Video: Urban Beekeeping: Ins and Outs - Dos and Don'ts - Webinar

I "atttended" this excellent webinar on urban beekeeping hosted by Shane of Brushy Mountain Bee Farm on Sunday and wanted to share it with all of you. It has some excellent advice for those who might want to start keeping bees in an urban environment, including how to deal with fearful neighbors, finding a good place for your hives and why it is important to raise bees in places both urban and rural.

Watch Urban Beekeeping Webinar - iPod Ready Video

LIVE from the Garden - June 9, 2007

by Douglas E. Welch, agn@welchwrite.com
Reader/Listener Line - 818-804-5049

Links mentioned in this podcast:

The Lavender Fields - Photos
Animalbytes with Keri Dearborn
Squarefoot Gardening with Andy Helsby
A Gardener's Notebook Pictures on Flickr
A Gardener's Notebook Photo Sharing Group on Flickr

Listen to the Podcast

If first link does not play, try this one.



Theme Music: The One by The Woodshedders, aka the Hot Club of West Virginia, courtesy of the PodSafe Music Network



I used one of my photos from our trip to The Lavender Fields to create these lavender themed products -- available from from CafePress.com

Support A Gardener's Notebook:

Join AGN Mailing List | iTunes Review | Digg.com | Podcast Alley | Call the Reader/Listener Line @ 206-338-5832

Technorati Tags: garden, gardening, hobby, california, grow, build, make, DIY, howto, how-to, outdoors, losangeles, 91411

Finally, a little (or a lot of) rain...

We awoke to this on the radar this morning and, as I type, rains is coming down. We haven't quite got to the intense rain (marked in yellow), but it looks like it is finally going to make it here. I have watched several storms pass to the north of us with no measurable rain at all, so I am happy to see that this one looks as if it will finally give us a little relief.

Technorati Tags: garden, gardening, hobby, california, grow, losangeles, weather

Event: Free trees in Sherman Oaks this Saturday - April 21

The gang over at LAist clued us in to this event. If you have a need for a tree in your landscaping, be sure to stop by.

---

Million Trees program comes to Sherman Oaks

Contributed by: GM Communications on 4/13/2007

What: The Fashion Square Car Wash, in association with the Million Trees program, will give away free trees to the public from 8 a.m.-2 p.m. on Saturday, April 21, at the car wash.

The program, created by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, distributes trees to all areas of the city. People who pick up a five-gallon tree are asked to plant the tree on their home or business property.

No car wash sale is required to participate in the program. The car wash plans to give away 200 trees during the Saturday program.

Where: Fashion Square Car Wash, 4625 Woodman Ave., Sherman Oaks

When: 8 a.m.- 2 p.m.

Event Dates: This event takes place on 4/21/2007.

Technorati Tags: garden, gardening, hobby, california, grow, outdoors, events, losangeles

10-Minute Gardener Update

I took my own advice and talked a couple of 10-minute projects today.

First, I swept the leaves from one portion of the driveway area. The wind piles up the leaves in this particular sector, so this had a lot of effect for fairly little effort. I am still dealing with a lot of leaf litter throughout the garden, but the next step is probably a complete "blow" of the garden using the electric leaf blower. This takes a but more time and energy on my part, though.

Second, I repaired the geranium pot that hangs from the eaves of the front porch. A few weeks ago, one of its rope supports gave way and it had been sitting on the stoop since then. A little rope from the leftovers in the garage, though, and I had it back in its rightful position in about 10 minutes.

Both of these projects are the perfect type for the 10-Minute Gardener. They were discrete little actions that needed doing -- that I could complete in about 10 minutes. Tomorrow, I need to do the same thing -- and the next, and the next and the next.

Previously in the 10-Minute Gardener Series

Removing Friction
Today's 10 Minutes in the Garden
Introduction

Technorati Tags: garden, hobby, california, grow, build, DIY, outdoors, losangeles, gardener

Elsewhere Online: How to Make a Garden Feel Welcoming

I received in this excellent article today as part of the Fine Gardening newsletter. It has the warm feeling of someone giving you a tour of their garden, something I always love.

Great ideas, too.

How to Make a Garden Feel Welcoming by Gordon Hayward

Use furnishings to create familiarity, invite lingering, and give a sense of coherence

Objects and structures can make a garden feel inviting and personal. A weathered birdbath (B on Site plan) passed on from the author's grandmother enhances a hosta bed.

Every time I walk past the 75-year-old birdbath in our garden here in southern Vermont, I recall when I first saw that cast-stone ornament as a boy in my late grandmother's garden near Oyster Bay, Long Island. It sat in the center of a boxwood-edged rose garden that was crisscrossed with crushed-oyster-shell paths. While visitors to our garden don't know what associations I hold with that birdbath, they can tell that it's old, that it anchors the broad curve of a hosta bed, and that birds do surely visit it. Objects such as this, rife with history and meaning, make our garden feel personal, anchored, and peaceful.

(Continues)

(Via Fine Gardening.)

Technorati Tags: garden, gardening, hobby, grow, build, make, DIY, howto, how-to, outdoors

Don't let your garden water go down the drain....

LA Frog makes note of one of my pet peeves, wasted water in our desert environment and provides a bit of the history of Los Angeles and its water.

I, too, hate when I see sprinklers watering sidewalks and driveways, and watching all that liquid gold run down the street into the nearest storm drain. This is one reason why, when we bought our house 10 years ago, I converted 95% of the irrigation systems to soaker hoses and drip systems. Both if these put the water right where it is needed. This also helps to reduce weed growth, since paths and such receive no water, expect from our infrequent rains.

I only have one traditional sprinkler system -- an old set of retrofitted lawn sprinklers in the front garden. We run it as infrequently as possible and most of the plants there mainly azaleas -- have naturalized enough to not need much supplemental watering.

If only I could convince others to get rid of their lawns and the water they require, we would all be better off.

California Water Wars When I drive through residential neighborhoods, and I see water flushing the streets from the garden hosing systems, I sometimes wonder if people even remember that the true nature of Los Angeles is to be a dry, desert land. And that bringing water to the city came at stupendous costs.

It's impossible to summarize the history of the Los Angeles aqueduct -- and the subsequent water wars -- in a

(Via LA Frog.)

Technorati Tags: garden, gardening, california, grow, outdoors, losangeles, urban, learning, education, water

Review: Flower Confidential by Amy Stewart

How much thought do you give to those flowers you pass in the grocery store aisle? Do you know where your Valentine's Day roses came from or how they got to you? For most of us, we don't know, nor rather care, but thankfully author, Amy Stewart does.

In Flower Confidential (Algonquin Books, 2007), Stewart takes us deep inside the huge and profitable business of flowers. From a lily grower in the American Northwest, to the rose fields of Ecuador she introduces us to the people, places and plants that travel all over the world to supply our human need for colorful and almost too perfect flowers.

Flower Confidential is a fun romp around the world that also holds some deep concerns. The treatment of the workers in the fields and greenhouses is an on-going issue no matter where the author visits. She also discusses how the need for a "perfect" flower that travels well and lasts long in the vase has removed their scent. It also puts us in danger of producing yet another industry focused on lowest-common denominator, where each flower looks begins to look much like every other flower.

Stewart's writing takes us along on her travels, describing people and plants alike in a visual style that gives us an understanding of who they are and what they are trying to accomplish. We feel the sense of amazement as she visits the Miami airport center where the majority of flowers enter the US. I particularly felt her desire to scoop up armloads of flowers or save those consigned to the compost heaps.

Immerse yourself in the little-known of flowers and the people who grow them. You will develop a new-found respect for what both suffer to provide that perfect arrangement for your dining room table.

Highly Recommended

Link: Flower Confidential:The Good, the Bad, and the Beautiful in the Business of Flowers

Tags: garden gardening gardener flowers flowers books read toread business

What I'm Reading...

Readymade is from the folks over at Readymade magazine, a great monthly available via subscription or on the newstand.



Technorati Tags: garden, gardening, grow, build, make, DIY, howto, how-to, creativity, outdoors, hints, tips, books, learning, education, read, reading, business

Elsewhere Online: Koreatown Sidewalk Garden

A little garden patch in the midst of urban LA. Check it out!

Thanks to Annika for pointing it out.

Koreatown Sidewalk Garden

Annika Barranti:

Today while I was out walking with the baby I came upon this unexpected garden at Kingsley and 5th. Three more photos behind the cut.

Continued reading Koreatown Sidewalk Garden...

(Continues on original site)

(Via Blogging.LA.)

Technorati Tags: garden, gardening, hobby, california, grow, make, DIY, outdoors, losangeles

Cold weather, frost damage, and the 10-Minute Gardener Introduction

by Douglas E. Welch, agn@welchwrite.com
Reader/Listener Line - 206-338-5832

Listen to the Podcast

Theme Music: The One by The Woodshedders, aka the Hot Club of West Virginia, courtesy of the PodSafe Music Network



Support A Gardener's Notebook:

Join AGN Mailing List | iTunes Review | Digg.com | Podcast Alley | Call the Reader/Listener Line @ 206-338-5832

Technorati Tags: garden, gardening, hobby, california, grow, build, make, DIY, howto, how-to, outdoors, losangeles, 91411

Elsewhere Online: Reviewing Flower Confidential

Ok, Susan at Garden Rant caught my interest with this review of Flower Confidential. Making my request from the library right now.

Read her entire review using the link below.

Reviewing Flower Confidential

...READ IT - IT'S EVEN BETTER THAN YOU THINK...

Read the entire review at Garden Rant

(Via Garden Rant.)

Technorati Tags: garden, gardening, hobby, grow, make, books