The bees knees and other thoughts

I love slang. I find it so interesting that someone says something and it just catches like wildfire. "The Bees Knees" has always been one of my favorites.  Not that I was alive back in the 1920's when it became popular. I have a whole hive of bees and I have never once gave much thought to their tiny little knees.  In looking into these crazy sayings I found a few other interesting saying that need to be resurrected.

Elephants adenoids, cats whiskers, cats meow, ants pants, tigers spots, bullfrogs beard, elephants instep, caterpillars kimono, turtles neck, ducks quack, monkeys eyebrows and gnats elbows. 

Why on earth do we think that the slang that pops up today is so strange with slang like the monkeys eyebrows? Weird!

Speaking of the bees Mr Ladybug did a hive inspection and we are so excited about the honey flow thats happening right now.  Here are a few pics of whats going on with the bees.

I love when you can see all the pollen the girls are bringing in. Can you see the orange pollen on this one? I think I have found the tree shes getting it from in our neighborhood.

This is honey thats been capped. Notice how it looks white? 

This is honey that hasnt been capped.

This my friends is a hot mess and if left unattended can make a real mess when trying to remove from the hive because they will continue with the odd pattern and everything sticks together but fixing issues like this helps me get a little wax to melt and clean and use in my soaps and things.

My trash find has turned into a nice little camomile garden. I cant wait to start harvesting and drying the little flower for teas later this season.

Another thing I am drying are my heirloom rose petals. They have my kitchen smelling so good and they have a surprisingly sweet taste. When the snows on the ground I will be sipping a rose petal. camomile and lavender tea all grown in the garden and dream about the year to come.

Garden Garden Garden

It seems that gardening has began to consume most of my time. I am not complaining in fact with some of the mean things going around on social media and in the news it seems more people should be gardening so they dont have so much time on their hands. Just sayin.

Mr Ladybug and I have been busy keeping up with the weeding and watering at two garden sites and we couldnt be more happy. I think when all is finished we will have over 50 tomato plants! On tonights agenda we will be preparing garlic scape pesto and mulberry jam. Thats right we found a mulberry tree!!! The first pic is of a scape and the second pic is of our garlic bed. We cut the scapes off so that all the energy can go to making bigger bulbs plus the scapes taste so good.  We spent less than $5 on the garlic definitely worth growing your own.

The potatoes are plants are so big and have started blooming. I sure how that its a good sign as to whats underneath all that dirt. Last year we grew around 30 pounds of potaotes. We are hoping to at least do the same and we only spent $5 on the potatoes.

Here are a few shots of our Community garden spot. Its hard to get a good pic of it all since its 4 foot by 20 foot. We have 24 tomatoes, several different types of peppers, onions, yellow squash, green beans and another type of squash that I cant remember. We also had a volunteer tomato that came up from a previous gardener and three spearmint sprouts that I brought home to transplant. We have gotten some wild raspberry plants to plant at our home as well.

As you can see whoever wanted the site next to use has not done anything and the weeds have went crazy. We think the person on the other side planted lots of cucumbers. I am guessing lots of pickles in their future.

I love basil so this year I tried a mini basil plant along with the normal basil. Its so cute and tastes like the big stuff. I will probably try to have the mini inside during the winter.

Planting Happiness and Harvesting Lettuce

For many years we have bought already started plants for our garden. The past few years we have gotten better at starting the seeds ourselves. This year I would say 90% of all our plants are from seeds we started ourselves. I would not necessarily say you save more money by starting your own seeds. There are lots of costs you may not think about like containers, good soil, lighting, space inside your house to get started, cats that like to knock things over,  But I think the pros out weigh the cons and you can have more of a variety of seeds. We have some varieties that you can not even find in the big box stores. Four of my favorite seed companies are Bakers Creek Seeds, Territorial Seeds. Botanical Interest, and Hudson Valley Seed Company. I am a little addicted to the seed packets from Hudson Valley. They are little works of art. Their seeds are good too. I planted their edible flower packet in the garden and they are doing awesome. I even save the seed packs and use them to decorate as you can see below. This is over my little desk where I blog. Mr Ladybug took two canisters I bought at Goodwill and turned them into lights over my desk. Isnt he a handy fellow to have around?

When planting seeds we are like to two expectant parents. We look every day for the smallest little hint of a sprout. Then its time for your little sprout to get transplanted to a larger container and to get some fresh soil with more nutrients. Next you starting setting it outside to harden off and get acclimated to the outside. Once its warm enough for it to stay outside you have to make sure your little plant is watered then its time to move it to its permanent location in the garden where you have to keep an eye on it from pests like caterpillars, squirrels, bunnies and cats that like to hide in the vegetation in hopes of catching one of the pests but actually do more damage than the pests in the process. I really do love my crazy cat but he drives me bonkers.

I am not sharing all the info with you to scare you. Trust me its all worth it when you get that first bowl of salad greens in March or April.

This was dinner last night with rice seasoned with tarragon and sage from the garden, broccoli and chicken. Let not forget that beautiful salad which are all things from the garden. Three types of lettuce, horseradish leaves, chives, green onion and radishes.

We have learned  how to make things to keep the critters away and as far as the pests go when you get the caterpillars or aphids you will start seeing ladybugs and wasps in your garden that will take care of them too. Preying Mantis are great for potato beetles. Not all bugs are bad bugs. Unfortunately when we start spraying pesticides to get rid of unwanted things they also kill the good things. I have seen a few wasps on my lettuce when I am picking and they have never bothered me. There are not those crazy ones that like to build nests by your doorways.  Trust me when I say if you grow cabbage you want to see wasps eating the little caterpillars that will eat every stinking leaf on your cabbage plant.

I have a rose bush in my front yard that is probably over 30 years old. That particular plant is not that old its only about 17 years old. For several years when we first moved in we mowed over something that looked like a rose bush starting to pop up. One year I dug it up and planted it in the front yard. We built a trellis for it to grow up and it blocked our neighbors house. He was such jerk and looking at my roses instead of his stupid mean face was much better for my blood pressure. Luckily he moved!  Any way these roses have the most beautiful aroma. Not like those knock out roses you can get today. Last year I made rose water and it smelled so good but it doesnt last long, It can get rancid. Yuck! So I decided to submure some petals in vodka since I normally use vodka as my base for perfumes anyway. I am hoping to get a good supply of the rose for at least the next 8 weeks so I can do a double infusion and smell like roses all year long. After doing a little research I found out that rose tinctures are really good to take orally for different things. One of the thing was for sadness or grief. I thought that was interesting because think about  how you feel when you stick your nose into a rose to give it a sniff. They also so that its good for fevers, to clear toxins from your body and help with menstrual problems. So when my tincture is finished it looks like not only can I smell good but have covered my bases for all sorts of problems!

Give Peas a Chance a garden update.

So  much growing and goodness in the garden! Last night as I was poking around I found our first pea. I really wanted to pick it and not tell Mr Ladybug but I left it alone and we can share it together in a day or two. Here are several pictures and a brief explanation.

This is s few of the many pea blooms and below is the row of peas.

The potatoes are doing amazing!!!

So many chives.

Taragon and our cat.

Clary sage. I will do a post on this plant all by itself as it grows. I am super excited about this one.

Sage that we have kept alive for two years. We were so pleased to see it bloom its pretty purple flowers.

This is thyme and greek basil. The pots are actually pretty small.

This is a new herb to the garden this year, marjoram.

We have two types of dill and I am still clipping those onions that we planted inside during the winter. I tried to sneak dill into Mr Ladybugs salad last night, He asked what the new thing was he tasted. 

We had two cammomile plants pop up from last year. I love it as a tea.

This is something that we planted but didnt lable. We are now 95% sure its borage. 

This is our third year growing garlic. Its such an easy plant that you can totally ignore and it does fine.

The weedy walla walla onion bed.

We have so much lettuce but I am not complaining.

Blueberries!!!!!! 

The broccoli keeps growing but no crowns yet. 

Mr Ladybugs fig trees. Hes so excited about them. 

This is a pot someone placed on the curb with a dead plant in it. I picked it up, added new dirt and now have a cammomile garden.

This is dandelion greens, dill, three types of lettuce, horse radish leaves, bok choy leaves and chives I made into a salad with dinner last night.

Busy as my bees

I have been as busy as my bees these days. Not that I am complaining. I have an update on the sage and rosemary. Here are my pictures and if you want to see a short video I posted it as well.

This is the sage and I see no signs of rooting. This kind of makes me sad. I will keep on exploring and see if I can make it work.

The rosemary looks great. I will be planting it in some little pots today and get it going before I put it with the other herbs.


Here is the link to the youtube video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ke-umfMVB1A&feature=youtu.be

I hope to have sometime this evening or tomorrow morning to give a good update on the farm. There is so many things happening in the garden and the community garden is coming along as well. The bees are making honey and they chickens are laying eggs. I even have a Serama hen setting on some eggs to hatch. We planted a pollinator garden and our edible flowers have started popping up as well. Life is good see you soon.

Urban Foraging, Wild Garlic

This morning I planted the wild garlic that I foraged from the garden spot we have downtown. You can find wild garlic and onion growing all over your yard usually. Have you ever been mowing or weed eating and you hit something and smell onions? Thats either wild garlic or onions and they are edible. I am keeping this post short and sweet and posted a link to the my youtube channel. I laugh every time I watch my videos. I wonder how long it will take me to look like I actually know what I am doing? If you are like me and are a hot mess I hope you enjoy them. If you are one of those perfect people who can do everything, I apologize and I hope to grow up to be like you some day. Have a great day friends.    

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9wvnI5whvRk                                                                                                                                                                                                ,

The rosemary rooted!

I hope you can see the little roots on the bottom of the glass. All three of the rosemary shoots we clipped have starting sprouting little roots. I will leave them in the cup until they are longer and we will plant them.

We recently got a plot in a community garden you have no idea how this excites me. I am a simple girl and it doesnt take much. We noticed some barbels growing where an old fence use to be and we asked a professor who was tending her garden if she knew anything about them. She told us that they were raspberries and that we could dig some up if we wanted. We dug up two because we really had no idea where we were going to put them when we got home. One of them came up nice with a big clod of dirt and the other did not. All the dirt fell off but we took it anyway. We got them home found a sunny spot and planted. the next day they looked like this.

As you can see the one that the dirt fell away from the roots looks as if its dying and the one that looks healthy is the one that stayed in tact.  Now that we found the perfect spot we plan on getting a few more. So excited to find free food!

In the community garden there was this awesome grapevine. I asked the professor if she knew how old it was. She told us there had been three houses on that property and when they had torn them down the vine had been saved and one of the grounds keepers at the university had saved the grape vine. From the size she guessed it was 30-40 years old. Does that give you goosebumps? I wonder if the wild raspberries we dug up had such a history.

Gardening is a lot of trial and error. It makes me  so sad when someone feels they have failed at trying to grow something and they just stop. If Mr Ladybug and I did that we would still have a yard full of grass. Its very important to talk to people who you know are successful at gardening. We only pay attention to youtube videos where they are showing their harvest and how it got there. We took a mushroom log class and we saw a video a few days later and the person was doing all the things they told us not to do in class. There was also no follow up video showing us all his mushrooms later either.
If gardening is something that you have always wanted to do please try it. You dont have to dig up your yard to get started. Just get a container and fill it with good dirt.  Tomorrow I will show you how I plan on starting some wild garlic I found at the garden plot in a cottage cheese container. Its really that easy and cheap! 

Stumbling around in the sage

I am a little clumsy. We have these trees in the yard with roots that are above the ground and I trip on them all the time especially when I am wearing flip flops. Do not lecture me on flip flops I love them and wont give them up even if they will be the cause of my demise.  So the other day Mr Ladybug and I were in the garden and I of course stumbled and it was like watching myself in slow motion. He was too far away and had he tried to jump up would not have made it to me in time anyway. I think I went 5-6 feet before I finally hit the ground on my hands and knees. It was actually quite comical and since I wasnt hurt with the exception of my pride I can laugh about it. When I finished falling I stood up and said "ta-da" like it was all planned, He went back to planting carrots ignoring me.  In his defense I do my best to drive him crazy. If he paid attention to everything weird I did he would really be crazy.

The lesson here is life is messy and crazy and filled with many things to make us stumble. Some of our own doing and some beyond our control. How we handle the situation is up to us. We can fall down and stay there or we can jump up and say "ta-da".

I am trying something new and my little video was too big to put on my blog so I added it to youtube,  I really hope it works I did it all by myself and tried not to have to ask my son to do it. If it doesnt work I will just jump up scream "ta-da" and call in a professional who is my 19 year old.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rk70KVgrkn8&feature=youtu.be