After I got back in town from beekeeping class today, I managed to quickly pot up a few patiently waiting empty containers on the front porch.

I love the new 'Black Velvet' petunias so I combined them with dusty miller for nice contrast, then 'Poetry White' Nemesia, 'Techno Heat Blue' Lobelia, Ageratum, and golden moneywort. I haven't yet been through a spring or summer yet in this house, but I have a feeling this front porch is going to stay too shady to support this combo for long. I may have to move them to the South facing patio in the backyard. We'll see as the sun angle changes.

Petunia 'Black Velvet' is a Petunia grandiflora hybrid, so it's best suited to cooler temps here in N. Texas. Plants will thrive February though early June. They won't appreciate July/August heat, but who does?? They can be eeked through summer with some afternoon shade, or replanted in September. Fall planted petunias will often make it through mild winters. Lovely.

I also placed a number of fruit trees and berry plants today...tomorrow I'll be ripping out numerous poorly planted foundation shrubs and planting the orchard in the side-yard...henceforth known as the bee-yard. I'll also be planting a number of roses, tomatoes and some new Echinacea hybrids. More to come!

Made some progress on the beehives today. Finished getting the base coats of paint on the brood boxes, which I've painted bright green. I plan to paint the honey supers alternating colors of lighter greens and orange...with some additional decorative painting of flowers and bees. Each hive will look different so that the bees know which hive is theirs...I don't think any other beekeeper will mistake these for their hives either! lol

Finished building all of the honey supers and got them coated with linseed oil. They'll have to dry for 3 or 4 days before I can paint them.

We also got 40 brood frames assembled (only 56 more honey frames to go...lol) We still have to pop in the brood frame bases.

In order to get the frames put together more quickly, we built a jig...It takes forever putting these babies together one by one...so I definitely recommend the jig.

Next weekend we'll be dropping off our brood boxes so that they can each be seeded with a Nuc (a frame that containes a queen, workers and drones). Can't wait!

Check out the fab new black petunia varieties available this spring

I have a short blip about them here: Black Petunias

Alright, so I've started my backyard bee project. I will be setting up two hives in my own backyard and two hives up at North Haven Gardens in the large organic vegetable garden. My hives will be located in a fenced-in side yard where I'll be planting all my fruit trees and berry plants. Should be the perfect little Fruitopia for them!

So I have 4 full hives to build...

It's quite the project...especially since I don't own a nail gun..(WISHING I had a nail gun, lol). There are 4 large brood boxes for the base and two honey supers for each hive. So that's 12 boxes to be built. Here is one of the brood boxes...The brood box sits at the base of the hive and it's where the queen and her subjects hang out and raise babies...

Each brood box contains 8 frames each. Each honey super also contains 8 frames each...so for 4 hives I have 96 frames to build...

Each hive also contains a base, an inner lid and outer lid that must be built. To help preserve the wood in the most non-toxic manner, All wood surfaces are then rubbed down with boiled linseed oil. Inside and outside of all the boxes and lids. The only thing left completely untreated are the brood and honey frames. The wood on these frames is left completely natural.

By the time I got 4 brood boxes built and a few lids and frames, I required an adult beverage...Just be careful not to drop any linseed oil in your whiskey...lol. After you linseed  all the boxes and lids, they have to dry for 3 to 4 days. Be careful with linseed oil, it can spontaneously combust. Make sure the cans are not left out in full sun. Make sure to lay flat any rags or clothing that comes in contact with the oil to completely dry out for 24 hours. It can then be washed.

After you linseed, you put two coats of exterior paint on all outside surfaces of wood, and the upper and lower edges. You DO NOT paint the interior surfaces of the boxes. I'll be painting the brood boxes this weekend to get them ready to introduce the NUCs in a couple of weeks. Then, I'll have to get to work on building all the rest of the honey supers and frames...

Then my bees will come home in April! Super excited...I'll have about 180,000 new babies...
 

I have two free classes up at North Haven Gardens this week. This Wednesday the 16th from Noon-1pm, I'll be covering what vegetables to plant now in North Texas. On Friday the 18th from Noon-1pm I'll be teaching you how to keep backyard chickens in the city. Come join me and learn at lunch!

Follow this link for more details. http://www.lesliehalleck.com/events.html

If you're in North Texas, we'll be hitting 14 degrees Tuesday evening and won't come up above freezing until Friday. Tomorrow, you'll want to cover any of your vegetables, annual flowers and new plantings through Thursday, with frost cloth. That will give you 4-6 degrees of protection, which is all you really need. You can use a second layer of frost cloth to get you a few more degrees of protection!

I'm on staycation this week and am enjoying just the kind of morning I love. Stayed in bed until 8:30...LUXURY!!. It's cold outside (for Texas), but it's bright and sunny, which puts me in a cheery mood. I just checked on my seedlings...the lettuce is sprouting eagerly while the tomato seeds sit in stubborn refusal. I have yet to dig out my seed heating mat from the many still unpacked boxes in the garage. Those tomato seeds will sit there stubborn until I warm them up. For all you newbies out there, you really do need a heat mat for your tomato seedlings! I just picked up my new issue of Urban Farm magazine, made some strong chicory coffee and am browsing through articles about beekeeping and all sorts of other fun stuff. I'll be headed out to check on the girls (my chickens) here in a bit to make sure their water isn't frozen and they get their daily salad green buffet. It's mornings like these that really get me excited about spring. JOY.

Because I'm in a new home, with yet again an empty landscape to start with, I'm full of itch to garden. While I have cultivated one large bed that was pre-existing, it will take quite a while to get everything built back up to my prior level of urban farm food production. I do always love a challenge though. I have many raised beds moved from my old house still waiting to be situated and filled...and many ornamental beds to be built and planted, which will take a back seat to the veggie beds. My first big project will be planting what I named "Fruitopia". I have one fenced in side yard, which is street side that will become home to my small fruit orchard and beehives. I'm choosing a well thought out list of small and dwarf variety fruit trees as well as some berry plants. I imagine I'll start planting Fruitopia in early February, once all my varieties have arrived. I'll post the list of selections once it's finalized.

I start my 5-month beekeeping course this coming Saturday and couldn't be more excited! Not only will my bees be much needed pollinators for my own orchard and vegetable garden (and those of my neighbors), but I hope that my tiny effort will help boost what are devastating crashes in honey bee populations over the last 6 years. Colony collapse, brought on by a combination of invertebrate iridescent virus and a fungal organism called Nosema ceranae, are decimating bee populations everywhere and seriously threatening our entire food supply system. If you want to help out the population of pollinators, but keeping hives of honeybees is just to much for you to handle, you can encourage the presence of Mason bees in your garden. Mason bees are excellent pollinators and all you need to do is provide a simple nesting box. North Haven Gardens in Dallas, TX sells both the Mason bee houses and tubes of baby Mason bees in spring to get you started.

Anyhoo, enough of my ramblings. Hope you're getting your veggie beds prepped, your seeds started and are excited about spring!

I'm often asked if there is any difference between my fresh backyard eggs and eggs purchased at the grocery store (from mass production facilities). My answer is always "YES!!" Fresh eggs from hens that are raised with with access to the outdoors, organic feed, fresh greens, insects, sunlight and low population pressure are healthier for you. They have higher levels of omega-3 fatty acids, beta carotene and have a denser texture than mass production eggs. Here is a photo of an egg from one of my Ameraucanas and an organic cage-free egg from the grocery store. I think you can tell which one is the yard egg!