Perry's white poppy - Papaver orientale

Whimsy... that's the theme of my flower garden and frankly much of the entire property!  We have a dinosaur bog with big metal dinosaurs and a big gunnera (which isn't that big right now or I;d show you a picture).  But my favorite plant that portrays whimsy only lasts a few weeks.  Perry's White Poppy (Papaver orientale) is huge... the white petals are thin like crate paper and they wave nicely in the wind.  The inside of the petals and the center of the flower is a deep purple.  Its on a huge stem... like 2 feet for this one flower.  And after its done blooming it has a seed pod that looks like its from another galaxy.  A very fund plant... I just wish it lasted longer and weren't so expensive... and it looks like it may not propagate real well either.  Oh well... I love it.

Snohomish Master Gardener Plant Sale

All I can say is wow... I've never seen so many people excited to buy plants.  This is just a general picture of the crowd.  But when the gates opened a huge line of a few hundred people came in and made a beeline to the... tomatoes.

Spicy memorial area of the garden

Dave and I planted an area of the garden in memory of Spicy, our cat that passed away about a month ago.  She was a really wonderful cat.  And her passing was hard on both Dave and I.  Dave was gone on a business trip, and I had to take her in to the vet hospital alone.  Unfortunately I have never had to put a animal to sleep and it was hard.  But I know the last give I could give Spicy was to hold her and comfort her as she passed.

My law office partner, Shauna, is a true animal lover.  She went with me to Sky nursery in Shoreline a day or two after Spicy passed and she bought us two blueberry bushes to plant in memory of Spicy.  Shauna's parents owned a blueberry farm in Oregon so it was very special to get these from her.  Later when Dave came home we went out to Nichols statuary in Maltby and bought a cat statue and base.  It was perfect... looks very similar to Spicy and its a beautiful memorial to her. 

Recent pictures

So I have a few pics I took with my iPhone to share:

This is the "alley" which is a strip of grass on the west side of the house.  I planted a bunch of tulips and this picture didn't do it justice.  At one point the tulips in the back area were a beautiful bright red.  I did however see that I need to plant for all seasons because the beautiful display only lasted about 3 weeks.  I have some peonies I think I will plant and then need to figure something to for summer and fall.

This is a shot of the south side of my greenhouse... looking busy!  Tomatoes on the top shelf, lots of things growing under grow lights.

A peony bloom I cut and brought inside.  Smelled great and lasted well over a week of full open bloom.

Apprentice Beekeeping certificate

I finally got my certificate proving I completed the Apprentice Beekeeping course through the Washington State Beekeeper Associaion.  Dave and I finished the class in March of 2013but never did get the certificate form the teacher... until today.  And let me tell you, it was not a super simple test either.  Although it was open book.  But still :)

She's alive! She's alive!

We installed the two packages last Thursday, May 1 and as you read in teh last post we had some problems with the queen in the east hive.  So we did out hive inspections today and the west hive had properly released their queen.  We didn't do much else in that hive...we did pull two frames from the middle and didn't see the queen but there were lots of bees in there and we just decided it was good enough to see tat she was released.

The east hive... the first frame we pulled had what looked to be a supersedure cell being made... not good news we thought.

To quote my favorite website for northwest beekeeping, Honey Bee Suite:

"Supersedure cells are often begun after the eggs are laid. The bees, knowing they need to replace the queen, begin feeding royal jelly to a young larva they have selected. They build a supersedure cell around this larva (or several larvae) and it hangs down from the face of the comb. Swarm cells, however, are built in preparation for swarming and are not intended to replace the queen, but to raise a second queen. This way, there will be a queen for the part that swarms and a queen for the part that stays."

But as we searched we finally found the marked queen.  Thank goodness we had them marked this year!

So all in all, things are good.  They are not drinking much of the sugar water.  They have some capped honey in the box but not a lot.  They are cleaning the frames like madmen... actually mad- women.  The weather the first two day after installation was beautiful... highs in the 70-80's.  The last few days have been super wet though, but not overly cold.  During sun breaks today they were flying around working hard.  All seems to be in order!

New hive installation... only one problem

Our two hives from last year dies over the winter.  One lived through until about 2 weeks ago... but it was clearly queenly when we checked it about a month ago.  Not sure what happened to either hive as they both had plenty of food.  We had many queen problems last year and that may have contributed to their lack of strength as a hive over the winter.  We also didn't start feeding early enough and then we had a early hard freeze.

But yesterday we installed 2 new packages.  Starting over, but in a better position than last year.  Why?  Because we have plenty of frames with drawn out comb so the bees wont have to focus initially on simply drawing out comb.  It takes a huge amount of energy and resources for the bees to make wax and built comb.  there is also a fair amount of honey capped... although we ave bene warned that the honey may be fermented and that could cause a dysentery type situation if they eat too much of it.  I did test the honey and it didn't taste fermented to me.  And like I said we did have bees in the one hive up until 2 weeks ago... so who knows.

One problem we did have... the queen got out of her cage when we were installing the east hive.  I was able to catch her and hold her.  After a few minutes of panic... we realized we really only had one option and that was to put her in.  So I quickly "threw" her in the middle and Dave poured the package on top.  I saw her walking around on the top of a frame for a tad... saw multiple bees surround her in a non-menacing way.  She then started walking into the middle of the hive.  We then put the top on.

This queen has been with the package since California.  They drove up here and we picked the packages up Wednesday.  We didn't end up installing them until Thursday... so I'm thinking she was with the bees for at least 3-4 days and maybe longer.  Hopefully they wont kill her.

Things happeninga round the urban farm

I finally broke down and flew the white flag surrendering to the chickens.  They just loved eating too many of the plants I was working on near the greenhouse.  So, we put up a permanent fence around the greenhouse area... and wow, has it created a lovely peaceful space to work.

Here is a picture of the far side... with the chickens trying to break in I believe.  So far, only one has figured out it can fly up, but that as on the retaining wall side and I was able to block that area off.

I've also got all four raised beds physically in although they are not all full with soil or plants yet.

Its looking like it will be a productive summer!

Finished my Master Gardener training this week

I just finished the basic training to become a Snohomish County Master Gardener and wow, was it great.  What is a Master Gardener?  Its a volunteer program designed to train participants with the basics of horticulture to enable them to go out and answer questions for the public regarding plants and animals that affect plants.   As horticulture is such a huge area, the program is really focused on knowing what resources are out there to look up peoples questions. 

It was about 7 hours of training a week for about 12 weeks with quite a bit of outside reading, videos, and testing.  Classes ranged from lectures to hands on viewing of bugs/diseases to experiments on soils.  Many of the classes are taught by local professors as well as Sharon Collman and Dave Pelling from the SnoCo extension office... and wow, are they whizzes when it comes to diagnosis plant problems and knowing their bugs.

And now that I am finished with the basic training I have 40 more hours of volunteer work to be done over the rest of the year.  To give us a wide range of experiences our hours this first year are split into the various programs the Master Gardener coordinate.  This includes a big plant sale the first weekend in May, three demonstration gardens around the county, clinics, and continuing education.  I signed up for the office clinics, but there are community clinics where you set up at places like Lowe's and answer peoples questions.