Here it Comes!

“A light exists in spring
not present on the year
at any other period.
When March is scarcely here

a color stands abroad
on solitary hills
that science cannot overtake,
but human nature feels.”

— Emily Dickenson

Going out at dawn this morning, it seemed that even the birds were singing it: Here it Comes! Oh yes, spring is on the way. In parts of Northern California, like Berkeley and Oakland (both with a maritime influence, and only 10 miles west of here), spring is already here. But in our backyard garden, in the shadow of Mt. Diablo, spring is just now truly beginning.

Everything in me pulls to be out of doors; yesterday morning I was out very early cutting a bouquet, and my neighbor pulled in from his night job, saw me and said "Did you spend the night out here? Didn't I see you in the exact same place just last night?" and I laughed because I can't seem to stay inside. I have piles of homework to do, housework to tend to, kids to shuttle around - but I just want to be in the garden. There's so much to do!

Part of this is the effect of the sun. We haven't had more than a day with bright sun in so long, it feels so good to just let it soak in. Would we enjoy the sun as much if we hadn't had that wintertime deluge? Probably not. There's something about being a Californian that we rarely talk about, a deep unsettled feeling that I think is suspiciously like guilt. We always desperately need rain, so we can never ever complain about it when we get it. And get it, we did, this winter. We all felt morose from the gloom, and then felt guilty for feeling morose, and then didn't talk about how morose we were, and then felt even more morose and guilty, etc etc etc. So now that the sun is out, we can actually enjoy it. We ate our vegetables, damn it, and now we can have dessert.

our peach tree

Because we had so much rain, there are a couple of notable things happening right now. One of those things is weeds. Whoa, I've never had weeds like I have this year. And since the water table is higher, the native plants and flowers are staying juvenile longer, which means the weeds have that much more time to gain a foothold. If you live here, now is the time to be vigilant! Get out there every chance you get and pull those weeds before they set seed. (Unless you like weeds. And if you do, more power to you.)

The other notable thing is that, any minute, the hills and open spaces are going to pop. POP, I tell you. We are going to have a wildflower show like we haven't had in twenty years. I keep seeing notifications from the State Parks about this; there was even an article in the Washington Post about Anza-Borrego! If even folks on the east coast are writing about it, you know it's gonna be a good year. 

Achillea millefolium, or yarrow

I'm desperate to borrow a truck and haul a load of compost and manure to amend all the raised beds and fill the new fire-rings (I have one bin of compost, but we'll need more. Looking forward to the day when I don't have to gather outside amendments!). We're eating fresh greens every day, as well as onions and the stray asparagus spear or pea pod. The carrots and brassicas are growing and getting strong. The tomato starts are going out on the backyard patio every day, to soak up the sun and harden off, though I won't plant them in the ground until late April/early May (they'll need another potting up before then). I can't tell you how many times I go out back to check on the chickens and I find them napping in a sawdust pit, in a ray of sun. 

I sit down in the sun to do the same, and then think of a million other things that need doing, and then I'm scurrying to get them done. Though I am not a fan of daylight savings time (I was just getting used to having light at 6 am!), I do enjoy having longer evenings with which to accomplish the long list of garden chores. And I do like the thought of the long, warm days that are coming. 

The bees are still mad at me for putting that Thymol in the hive to kill mites. They really don't like the smell, and many mornings I come out to find a small cluster of outliers on the landing board. It might be my imagination, but that one on the bottom left seems to be looking at me accusatorially. Sorry, ladies. You'll thank me later.

And with that, I need to get off this computer and out in to the yard. This coming Monday in class we are learning about soil - microbiology, nutrients, and how to do a soil test. This is something I've never done here because we built raised beds and filled them with our own mix. We've never tilled them, and just keep adding organic matter, rock dust, and cover crops, so I'd be interested to do a soil test and see what's happening in there. I'd also like to test our native clay soil, where all our ornamentals are planted, to get an idea what's going on there. So I'm off to take samples.

While I'm doing that, I'll notice new weeds, which will lead to pulling. And then I'll see a lizard or a newly-emerged native bee and then I'll be trying to figure out what kind it is. And then I'll notice some dead branches, and will start to cut back the native perennials. And then I'll notice the pile of mulch that still needs moving, so I'll get out the wheelbarrow.

(If you give a mouse a cookie, he'll ask for a glass of milk...)

Here's to a fabulous spring day. 

Mites in the Hive

Sorry for the radio silence over the weekend, I just couldn't seem to get everything done. Adam had the regional Odyssey of the Mind competition (they won first place in their division!), then a dress rehearsal at the Conservatory; I had a massive take-home test to work through, plus some memorization for a lab practical (I think it went ok yesterday). Plus the dreaded late-winter colds are making their way through our house, and on top of that, it was raining. So that's why we didn't get a Weekly Walkthrough video up. This coming weekend is looking pretty busy too, as Adam has his first solo recital Saturday night, but we'll do our best to get something up on the YouTube. We need to go pick up compost, which might be a fun ride-along for you guys.

I'm starting to get more into the rhythm of my new schedule. Monday and Wednesday are just for school - I'm there all day both days, basically. Tuesdays and Thursdays are for homework (and often Friday too), though on Tuesday I also try to get caught up on cleaning and cooking. The garden projects get done in between all this stuff. I'm usually out like a light every night at 9:30 pm; there's not much time for reading or TV (though we have been keeping up with the new Planet Earth, it's awesome!), and I haven't been on a real hike in a week.

This morning I decided to spend some time outside before I got the grunt work done; we're supposed to have a stretch of seven days without rain, and temps into the low 70's tomorrow, so a good time to pot up tomatoes. I got everything ready to go, and went to get some water from the rain barrel, which took me past the beehive, where I stopped abruptly in my tracks when I saw a smattering of dead bees on the landing board.

Damn it. I expected to have some dead brood, because we broke up some herky winter comb when we inspected the hive last week, but did not expect any dead adults. So I took a closer look, and that's when I saw the varroa mite (picture above, the mite is the red circle on the bee's leg). Double damn it. I've never seen evidence of mites this early in the hive. But we did see an awful lot of drone brood last week during our check, and mites especially like to procreate in drone brood. 

So, deep breath, on to treatment, a necessity if the hive is to grow and get strong over the summer. It's just not warm enough for formic acid, which does better at summer temperatures (this is what I use in the early fall). Too late for oxalic acid, because that doesn't work on the mites in the brood, and there's already so much brood and that's where this problem began.That left Apiguard, which is made of thyme. Apiguard needs temps over 60 to work, and the warm temps on tap for this week are perfect timing. The downside is that it makes the honey taste like thyme, but we already harvested the honey we are planning to take this year, and the bees will manage. Some of them will die due to the fumes of the thymol, but that's better than all of them dying due to mites.

All these treatments are made for Langstroth hives, so I have to jerry-rig them for our top bar hive. I waited until the sun hit the hive and then I opened her up. Right away the bees were pissed. I had to make several journeys around the yard to lose some aggressive bees, but I got the little dish of thymol into the back half of the hive, hoping both worker bees and nurse bees would walk through it. I took a popsicle stick and smeared some gel on the bottom board in a couple of different places. No one was happy, least of all me, but hopefully this will mitigate any mite problems we have. I'll have to reapply in two weeks.

Fuming but resigned (fuming because LORD I HATE MITES, and resigned because I did all I could do), I set myself to transplanting tomatoes. Every thirty minutes I had to go in a knead the bread, and the combination of methodically removing the tiny seedlings and firmly patting them into their new homes, and rhythmically stretching and pulling the warm dough, got me back into my happy place, mostly.

The peppers aren't ready to transplant, and I want to start a second batch of those anyway, so they'll stay in trays for a while yet, but at least the tomatoes are potted up and happy. I found myself saying things aloud like 'good girl!' whenever I pulled out a particularly strongly-rooted tomato. Are all gardeners this way? I imagine so. We do get awfully attached.

I love these compostable plastic cups for the in-between potting stage. They're the same size, basically, as plastic four-inchers. In another couple of weeks these little guys will go into larger pots. I'll keep them under lights at night for now, but when they get larger, they'll go into the greenhouse. Meanwhile outside during the day as long as it's above 50 and sunny. That way they'll be hardened off when it's time to plant them.

I've pretty much decided to plant the entire summer garden in tomatoes and peppers. I'll do cucumbers in the new fire-rings; I'll do bush beans and basil in pots. That's really all we need. I'll skip melons this year, and I wasn't sure if I wanted to plant corn anyway (it takes up so much space for so little yield), so this will work. Then over next winter, I am not going to plant crops in the raised beds. Instead I'm going cover crop everywhere, in order to build up nutrients in the soil and provide organic matter. Probably clover for nitrogen fixing, mixed with winter wheat to provide both grain and weed-free straw (I'm having a terrible time finding good straw). As for winter greens, I can plant those in pots and move them around to catch the best sun. We can do without peas for one year and buy frozen at the store. This is my current plan, but of course it could all change - stay tuned!

Now I must face the music and go clean the house, then knuckle down to my studies. How are your tomatoes coming along? If you have bees, have you had to treat in the spring? Let me know about your garden in the comments!

March Planting List

Happy March. The photo above was taken where my 'Weeds in the Urban Landscape' class met this morning, Cesar Chavez park, in the Berkeley marina, with a view west over the bay to the San Francisco skyline. Not bad, huh. I kept thinking about all the Merritt students stuck behind a desk in an old building, hearing a lecture and taking notes. I couldn't help but feel that it was much better with clipboard and pencil, hiking around an urban park, looking at the weeds and bugs. I brought a bulb of fennel from the garden to a classmate who requested it; he said he'll make fennel-onion jam and bring it next week for all of us to taste. I told him I'd make bread to have it with, and before you know it, other students were volunteering cheese and pickles. We will have a feast at our next location. I think I love school.

Then I got home and opened the mailbox. Check out what was inside.

I order a pound of red wigglers every other year or so, to go in our small compost bin. I do this because the bin is too small to heat up and decompose the contents quickly; the worms do the work and it finishes much more quickly. I got these from The Worm Farm, my usual place, and they were packed safely and lovingly. 

I dumped them in, and there they will be happy and multiply, I hope.

Here's your handy-dandy printable for March. I must confess, I did all of this in the past week or two. I just couldn't wait, even though the Master Gardeners told me to. However, if you haven't jumped the gun like I have, now's the time, so get busy!

I know more rain is on the way here, and possibly you're having a March-coming-in-like-a-lion thing, and I'm so sorry if that's the case, but at the moment the sun is shining and I've had some vitamin D and I can't contain the sense of possibility. Spring is coming!

Woodworking

Above is a picture of Kate's new 'art shelf.' Kate loves to draw and animate; you can see a sample of her work on the desk. A week ago, this desk was completely covered with jars of pens and pencils, and art supplies. It was impossible to work on, not because she was messy, but because she had too many things to keep organized. She was having to do all her work on her bed, which wasn't ideal. 

When I broached this with her, she said that she'd been looking at art shelves online and would like some. I looked at the pictures with her and agreed that it was the solution to her problem. I didn't have to figure out how to budget to buy something, or where to go to find the precise right thing, all because we have a woodworker in the family. Isn't that wonderful? Kate and I just had to talk with my dad, who luckily wanted to take on the project.

Woodworking is a skill that I feel is becoming extinct, along with skills like carpentry, food preservation, and raising livestock. Well, maybe not extinct, but certainly rare. Time was that everyone knew how to fix an engine, rotate a crop, make a pickle. These are valuable skills that I believe we should take time to learn and preserve. Tom agrees with me, and it's why we make it a priority to sign up for classes in everything from butchery to plant propagation. It's why we challenge ourselves with building projects that often do not come out right, which doesn't matter because we're still learning. It's one of the reasons we have this blog, to help folks recognize that it's a good thing to try something new, to stretch the brain creatively, to try to honor these skills and pass them on. 

My dad has been making furniture all his life. He is a master at it. And still he goes, every year, to Williamsburg, to study with other master woodworkers, in order to hone his craft. He teaches classes through local adult education, and blogs on Fine Woodworking, in order to bring his knowledge and skills to others. 

And meanwhile, I have never had to buy a piece of furniture, except maybe a love seat or mattress. The gift of this is two-fold: It has saved us an awful lot of money through the years, and more importantly, our home is full of museum-quality art pieces that are even more special because they are made by a family member. Each piece has a double history: each was made just for us, and yet each is developed from a piece of furniture that is housed in the world's greatest museums. My parent's desk is a reproduction of George Washington's desk. The cupboards on either side of my fireplace, made because I needed a place to store both books and video game equipment, were made as replicas of a cupboard found in Longfellow's Wayside Inn in Sudbury, MA. Our coffee table was originally made as a train table for Adam, and is based on a Pennsylvania Sawbuck dining table from the mid-1700's. This brings rich history to our home - both the stories of the original pieces and the stories of how Dad came to make it for us deepen the meaning and feeling of everything we use, every day.

I've often joked, that when I was young, every piece of furniture had a name: the Deacon's Bench, the Shaker Chest, the Chippendale Chair. Every piece still does; we own a Maloof rocker, Hans Wegner chairs, Windsor fan-backed and sack-backed chairs. A delightful mix of both old styles and modern. All kinds of different woods are represented, and an interior designer would probably be horrified by both the mix of colors - the deep reds of mahogany and redwood, the lighter poplars and pines, the refined silver maple, the various milk paint and shellac finishes - and periods. It's a delightful jumble of styles. 

You can see that in the above picture of just one corner of Kate's room, with the desk being a Hans Wegner design, made with Modesto ash, from a local sawmill that planed it from a felled tree in Oakland. To finish it, Dad used a light coat of white milk paint to bring out the grain, followed by a French polish (which takes days). This design would be from the early 1900's, probably the 30's. The chair is a Double Rod Back Windsor design from around 1800, one of the latest Windsor designs. It's made of the same ash, but the seat is made of pine. The art shelf was Dad's design, heavily influenced (as he says) in the Williamsburg style, made of Radiata pine, the wood that is most often used in construction. It's similar to our local Monterey pine, which is hardly used at all, for some reason. Dad finished it with a dark blue milk paint, then a white paint overlay, then linseed oil to give it shine and durability. 

Every single piece of furniture in every single room of our house has this kind of story. I really need to start writing down all the things Dad has told me about furniture and wood and history over the years, so that we have some sort of database of his artwork for future generations. 

Are you at all interested in learning how to build furniture? Dad uses Sketch Up, free design software, to translate these designs into plans for others to use. You can contact him at his website, Killenwood. There is also a link there to his blog on Fine Woodworking, as well as information about how to take a private workshop. He also teaches locally, and he can give you his schedule if you are interested. 

I'm so thankful that both Adam and Kate have spent significant time with Dad in his workshop, learning the basics that I never had the patience for as a child (I just wanted to read books all the time). Tom, too, has spent some time soaking up Dad's knowledge and skill, and hopes to more in the future. I see a real resurgence of a respect for true craftsmanship as well as an appreciation for historical skills, especially among twenty-somethings. I love this, of course. I do very much believe in progress and technology, but some things are always going to be needed to be done in an analog way. It's important for our kids to grow up knowing how to cook a meal, use a hammer, grow a tomato, mend a tear. I so admire folks who can knit a sweater, or milk cows, or make a dining room table. All these things do not have to be lost arts. 

Weekly Walkthrough: The first hive check of the year

This week's walkthrough is up; we decided to take advantage of a dry, sunny day and open the hive for the first time this year. We're always anxious to see how the bees fared over the previous winter.