Bees on TED

Watch this amazing TED talk on bees.

Bees pollinate a third of our food supply -- they don’t just make honey! -- but colonies have been disappearing at alarming rates in many parts of the world due to the accumulated effects of parasitic mites, viral and bacterial diseases, and exposure to pesticides and herbicides.

It is fantastic.

Marla Spivak, University of Minnesota professor of entomology and 2010 MacArthur Fellow, tries as much as possible to think like bees in her work to protect them. They’re “highly social and complex” creatures, she says, which fuels her interest and her research.

Spivak has developed a strain of bees, the Minnesota Hygienic line, that can detect when pupae are infected and kick them out of the nest, saving the rest of the hive. Now, Spivak is studying how bees collect propolis, or tree resins, in their hives to keep out dirt and microbes.

She is also analyzing how flowers’ decline due to herbicides, pesticides and crop monoculture affect bees’ numbers and diversity. Spivak has been stung by thousands of bees in the course of her work.

Rotate

CROP rotation is critical to growing healthy food.

In an old basket in my garden shed is a tattered back issue of Gardening Australia magazine permanently open to the an article on rotating garden beds.

Torn, smudged with soil and looking more than a little weathered, this back issue is my mantra when it comes to planting a new garden.

I've made notes about what I have planted and where so I can be sure to not plant the same species there next season.

Six bed are the ideal but now I am in a downsized garden this time round rather than having eight beds spread out over 100sq m, I'm going for smaller beds placed in the best area for sunshine - all wired off to keep the feather riot out.

This is my tomato bed and at the

rear I have planted broad beans

			Keeping a garden diary is fascinating and prevents you make mistakes.

Eggs ain't eggs

GOLDEN-HUED yolks.

Whites so firm they half meringue without the mixmaster.

A taste so complex yet simple, you have to be there. Sponges so light they practically float off the plate. Creamy, scrambled eggs and cakes with an extra dimension of deliciousness. 

Yep, I'm talking about home-grown eggs. Or should i say home-harvested?

 

Whatever the name, these eggs are sensational.

I know I'm biased but the people whom I pass on some of my extra cackleberries say the same.

My flock of five girls (Hilda, Layne, Gidget, Ledger and Laura) average four to five eggs a day and they reflect their mostly free-range lifestyle. I let them out ta dawn and shut them back up around 7.30am before i head off to work.

Arriving home around 5.45pm, they are again released to wander across the lawn and encouraged to turn over land which will be another veggie bed come the weekend. 

They are fed lots of food scraps, oodles of fresh greens and have access to clean, cool water on top of their usual pellets. They are loved and have their own fox-proof hutch and fully enclosed run my friends refer to as Cluckingham Palace. And they are so worth it.

Hilda and her posse are a wonderful  mixture of bug-eaters, fertilisers and magic producers. I says magic because their eggs are fantastic. 

Nothing beats your own eggs and my feather riot, rescue chooks all, are up there with the best.

If you have room and you don't need much, consider getting a couple of hens and you'll be amazed at how your cooking and your garden is transformed.

Eggs

THE hens have been busy, laying some whopper eggs.

 

Many of these have turned out to be double-yolkers, which is always a nice surprise! People have asked me what i feed them to get these bonus-filled eggs.

 

Layne's egg on the left compared to Hilda's whopper on the right.

However, I am attributing these big cackleberries to all the free-ranging the feather riot have been enjoying, particularly the digging up of various unwary plants around the garden.

Dig it

DIGGING in a new vegetable bed or three is so satisfying.

 

On the weekend I finally planted out some vegetables including three varieties of tomato - Tommy Toe, Rouge de Marmalade and Burke's Backyard best - kale, climbing beans, basil and broad beans.

 

 

Preparing the beds took longer than I thought as previous owners have dumped bricks, stones, china, plaster and all manner of rubbish in the yard and sifting and removing the junk form the soil was a job and a half.

 

Luckily I managed to get this all finished just as the rain started.

 

Roll on summer!

 

Here I have put in paths using some of the old pavers I found stacked

under some grass clippings.

 

Rouge de Marmalade planted in front of the beans which will grow and hide the back fence.

To the right are some jacaranda trees and an old fuchsia whose days are numbered as I have to dig out the surrounding running-bamboo.

 

The hens commence digging up the lawn for my new tomato garden.

October planting

WHAT to plant in October?

There is just so much choice the mind boggles.

Apart form tomatoes I'll also be sowing legumes such as climbing beans, bush beans, runner beans, beetroot and carrot.

The only real challenge will be too keep the hens out of the beds.

You say tomato...

IT'S the big debate.

Far bigger than Cats versus Hawthorn, Ford versus Holden or Anzac biscuits with or without coconut.

Well, almost bigger than the Anzac debate.

But I digress - hen do you plant your tomatoes?

Some vow that Caulfield Cup day is the go, while others decree that AFL Grand Final Day is the go.

Peter Cundall has some excellent advice in his latest Weekly Times column and Diggers if you are after heirloom varieties, check out the Diggers website.

A friend at work has planted some heirloom seeds and given me a plant - we don't know what variety it is so it will be exciting to find out when it finally fruits!