Womyn Hatfield

I remember my parents standard practice was to lay newspaper inbetween the veggie rows.  My dad then spread the grass clippings on top.  It was always moist and at the end of the season the newspaper was almost non-existant.  Want to go fishing?  Just roll the newspaper back and find tons of nightcrawlers - but toward end of summer it would all fall apart.

I thought my mom left the sections whole and it was a small town back then so maybe the newspaper layers weren't as thick as the one you found.  As with everything maybe moderation regarding thickness is important. 

Oh and this garden grew spectacular awesome veggies - glorious veggies.  The only thing I can see I'm doing different than my folks is I'm not using the newspaper grassclippings mix - my veggies have a long way to go.

@Blackdog.  This is the rose with the biggest hips.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/user/thederb720#p/u/9/Mg2mSrg4LAs[/youtube]

Pretty soon they'll ticket folks with pools and stock tanks for violating!

Awesome thanks!! 

Today I was driving past a local grocery store when I realized I was staring at tons of gorgeous rose hips!  I know they are best if they have a frost on them once but in my area they never last that long.  Between the grubs and the heat finding good ones after the frost is a needle in a pile of rose bush thorn type endeavor.

So getting ready to sort the mess out.  I wanted to make dried hips for tea and wanted to try out rose hip jelly.  So here are my questions. 

1.  I know some jelly recipes say just cook the whole thing and smoosh it up but I was hoping someone here could help me try to extract oil from the seeds.

2.  Is there a way to extract the oil without buying some electronic contraption?

3.  Any cool second uses I could do with the left over pulp from the jelly making?  Am guessing it should still be flavorful.  Probably not flavorful enough to dry for tea but, maybe, and maybe there are other ideas.  Maybe save and add to the next loaf of bread I make?  Ideas??

I inadvertently ensured that my neighbors will be nothing but thrilled to death at my project.  I left my property go wild for the last 2 years - just a bit of grass that gets mowed in the backyard but that has had clover welcomed into it (bees love that!).  So when I figure out what to do with this front yard monstrosity and it goes from weeds to 'purposeful chaos' they'll be delighted!!

I recall my local brewery (Ice Harbor Brewery) had to raise the price on some of the more hop intensive brews because prices skyrocketed last year.  Don't know what happened this year as I decided to spend more time around my budding property than around fellow Mug Club members.  Breweries of IHB's level want larger batches of hops that are consistent.  But if, like IHB, they have a brewing shop I'd bet they'd sell everything you were willing to give up.  Me of course once I get hops going I'll be keeping every ounce for my own beer.

Russian Olive pics I promised.

First picture is a neighboring pasture that has been allowed to go wild.  The trees tend to grow somewhat close to my fenceline.  My pasture irrigation doesn't spray all the way over the fence but they clearly appreciate the extra they can get through the root zone.  Also example of wild form structure.

Second picture is of one that has been pruned up off the ground into tree shape and has been consistently irrigated, in fact over irrigated as the neighbor literally sprinkles the grass in between the tree and my camera for a 24 hour period.  You can see it is big enough to provide good canopy for a chicken coop.  I have yet to see my chickens show the plant any interest.

I believe with irrigation they don't spread so fast because they are receiving everything they need.  Dryer the ground more likely you are to see them sucker.  Hence I am constantly ridding my pasture of them.  In our Shrub-Steppe 8-9" water a year climate they are definately an indicator of where water has run or where ground water can be found.  They did not exist here until after the area was lost to the Native Americans.  Before that the highest tree one found was the Greater Sage.       

@Saybian

The rule is move your hive 3 feet a day or 3 miles.  You go 4' or 1 mile and they will scent their flight paths and go back to where the hive was and often the colony dies.

Queens are very delicate so even careful brushing could have damaged her, she may not have even made the trip alive. But since you had brood it was ok cuz the the colony requeened for you.

There is no way to hang the brood frames down in between the top bars?  Must be a way.  If you could liberate a brood frame from the nuc of bees could you carefully cut it out and string it to a top bar? Get them building around it and they'll either make that brood comb a permanent attachment to the bar or it should at least last long enough for them to get more brood comb build next to it.

My queen has decided to have 4 frames of brood 2 in each of the bottom supers so I could remove one of those supers and start another hive.  One of the two will have the queen and the other will just make queen cells and requeen itself.  Seems like if you leave the one brood frame above and modify the other to fit on a top bar you'd have a similar situation.

Around here we usually only get I know of have the queen in it's own little house in the middle and all the bees in a screen sided box with a can of food in the middle.  It sounds like people using Warre's should avoid actual nucs with frames.