Plant City Strawberries for the Florida Bee Farm

On our last trip to pickup the Blueberry plants we just so happened to be driving by the Parksdale Farm Market and Garden center in Plant City.  They are just outside the gates to Florida's Strawberry festival and are famous for their strawberry shortcake and strawberry products.  Also for a few days in October they carry the strawberry seedlings for sale.  They don't ship them and you sometimes have to reserve these in advance.   I called ahead to make sure they had enough and was able to procure 75 seedlings.  On our way home from the blueberry farm we stopped in to pick up the strawberry seedlings.

Playing tourist at Parksdale Farm Market in Plant City

Parksdale Farm Market is a pretty cool place with plenty of touristy stuff and produce so it was a nice diversion for our trip home.  They also sold the thin plastic cover that is helpful in planting the strawberry plants.  The prices were more than reasonable.  I'll be back every year if these strawberries take.

Preparing the raised beds mounding and making furrows

They also included directions with the strawberry seedlings detailing do's and don't s.  They recommended making rows mounded up and then covering with the plastic cover.  Fertilize between the furrows before covering with plastic.  Then you plant the seedlings being careful to not plant them too deep.  Make sure only the root areas go underground.  The directions said the biggest mistake people make is to plant the seedlings too deep.

Strawberry plants being carefully planted

The Lucky guy

And finally the last step was to customize the irrigation system to precisely deliver water to the roots of the strawberry plants.  To do this the existing irrigation hoses were removed and replaced with soaker hoses.  The strawberry plants were planted a little closer together than the recommendation because we were trying to maximize the space we had.  As it turned out 50 plants fit nicely into the above raised bed.  I'll try to plant another 20 or so into standalone pots for experimentation.  And if we're lucky we should be getting fresh strawberries from December until May. 

Strawberry irrigation system

Blueberries for the Bee Farm

Craigslist has all sorts of interesting things for sale or for free.  This week we drove out to Lithia to get as many mature blueberry plants as we could fit in my truck and trailer.  They were in 25 gallon pots that weighed about 75 lbs each which meant we could only fit 18 in one trip.  And it's a good thing because the spot we had picked out for the blueberries exactly fit 18 plants.  Their Blueberry farm had several thousand plants at one time but they were ready for a change in life and were selling the property and getting out of the blueberry business.

Blueberry farm

Blueberry plants take several years before they produce optimum amounts of fruit.   The 3 small plants I purchased last year only produced a few berries last season so it will be nice to have a good harvest of blueberries this year.  We eat several cups of blueberries almost every day.   Blueberries also need bees for pollination which makes having these at The Bee Farm so convenient.   Another synergistic  benefit of having blueberry plants is the effect on the flavor of our honey.  Blueberry pollen makes absolutely delicious honey !

Ready to unload the Blueberry plants

Blueberry plants in their new home

The plants were placed on weed cloth in a corner of the yard where there's plenty of sun.  They were also added to the irrigation system to automatically be watered every day.  However it's important you don't over water them so a controlled drip system was employed.

Automatic irrigation of the blueberry plants

Making Plumeria plants

One of the easiest plants to grow is what I think of as a classical Hawaiian plant.  One that is used to make the lais that people wear.  The plant's name is Plumaria, also know as a Frangipani.  This plant thrives in subtropical climates and produces a delicious smelling flower.  Absolutely beautiful.  We have many of these plants around our home and they were getting too big so it was time to prune and turn the cuttings into new plants.  I ended up with about 50 cuttings which will soon become a full size Plumaria plants.   Some of the plants I had at home were well over 6 feet tall.

 

Moringa Harvest

Our Moringa trees have been growing like crazy and we've been harvesting the leaves for their nutritional values.  Every day we add dried moringa to our morning smoothies.  It's not what I would call delicious but more of an earthy taste that's good for you.  Moringa is one of those miracle plants that are very nutritious and widely used in other parts of the world.  I believe the entire plant is edible and very resistant to drought and insects.

Moringa being washed

Drying the Moringa leaves

From Wikipedia: It is a fast-growing, drought-resistant tree, native to the southern foothills of the Himalayas in northwestern India, and widely cultivated in tropical and subtropical areas where its young seed pods and leaves are used as vegetables. It can also be used for water purification and hand washing, and is sometimes used in herbal medicine.

Nutritional value per 100 g (3.5 oz)
Energy	64 kcal (270 kJ)
Carbohydrates	8.28 g
Dietary fiber	2.0 g
Fat	1.40 g
Protein	9.40 g
Vitamins
Vitamin A equiv.	(47%) 378 μg
Thiamine (B1)	(22%) 0.257 mg
Riboflavin (B2)	(55%) 0.660 mg
Niacin (B3)	(15%) 2.220 mg
Pantothenic acid (B5)	(3%) 0.125 mg
Vitamin B6	(92%) 1.200 mg
Folate (B9)	(10%) 40 μg
Vitamin C	(62%) 51.7 mg
Minerals
Calcium	(19%) 185 mg
Iron	(31%) 4.00 mg
Magnesium	(41%) 147 mg
Manganese	(17%) 0.36 mg
Phosphorus	(16%) 112 mg
Potassium	(7%) 337 mg
Sodium	(1%) 9 mg
Zinc	(6%) 0.6 mg

The leaves are the most nutritious part of the plant, being a significant source of B vitamins, vitamin C, provitamin A as beta-carotene, vitamin K, manganese, and protein, among other essential nutrients. When compared with common foods particularly high in certain nutrients per 100 g fresh weight, cooked moringa leaves are considerable sources of these same nutrients. Some of the calcium in moringa leaves is bound as crystals of calcium oxalate though at levels 1/25th to 1/45th of that found in spinach, which is a negligible amount.
The leaves are cooked and used like spinach and are commonly dried and crushed into a powder used in soups and sauces.

Drumsticks

drumstick

The immature seed pods, called "drumsticks", are commonly consumed in South Asia. They are prepared by parboiling, and cooked in a curry until soft. The seed pods/fruits, even when cooked by boiling, remain particularly high in vitamin C (which may be degraded variably by cooking) and are also a good source of dietary fiber, potassium, magnesium, and manganese.

Florida Bee Farm ... AND Nursery

Last week a representative from The Florida Department of Agriculture inspected and certified the Florida Bee Farm which means we're officially a legal nursery that can grow plants and legally sell them.   

Not completely sure where this is going but the direction we're heading is interesting and might be fun.  My nephew is also interested in growing things ... especially peppers and he will be working with us too.  It's nice seeing young people passionate about gardening.  The new greenhouse setup seems to be working well which means we should have plenty of healthy seedlings growing into healthy plants soon.   At least that's the plan.

Last week I found an ad on Craigslist from a professional landscape company that was giving away a thousand plant pots of various sizes so I completely loaded the truck bed full of free pots.  It's amazing how many free resources are available.  Yesterday the Bee farm received about 4 yards of free mulch from the county which was loaded by them into my truck.  Unfortunately it wasn't very good quality mulch, especially not the type I would put around my plants.  However it did work well for using in the walkways around the planting areas.  

Redoing our Florida Greenhouse

The last hastily constructed Florida Greenhouse that was built did a decent job starting seeds and protecting them during the heavy relentless rainy weather.  However it really wasn't very efficient and didn't get enough sun.  As I'm going to be planting many plants from seed in the future it was time to construct a better structure that will make planting from seed more efficient.

Testing the seedling sprinklers

After considering several designs, my son came out and came up with the best solution.  Working together, we got 90% of the structure up in a little more than an hour.  The final framing and building a plant bench I completed the next day.  Additionally I created an automated irrigation system to control the moisture the seedlings get on a daily basis.  Because it gets pretty warm in the sun and you don't want to skip a day of watering if you can't get to it for some reason.  Automatic watering is the key to successful gardening I'm convinced.  Last year I often spent several hours a day watering and even then it just wasn't consistent enough.  Consistency is important.  You go out of town and skip a few days your garden will look terrible if it doesn't rain.

Last month many seeds were planted and they are all doing very well.  We planted a raised bed cucumber, bean and pumpkin section that was started with seeds and it's being watered daily with an automated watering system.  So far so good.

Florida Greenhouse (Cukes, Pumpkins & Beans on the right)

Seedlings checking out their new temporary home

Pure bliss

The Bee Farm is like a full time job for me.  One that I get a great deal of satisfaction from.  The to do lists are never ending and a lot of triage goes into the mix to determine which tasks get priority.  And of course my attention deficit disorder (ADD) is always kicking in throughout the day to pick off other less important tasks.  Oh and this will be my official excuse why I haven't blogged much lately.  The ole too busy excuse.  Hopefully there will be more time in the future for blogging because it's enjoyable going back in time to see how things progressed.

So the other day when I went out in the late afternoon to get a few things done at the Bee Farm.  Then, I found a nice spot in the shade back by the butterfly and bee garden and just relaxed.  Taking in the butterflies and bees of all types enjoying the garden flowers.  Very relaxing, almost like meditation when your mind is calm and focused on the flowers, butterflies and bees.  And then the most delicious smell in the world started wafting my way.  The fragrance of wild honey / nectar from the hives.  It's my favorite fragrance of all and it's hard to describe.  It's heavenly.  With a slight breeze blowing every so often that wonderful fragrance would put a smile on my face.  So very grateful for all of it.  Living life in gratitude is one of the best ways to achieve happiness and internal peace.  It's so easy yet so many people struggle to find it.

Here are the views from where I took in the Bee Farm in this moment.

View in front of me

View to the left

View to my right

To top it all off, the morning was spent walking the beaches of the Gulf of Mexico and swimming with my beautiful wife.  Talk about a perfect day.  Just one of many reasons I often refer to myself as the "lucky guy".

Black Widow spiders and Honey Bees

Recently while browsing several beekeeper facebook groups I noticed several beekeepers mention finding Black Widow spiders hanging out by their hives.  In particular, underneath the hives.  This caught my attention at the time because several times in the last year I found Black Widows nesting underneath two of our hives.  One of them had a poor unfortunate honeybee wrapped up in it's web.

And then during the last inspection one was discovered above the inner hive cover under the top cover.  Safe in a screened in area protected from the bees but hidden in a sneaky place where it could possibly snare a curious bee that managed to sneak under the hive cover.  Needless to say this spider is no more and the hive is safe again.

But still it's a little disturbing. I don't like spiders to begin with and Black Widows are my least favorite.  Another good reason to wear heavy gloves while handling the hives.

Gentle Honey Bees again

Yesterday was hive inspection day and the influence of the new queens was quite apparent.  The bees are once again a joy to be around and are quite patient and gentle. 

Back in July when I opened up the hives it was quite chaotic with my bad attitude bees.  After doing inspections at least 50-100 stingers would be embedded in my gloves.  The bees would follow and harass at quite a distance.  Just working in the garden or even pulling into the bee yard would bring out the bully guard bees looking for trouble.   Thankfully, that has completely changed with the re-queening.

Now I can work in the gardens without concern and opening up the hives is a calming almost spiritual experience once again.  All 5 hives have plenty of new brood and seem to be thriving.  It looks like they've been dipping into their honey and nectar reserves but the fall nectar flow will be starting any day now so the supers should be filling up with honey again.  No stingers in the gloves, no pelting of bees against the veil and guard bees quickly lose interest when you walk away.  This whole cycle of passive to aggressive to passive was quite an informative lesson in understanding bee behavior.  The aggressive behavior was a combination of several factors.  The summer heat, bees protecting their honey, animals trying to breach the hive, and being queenless will ramp up a colony's apprehension level.  But I think the primary reason for (extreme) aggressiveness is when the a queen mates with an africanized drone to start producing brood (baby bees) with those genes.   My hives have experienced all the above mentioned factors which makes the Bee Farm more prepared for the future.   And as in most lessons, experiencing them firsthand is much better than reading about it in a book or online.   The first year of beekeeping is the toughest they say.  And the most educational.

Mini Greenhouse

This is the time of year in Florida where you should already have your seeds planted to get ready for the fall growing season.  Last year I tried growing various plants from seeds with mixed success and many lessons were learned the hard way (of course).

What I learned is the seeds need a place to grow where they won't get too much moisture and will get enough sunlight but not so much that it roasts them.  One option that was used put plastic covers over the containers with seedlings.  It worked somewhat ok but turn your back on this setup for a moment and you'll find cooked seedlings or seedlings covered in mold.  What I've been considering for some time is to build a miniature greenhouse type structure.  Something that will allow sunlight and also protect the seedlings from rainstorms.  A structure that's well ventilated but one that can be closed in somewhat during any cold spells that we may get in the winter.  Also the structure had to be made with all the pieces of lumber and scrap wood I had laying around the beefarm.

Mini Greenhouse

Happy seedlings

After considering dozens of designs, I ruled out a free standing structure because I didn't have enough 2x4's for that.  I could have driven to the store and picked up a couple but I wanted to get this project rolling.  And by attaching the structure to the shed, it required less lumber as it was able to use the shed for one side.  Plus the shed sheltered it from wind.  The final greenhouse came out better than I imagined and works great.  The only regret is I didn't make it 3" higher because I keep banging my head when I go in and out.  Oh well.

Greenhouse made from recycled materials

Everything is growing like mad on the BeeFarm.  Seedlings are starting out nice, Okra is over 5' tall and producing quite a bit of okra.  Moringa trees have skyrocketed so we can start harvesting Moringa.  Citrus trees are doing well and a new group of wildflowers are blooming in the Bee and Butterfly Garden. 

Bee and Butterfly Garden

Oranges

Okra growing like crazy

Papaya trees are starting to settle down after the transplant