with a family of sugars called oligosaccharides. These sugars are big, clumsy molecules—too big to slip into your body through the lining of the small intestine. Normally enzymes in the small intestine would rush in and snap these molecules apart like Legos. But due to a gross oversight, an anti-oligosaccharide enzyme is not standard equipment in a human being. So these complex sugars pass unmolested through the small intestine and enter the large intestine still bearing valuable nutrients. Unabashed at digging into leftovers, the less reputable bacteria among the 200 strains in your large-intestine start to chow down. Their population grows as they divide into new generations to take advantage of the bounty. And as they gulp in the big sugars, they let out gas. In essence, your gut accumulates millions of wee bacterial farts.”

Now you have grown your first crop of cauliflower. It took a lot of energy, finagling, and minor skirmishes with Mother Nature. Was it worth it? The answer lies in what you do with the resultant curdy caulies.

Years ago I learned this recipe, refined it over time, and while in London I tried it out on a Cordon Bleu chef who demanded my secret:

Cheesy Cauliflower Soup with Garlic Bread Chunks

Gently boil and then finely chop a head of cauliflower, retaining the water.

Make a roux* and add one/half teaspoon of ground cardamom, two of ground coriander, and a large dash of salt. Slowly stir in one cup of grated cheese (parmesan is scrumptious, but the one you like best will do).

Once the mixture is of a smooth consistency, add the cauliflower pieces and the cauliflower water. That’s your soup. Keep it on a very low heat and….

Throw about half a loaf’s worth of bread chunks (whole wheat, rye, sourdough) in a pan with liberal amounts of butter and a tablespoon of garlic (or more—no such thing as too much garlic, right?).

Serve the cauliflower soup with the pan-roasted garlicky bread chunks (not store-bought croutons, puh-leez) on top. Be prepared for compliments. This is a no-fail kudo-magnet.

Have a dog handy to blame the flatulence on.

*Roux: Melt two tablespoons of butter on very low heat. Add two tablespoons of flour (whole wheat is okay). Slowly and gently stir until you have a smooth paste, then add one cup of milk and continue to stir slowly until you have a smooth mixture.

No matter where you were born or where your family came from, it’s almost certain you grew up being ordered to eat some form of brassica. It’s a refined taste, but one we all need to learn to love. Even Josephine.

While writing this article I conceived a Cunning Plan: next time Josephine rejects her brassicas, I will tell her that Brassica is the Queen of Green, and demands to be eaten. I think Josephine will swallow it.

https://www.homestead.org/gardening/best-of-bamboo-bamboo-projects-for-your-home-and-garden/

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1. Self-Heal (Prunella vulgaris)

My all-time favorite herb that grows on the land I farm is Self-Heal. Unassuming and low to the ground, I’ve never had a visitor who recognized the name. Yet I can think of nothing easier to grow or which yields such a harvest in exchange for so little effort. For beginner homesteaders looking for a reliable plant or food crop that they won’t kill, my #1 answer is self-heal. After other herbs and flowers have departed for the dormant season, I can always trust the self-heal to keep producing. Self-heal often keeps right on thriving in the summer if I forget to water it, and I can attest it won’t hesitate to grow under autumn leaves that block the sun if they haven’t been moved at the start of the growing season.

Self-heal has faced some opprobrium for being invasive, and many online correspondents caution against self-heal for its reported tendency to spread and become encroaching, as members of the mint family are wont to do. This has never been my experience. My self-heal grows alongside its neighbors without ever choking them, and while enhancing the soil for surrounding plant life. It’s true that my self-heal has over time, become a larger bunch than the small starter I originally planted, and it has spread out somewhat, but isn’t that what you want a healthy plant to do after years when it’s providing such consistent turnover for you? It is now about half a square foot, but it doesn’t seem to be spreading at such a rapid rate that I would be concerned that the rest of my garden doesn’t have a chance.

Self-heal (sometimes called heal-all) will grow easily from a cutting and is a great way to experiment with the art of getting new cuttings to root to eventually sell or share. Self-heal is an ideal plant to learn through for would-be homesteaders because it yields a dependable number of greens and can be used to grasp the basics of propagation.

When people do know about self-heal, it’s typically due to its role in immune support. People grow self-heal for tea and healing poultices to improve challenges like psoriasis and to make use of the way self-heal soothes mucous membranes, supports lymph health, and is antiviral. Self-heal ameliorates a variety of conditions and has been used for hundreds of years by different cultures for vastly different treatments. It is full of antioxidants and is anti-inflammatory, and the rosmarinic acid and rutin protect against cell damage and are neuroprotective.

All of this is fascinating, but I have learned in my time with self-heal that it can be used to great effect as a trusty salad green. The young, tender leaves in raw salad or blended into smoothies, as you would spinach, can offer more plentiful advantages per leaf than traditional greens.

This information can be useful for families trying to get the most vitamins and minerals into their children per bite. Self-heal leaves offer a broader array of vitamins and compounds than your typical lettuce or spinach leaf. Self-heal provides far more nutrient-dense vitality than, for example, lettuce, because lettuce is—for better or for worse—predominantly water.

Self-heal is rich in trace elements, which protect your bones and teeth and keep more children and adults free from cellular damage, as well as cognitive and mood decline and metabolic dysfunction. Self-heal is a proficient provider of vitamin C, which enables you to directly absorb the iron it offers you. Self-heal provides vitamins A, C, and K along with multiple types of vitamin B, as well as phytochemicals, which promote endothelial function, and carotenoids, which boost vision and skin health in humans.

Self-heal isn’t just outstanding in salads but fantastic for adding into soups and roasts as a traditional “pot herb” you can toss in with other cooking vegetables. The flavor is described by some as bitter, but I have always found it somewhat sweet and agreeable to the palate, especially when combined with salad or stew ingredients.

If I intended to start just one food crop to inaugurate a growing journey, I would undoubtedly choose self-heal. Nothing offers as much nutritional support and harvestable abundance for so little time and effort. Self-Heal is the number one ingredient for self-sufficiency and personal production success as a food farmer that I can recommend, and I wish for you all the self-betterment it can provide.

2. Hummingbird Mint (Agastache cana)

Another botanical friend I could never imagine my gardens without is the beautiful and steadfast Hummingbird Mint. Also called Giant Hyssop, this little plant brings many of the assets beginner homesteaders are thirsty for: lovely color, pollinator attraction, a sturdy perennial that comes back every year without being asked or prodded, a gorgeous cut flower that makes a vibrant and textural addition to any bouquet, and an edible crop that you can experiment with while you’re getting your feet wet farming something useful.

Hummingbird mint in any salad gives it an instant culinary upgrade, while hummingbird mint dried as tea leaves gives your nightly hot drink a distinctive liveliness without caffeine. One reason this plant is a piece of cake to grow and keep around is that the aromatic oils in Hummingbird mint are an automatic deer and rabbit deterrent. Unlike a lot of fruits and flowers appealing to new homesteaders in search of a first plant to try, hummingbird mint has its own built-in system to ward off common pests and browsers. Despite its name, this is a vertical specimen of mint that grows straight up and does not spread aggressively like other mints. It’s extraordinarily drought-tolerant and will thrive in the hot southern sun without regular watering, which is one of the things that makes it uncomplicated for beginners. This is a plant that can be forgiving with newcomers.

Young hummingbird mint leaves are tremendous as garnish, and I love to throw them fresh into my mouth. It’s one of the closest leaves to candy. While not expressly sweet, it’s sweet adjacent with citrus, mint and licorice notes. It’s also a novel addition to a summer salad, especially when paired with strawberries or mandarin oranges and poppy seed dressing on a bed of other greens. This is another leaf, like self-heal, which you don’t hear about much as a salad crop but is charming when put to use that way.

Hummingbird mint requires precious little upkeep after its initial planting, and it’s a species that makes an excellent marketable product. Growing hummingbird mint is remarkably simple and yields many leaves per stalk to be dried and made into a unique tea with a memorable flavor profile. It especially makes the perfect iced tea and would be the ideal ingredient for a secret recipe iced tea blend to pass on to your grandchildren or impress your neighbors.

Hummingbird mint has something that nothing else has, as far as smell and taste. A zing that is not sour, and a spice that does not burn, but brings the right amount of pizzazz. The taste of hummingbird mint is not only welcoming as iced tea should be, but also imparts vivacity. I can always count on a bountiful yield of hummingbird mint leaves to dry well and make the perfect gift packaged up for Christmas and Mother’s Days or slipped into a thank you card.

It also piques the interest as a crowd pleaser if you’re looking to sell a tea crop. It’s not your run-of-the-mill green or mint tea, but something all its own. It’s a great starter project if you’re looking to begin with just a couple of plants to yield a crop from, to drink a tea every night that you grew yourself or to start a gardening project with kids who will get excited about caring for a plant with such aromatic properties that they can collect, dry and give as gifts themselves.

Hummingbird mint isn’t only an efficient and low-maintenance pollinator attractor but also one of the most delectable herbs for making iced tea. Hummingbird mint has a rustic, porch-swing aroma that lends itself well to making herbal tea gifts to give or sell year-round. It can quickly become your signature flavor or signature scent and set your gardens apart from the start. The complex aroma is compared to anise by some and fennel or blood orange by others. It may be that hummingbird mint smells a little different to and invokes different memory stimuli for everyone. It could also be a divine and novel addition to homemade potpourri blends or sachets to freshen drawers. The gift ideas are endless when it comes to utilizing these abundant leaves!

3. Mock Strawberry (Potentilla indica, formerly Duchesnea indica and referred to as such in much medical research.)

Mock strawberry is something I’ve never plante. Unlike the others on the list, which I purchased from Celtic Frost Herb Farm (I would highly recommend ordering from them on Etsy if you don’t live near enough to buy from them in person. They have the best quality plants!)

Mock strawberry grows wild around the southeastern United States, and most people I know consider it a useless weed. It’s often cited as bearing inedible berries because the flavor of the fruit isn’t as sweet as the strawberries we are all used to. I’ve never been one to throw out a profuse producer of greenery, and after doing some research, I found out the berries aren’t inedible at all, just not everyone’s taste. Big difference!

Some sources cite them as dry, but I’ve eaten them for years and have found they are only dry after sitting too long, as any other berry would be. There is no inherent dryness to them, and, when in season, I find them perfectly juicy.

If you’re like me and mock strawberries have taken over as ground cover in parts of your yard, I would suggest putting them to good use, as they often thrive on their own with no maintenance, in rain or shine, sun or shade.

The leaves can be harvested for tea throughout most of the year, while the fruit is amply pleasurable in jam-making and for pies, as well as cheerful, colorful, often free and safe/edible cake-topper decor. The berries offer a variety of health perks, such as insoluble fiber, and if they are growing free of cost on your property, you might as well throw them in your daily smoothie. Many a seasonal crop of mock strawberries I’ve actually found more flavorful than frozen strawberries from the supermarket as a smoothie or milkshake ingredient.

You can easily tell mock strawberry from wild strawberry (Fragaria virginiana), or domestic strawberry, because it’s set apart by 5-petaled, bright yellow flowers that greatly resemble buttercups, versus the white flowers of Fragaria virginiana. When the fruit comes in, the berries are a round shape rather than the heart-shaped strawberries most of us are familiar with.

While I regularly consume, freeze, and use the fruit, my favorite thing about mock strawberry is the leaves. Studies have shown that strawberry leaves across all varieties have higher bioactive phytochemical content than the fruit. The vegetative part of the plant, typically discarded, represents a large source of underutilized bioactive biomass, according to a 2023 study published with the National Library of Medicine.

Mock strawberry leaves provide antioxidant polyphenols like quercetin, kaempferol, and tannins, which many people today spend money to supplement with when they could be using the leaves of the mock strawberry growing behind their homes. They have more significant benefits than the fruit, as well as being more prolific than the fruit and easier to come by. Mock strawberry leaves provide antioxidants which fight oxidative stress, limit inflammation, and reduce the risk of chronic diseases in humans.

In addition, several studies show promising anti-cancer activity in mock strawberry leaves. They have been studied for their use in stopping cancer multiplication and inducing programmed cell death. A study from May 2019 from the Journal of Food Biochemistry Volume 43, Issue 7, by Bolin Xiang and Qiyi He, took neutral polysaccharide from D. indica and found the mock strawberry neutral polysaccharide to exhibit “significant antioxidant and antitumor activity.”

With so much possible internal use to humanity when used as a tea, not to mention a hearty, delicious taste when boiled, and a crop that costs nothing for many people, there seems to be no reason not to make use of this darling specimen as a budding homesteader.

You could also try making a healthy and tasty tea blend to drink, sell, and gift by growing all three and combining the leaves of these unusual and easy-to-grow plants. Enjoy making these ingredients your own, and happy gathering!

The post Three Lesser-known Starter Crops for the Homestead appeared first on Homestead.org.

1.  Buy a nuc.  A nucleus (or nuc) is essentially a small hive.  A conventional, framed beehive will have 10-12 frames of bees.  A nuc will probably have around 5 frames, on which there will be bees in various states of development.  There will be eggs, larvae, and capped brood (when the larva is metamorphosing into an adult bee).  There will be a spread of bees of different ages, and, of course, the Queen herself.  It will have a little bit of honey already stored, and have some bees which are foraging and others feeding larvae.  This is a starter hive which is—given the right conditions, and provided the queen lays well—capable of growing and thriving.  This is also the most expensive option.  Prices for nucs vary dramatically but hover around the £250 ($380) mark depending on whether you are buying a particular strain of bee.  A nuc for a genetically pure bee strain is most expensive.

2.  Buy a package of bees.  Yes, this is exactly what it sounds like.  A package of bees literally arrives in the post.  This is a much cheaper option than the nuc. Package bees are certainly more popular in the United States than they are in Europe, and there are a number of things that need to be considered with packages that don’t with nucs.  

First, this is just a box of bees.  There is no new generation in eggs, larvae, and capped brood form to keep a constant rolling population of bees on the go.  There is no comb or drawn-out foundation for the bees to store nectar and pollen in, or a queen to lay eggs in.  In fact, most importantly, there is NO QUEEN.

You can purchase a queen along with your bee package, but it is not the queen the bees were laid from.  This means the queen needs to be very carefully and correctly introduced to the large box of bees that your mailman just nervously delivered.  The queen will be in a small cage to protect her until the bees get used to her smell, but if the bees and the queen are not properly introduced, then the package bees will kill the queen.  Obviously, you do not want this to happen.  

The bees must be fed when they arrive, as they will not have any stores available to them and will have spent some time in transit during which they were unable to forage.  Also, the more they are disturbed, the more likely they are to reject the queen, so you have to leave them bee (sorry).

These are perfectly legitimate ways of starting out, and most new beekeepers will choose one of these options.  In my opinion, these options have two inherent flaws.  One being the bees you are buying are not well acclimatized to your local area; by this I mean they are not used to the seasonal weather, and they have not adjusted to the locally available food sources.  The other reason is simply why, oh why, oh why would you pay for bees when you can get them for free?  Bees that are not only locally acclimatised, but ready, willing, and driven to develop and build up a new bee colony.  I am, of course, talking about swarms!

A swarm isn’t just a group of bees; it is the reproductive unit of a hive.  In spring, when the food is coming in and the bee population is swelling, the hive may collectively make the decision to swarm.  Swarm season is usually from April to June, depending on the weather, but can extend out into late July.  Eggs are selected to be made into new queens and, when they are capped and ready to go, a large portion of the bees, along with the current queen up and leave en masse.  This is the “prime swarm”.  They gorge themselves on honey before they go, which leaves them able to rapidly build new comb when they arrive at their new home.  The queen is already able to lay, so things progress pretty rapidly.  

Meanwhile, in the old hive, depending on how many new queens manage to hatch, one or more “cast swarms” may result, where an unmated or “virgin” queen along with a few more bees leave to find a new home.  A cast swarm takes more time to establish, as there are considerably fewer bees, and the queen cannot lay any eggs until she has mated.  If she fails to mate, the colony fails.  

Collecting bee swarms, in my opinion, is the best way of starting a hive.  These bees have made the decision as a colony to set up a new home.  They are motivated and pre-programmed to provide you exactly what you want to start a new colony, in a new hive, in a new place.  All you have to do now is catch one!

You can literally head out and catch yourself a swarm.  You will need a bee suit, although it is possible to do this without a bee suit.  Swarms are not predisposed to stinging, as they have gorged themselves on honey and are pretty blissed out.  They are also singularly focused on finding a new place to live and setting up the hive.  Any sting would reduce resources available by resulting in the death of the bee.  Stinging is also a mechanism developed to defend the hive itself.  At this stage, there is no hive, so no defense!  Having said that, this is not a perfect world, and if you’re reading this, you have probably not done this before, so suit up.  You will also need:

• A box: this can be a (small) hive, a wicker basket, or literally a cardboard box.
• A water mister: not essential, but spraying a fine mist on the bees can stop them taking to the air and keeps them together.  Useful if they have settled on something you can’t move.  Some people will also use, or prefer the use of, a smoker.
• Secateurs: Again not necessarily essential, but bee swarms can settle anywhere.  Being able to remove some of the foliage around a bee swarm to give you better access is very useful.  You can even use it to just cut off the entire branch the swarm settled on and put it in your box.

Now you need to spread the word that you are interested in a bee swarm.  Tell your friends, put cards in the local shop.  There are often online registers where you can provide your contact information, which is then made available to anyone seeking a swarm collector. 

Next step…wait… and wait… and wait. 

When you finally get a call, I would recommend first ascertaining whether or not this is a genuine bee “swarm”.  Make sure they are not bumble bees or wasps, but also that they are not an established colony.  If they have already found a place to call home and accepted it as their hiv,e do not get involved.  Remember you are new to this and the removal and transplant of an established colony is very different from collecting a bee swarm.  When collecting a swarm of bees, practically consider that you are providing them with a service of finding them a home without them having to find it for themselves.  When moving an established colony, they believe you are attacking their hive and tearing their home apart. 

Once you have established there is a swarm, go as soon as you can.  Swarms do not settle for long and will be driven to find a new place to live.  When you get there, don’t be a hero.  If the swarm isn’t reachable, leave it alone.  If they have settled nicely on the branch of a tree, place your box underneath the swarm and give the branch a firm, sharp shake.  The majority of the bees will fall directly into the box; many will take to the air.  Get as many off as you can at this point. 

However, if they are on a solid object such as a fence post, a door frame, car tire, or anything else you can’t just shake off, you need a different approach.  Very lightly mist the bees with water and then gently, very, very gently brush the bees into your box.  You can buy long thin bee brushes with extremely soft bristles (usually pig or horse hair) to do this.  Alternatively, a goose feather works well.  I have seen this done using a gloved hand, but there is a danger that you will damage the queen this way, so I do not recommend it. 

Then place the box on the ground under where the swarm was and cover it, leaving an entrance for the bees.  Within a few minutes, the flying bees will either start to accumulate back on the swarm site, in which case you didn’t get the queen, or start to move into the box, in which case you did.  Some may return to the swarm site initially anyway as it will still smell a little of their queen.  What you hope to see on and around the entrance of your box is “fanning”.  Fanning involves a number of bees tilting their abdomens in the air and using their wings without taking off.  This sends a homing smell to all the bees in the air to allow them to target in on their new home.  If you have been successful, they will move in fairly quickly. 

You can now leave the swarm till the evening, when it cools down, to settle.  To install the swarm in your hive can be as easy as taking them to the hive in the early evening and providing a ramp up to the hive entrance.  When poured out onto a sheet under the ramp, the bees will form a procession up the ramp and into the hive.

Bees for Free

Another way of catching swarms is by letting them come to you.  “Swarm traps” or “bait-hives” are by far my preferred way of doing things.  It allows you to do things to your own timetable so you don’t have to drop everything and head out at a moment’s notice.  This basically involves providing an attractive hive option.  The scout bees,s which are sent out from a swarm, will then find your bait hive and consider it a good new place to live. 

This does mean you are going to have to build some stuff.  The type of bait hive you use can vary dramatically depending on the type of hive you want to use in the long term.  If you are using a warré hive, you could use two of the boxes, which will form part of the hive.  For conventional hive types such as Nationals and Langstroth, a single brood box or homemade nuc works just fine.  If you are doing a top bar hive, you could use pretty much anything the right size that will take your top bars across the top.  Once occupied, these top bars or frames can simply be transferred into your hive (if it is not already occupied, it is always worth setting up your actual hive as a bait hive as well). 

These options have the distinct advantage that once the bees settle in and start building comb, they are less likely to leave it.  In cases where you remove the bees from the bait hive and place them somewhere else, there is a much greater chance of them absconding.  Not to mention the waste of resources if they have built comb and the queen has begun laying.  

The basic requirements for a bait-hive are:

• A volume of about 40 litres: 20-60 litres seem to be successful.  If you are using a Kenyan or Tanzanian top-bar hive, this is approx. 10 bars across a roughly 30cm-deep container.  For warré hives, this is two warré boxes.  For conventional framed hives, this usually equates to a brood box.  Some people simply use two plant pots stuck together.
• Weather-proof: Ply-wood, political signage, or even a plastic bag.  Anything you can use to keep the wind and rain out.  Full hive roofs and floors can be used but are not necessary for trapping.
• An entrance: Not too big, a drilled round entrance of ½ inch to 1 inch works just fine and can be blocked with a wine or champagne cork when you need to move it.

When you build your bait-hive, rub all around the inside of the hive with beeswax.  You can buy this fairly cheaply online, and it makes the inside smell like a hive, making it more attractive.  If you can get hold of a piece of old comb from another beekeeper (whose apiary you know is disease-free) or the wood already coated with propolis (a weatherproofing substance that bees produce for the inside of their hives), then that is much better. 

To further increase your chances of catching a swarm, you can buy some lemongrass oil, which, again, is fairly cheap and readily available.  Put a cotton or wool ball with the lemongrass oil on it in a Ziplock bag, left only slightly open (this reduces the speed at which the lemongrass oil evaporates) and place it inside the bait-hive.  Then place a few drops on the entrance.  Now all you have to do is site your bait-hive.  The best places are:

• Near established colonies: If you already see honey bees in the area, then you certainly have a good chance.  Please, please, please don’t go and put one of these outside the house of another beekeeper and tell them I told you to do it.  You should always have the permission of the landowner to site a bait-hive on their land.  Expect a few to get stolen, too.  I always write on my bait hive what they are and my telephone number in case there is a problem.
• Near resources: Bees (especially prime swarms) prefer somewhere that fills the boxes on their house-hunting checklist.  Good forage nearby, a water supply, some resinous trees for propolis production. 
• Not too exposed: The bees will prefer a trap that is sheltered from the worst the weather can throw at it.  In the UK, this mostly means wind and rain, but in hot climates, shelter from the worst of the afternoon sun is a must for them.
• South facing entrance: This appears to be a preference.
• Elevated position: They seem to like being off of the ground, probably in order to reduce the chance of a badger breaking in.  There is a balance to be struck between elevation for the bees’ sake and access to you to retrieve the trap.  It is one thing to place an empty trap 10 feet up a tree using a ladder.  It is another thing entirely taking it down when it is full of bees, and perhaps comb, and hopefully honey.  Five to six feet off of the ground appears to be a good balance.  Using the flat roofs of sheds and garages is ideal.  Having the trap elevated also makes it less likely for people to come in contact with the bees and be stung.

Once your traps are sited, you only need to look in on them once a week or so.  Try to go at the same time of day when the bees will be out flying and active so you can tell if the trap is occupied.  If it appears empty, then put another drop of lemongrass oil on the entrance and leave it alone.  You can try knocking on it to see if it sounds empty, or weigh it with luggage scales; you can even put a stethoscope on the side and listen for buzzing. 

Whatever you do, try not to open it until you are sure it is occupied.  Sometimes a few scout bees might be investigating the trap or even spending the night.  If you disturb them by opening it up, they will not come back.  It is important to approach the hive from the side and not in a direct flying line of the entrance.  If your face is in the way of a bee flying out, they will make their displeasure known.  If the trap is a hive of activity (again, sorry), then next you need to move them to the hive location. 

Wait until nighttime, plug up the entrance (preferably ensuring they have ventilation), and move them.  If you are moving them more than two miles, you should be fine.  If you are moving less than two miles, there may be problems with the bees going back to the original trap site.  Plugging the entrance hole with some grass and putting some branches over it causes them to reorient, reducing the loss of these foragers.  You can also take another trap to the original location the following evening to collect any that have clustered there and bring them back to the hive location.  They will usually just walk in the same as the swarm hiving. 

Do try and get another trap out near the same location soon after because there is a very good chance you will catch a cast swarm there.  It’s a good idea to site a number of bait-hives.  The more you have, the greater your chance of catching something.  If you are particularly successful and end up with more colonies than hives, you can either combine several small colonies to make them stronger, or even sell them to recoup any investment in materials you have made.  Ultimately, though, once you have the bees, all you have to do is “keep” them.

Garden Seeds, Honeybees, You, and Me

The post Bees for Free appeared first on Homestead.org.

Here’s what you’ll need:

• 3 c. all-purpose flour
• 1 T. baking powder
• 1/2 to 1 T. cinnamon (depending on your fondness for cinnamon)
• 1 t. salt
• 3 large eggs
• 1 1/2 c. sugar
• 1 T. vanilla extract
• 2 c. fresh peaches, peeled and diced (3-4 medium sized peaches)
• 1 c. chopped pecans, divided

Preheat the oven to 325 and prepare two small (mine are just under 8″x4″) loaf pans with butter and flour or baking spray.  Set aside.

In a large bowl, mix together the flour, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon.  In a smaller bowl, mix together the eggs, sugar, and vanilla.  Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix until combined. The dough will be pretty thick at this point.

Next, mix in the peaches, being a little careful not to mash them up too much.  The moisture from the peaches should loosen up the dough considerably and make it more batter-like.  Now, fold in the 3/4 of the pecans and then divide the batter evenly between your two pans.  Sprinkle the remaining pecans over the tops of the loaves and bake for 55-65 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean.  (I checked mine at 55 minutes and went another 7 before it was done.)

Remove from the oven and cool in the pans on a wire rack for 15-20 minutes.  Enjoy warm or cooled.  Store in an airtight container.

You’ll also love this Blueberry Buttermilk Breakfast Cake.

Happy Summer, everyone!!

Morning Glory Muffins

Banana Oat Bread

The post Fresh Summer Peach Quick Bread appeared first on Homestead.org.