Hi All,
My Bee Mentor, Jennifer Radtke and a fellow Mentee came out to help me with the North Hive on Friday. This is the hive that has been very defensive over the last 2 months. They helped with taking the hive apart to find the old Queen so we can replace it with a new Queen. The old Queen had mated with a defensive drone and that is why we were experiencing the defensiveness from the hive. How did we know this? There was no evidence of any of the other hives being defensive or we would’ve started looking at what may be attacking the hives to cause such defensive behavior. Mind you now the North Hive is pretty tall at this time and we needed to take it all apart in order to find the Queen. We moved slow, smoking the boxes as we took them off but once we started looking for the Queen we needed to stop using the smoke because it would make her go deeper in to the hive. Luckily it did not take long to find her! We placed her in a jar and disposed of her. We wrapped things up and I headed to Berkeley with Jennifer to retrieve the new Queen. Got in touch with my 2 Bee Helpers and they helped to take the hive apart again to place the Queen in. My 2 helpers, my fellow Mentee and I just finished up seeing how well they were accepting her and it looked good so we set her free in the North Hive! Now we leave her alone for 7-10 days and then go back in to see if there is evidence of her laying, larvae & eggs…send good vibes their way!
The rest of the week in the garden;
Peas & Me were out and helping to harvest on an extremely hot day! Most of us headed in earlier that day and got straight to harvesting and the mommas & kiddos were part of that. CL helped them while they were harvesting tomatoes in the M beds and PL helped them with harvesting tomatoes in bed L02. They took a break to recharge and cool off then got back out there helping Amy to pack the boxes for delivery to the food pantries. It was a concerted effort on the Peas & Me and regular volunteers along with Amy to make it all work over by the Church sheds since the East side parking lot was closed and we needed to be sending out from the West side lot! Everyone pulled together, got the produce packed and on its way! Great job team!
ELM was out and helping on a much cooler day! They made sure to water the trees waiting for their planting day, fed the worms, added a layer of shredded paper and watered them in as well. The shredded paper and the water will help to keep them cool. There was also label cleaning that got done as well. Great job ELM!
Jackson Ave Garden Coordinators were back in the garden harvesting cherry tomatoes to supplement the tastings they have for their students coming in to their school garden! We planted an entire bed of cherry tomatoes to help out the schools this year with tastings in their gardens. They were able to harvest over 5# of assorted cherry tomatoes to share with their classes!
Our computer has been a bit on the slow side lately so Brenda’s Casey took the time to see what was going on. Nothing major was going on with the computer but he cleaned it up and it seems to be working faster. We are also going to order new batteries for the hotspot and that may speed things up a bit more. Thank you Casey!
Two of our beds got prepped and one was planted this week. Beds A16 & H01 were not doing well. A17 had Bush Early Girl tomatoes in it and they were looking rather spent. The crew got the plants out, amended it with 4 quarts of gypsum, 2” of compost and got it planted! They planted it with 73 Winwin green and 60 Cascade Glaze collards! Ho1 had Delicate squash plants and they were looking spent as well. There are a couple of other beds we have an eye on and may be prepping and replanting them sooner rather than later. If you see any beds out there that you think may need to go please let us know!
Corn was starting to be pollinated this week by SM (I am imagining her right now flitting from plant to plant like a fairy pollinating each stalk:)). Squash plants were being tucked back into their beds so they would not be walked on in the paths. Cucumbers were weaved onto their trelliss. Tomato cages were being uprighted after being blown over by the winds (and possibly the fox!).
The expansion beds were watered. We currently have Black Eyed Peas, squash and trees planted out there and were needing some extra help with keeping them watered in. The irrometer worked was continuing and that affected the amount of water going out to the expansion. Now the main pipe leading out back is fixed up and the lines are running on schedule. The rest of the ditch West of the Orchard is done and Zone 2 is finished.
Leaks in the beds…P beds were worked on this week. Bed P15 had one of its lines torn apart by a critter so JR & Enrique fixed that up. There were some other leaks in those beds that JR & SB worked on afterwards. Remember, if you see a leak let us know. We can show you how to fix it for future leaks or if you are not interested we will fix it ourselves…but do let us know! All leaks affect the amount of water getting to each plant in the garden.
You all harvested 487.89# of produce for our local food pantries! A little over 50# of that did help out Culinary Angels this week:)
Thank you for for helping in the garden!!!
Take care
Lori