It's Spring!

The sun is out & I'm planting seeds ~ in more ways than one!

This is a set of patterns I'm designing for a new line of dinnerware,

votive holders, & an interior fireplace surround...maybe. 

 It's in the planning stage.

What do you think?

Master Gardener!

Yeah! I'm so proud of myself!

I finally finished the Master Gardener course through the University of Fairbanks.

I still have some volunteer hours to put in so if you have any gardening opportunities or challenges let me know. I especially love gardening with children....maybe I can recruit my gadening helper, William?

OK ~ I'm off to celebrate with a glass of my new favorite Chardonnay....

"Valley of the Moon".

It's SHOW TIME at the SPENARD FARMER'S MARKET!!

Join me on Saturday, May 29th at the Spenard Farmer's Market!

I'll be there selling my art glass, jewelry, garden stakes & more.

I've made the logo into cool magnets & for a $5 donation to the Spenard Farmer's Market you can help to pay for the Port-O-Potties!!

Yep...you read that right! We're raising money for the potties!

See you in Spenard tomorrow!!!

(10 to 3 pm ~ civilized hours)

Moose on the Loose!

There's moose all over the place & they're eating my trees, and shrubs, & anything they can find! This guy has lost his rack. See the little knob spots where they used to be?

Oh man...he's looking right at us!

A Summer Swarm

Every summer I worry about my bees swarming. This occurs when the hive becomes congested with too many bees, no room for the queen to lay eggs, over heating, or a multitude of other reasons. This year I ordered a "nuc" which is sort of a mini hive that is used to catch swarms or to do a split with a hive that is growing too big so the beekeeper "splits" it into two hives.

So a couple of weeks ago I set up the nuc in my garden area. It's located about 75 feet away from the main hives. It's usually recommended that a nuc or swarm trap be set-up close to existing hives if you want to catch a swarm from bees outside the area & away from existing hives if you want to catch bees that may be from your own hives. It seems that if bees are going to swarm they will not set-up a new home close to the original hive but will travel a short distance (usually 75 to 100 feet) away to find a new home.

Then I forgot about it.

Until today when I was checking the progress of my raspberries. Wowie-zowie! There were bees all over the nuc! The picture above doesn't really do justice to the buzz of activity around the entrance to the nuc. There was a cloud of bees!

Very exciting & satisfying. I'm hoping one of my existing hives didn't swarm but if they did I'm glad they found a new home in the neighborhood. Welcome home!

The Great Sunflower Project

I just received my free sunflower seeds from The Great Sunflower Project this past week. (See my 2/16/09 post describing this project)

I have raised garden beds for my vegetables but this year I'm cutting way back on the vegetables. I've purchased a produce subscription through Arctic Organics based in Palmer. For one fee, you receive a variety of organic, locally grown, vegetables every week! And the best part is that their delivery area is only a couple of blocks from my house so every Wednesday Will & I can go for a walk & pick up our vegetables.

Arctic Organics provides new & unusual vegetables & with every delivery you also receive a newsletter identifying the contents & recipes to give you ideas for meal preparation. I love this! It's the main reason I wanted to grow less vegetables & more sunflowers this year ~ I'm in a rut with my garden....little gardening joke there!

Anyway, back to the Sunflower Project. I thought I would plant one large raised vegetable bed all in sunflowers. The sunflowers for the project have to be Lemon Queen so I'm going to plant most of the bed in that variety but also include some miniature & ornamental sunflowers. It should look striking & hopefully the bees will appreciate the pollen.

The bees....yes, that's the point of The Great Sunflower Project. It's basically a research project to collect data on when, where & how long you see bees visiting the sunflowers. Seeing no bees is important too. I don't think that will happen since I have two bee hives in my yard & they love my garden & fruit bushes/trees.

I'm hoping to have a set time every day or week when Will & I do our bee counting in the garden. Hopefully we'll be able to get some good photos too. Maybe have a cup of tea, a couple of cookies, & count bees...all in the name of science!