Elmer's Beesness

Pollinators are very important to agriculture. Currently in the United States, bees have been having problems with something called, "colony collapse." For some reason lots of bee keepers have been losing their bee hives to this disorder. There are several different speculative views (Including my own,) about why the bees are dying off. Until some specific studies can be done, most of the speculation is only good for bee keepers to keep a watchful eye out for odd things in the foraging radius that the beehives are kept.

One of the flowers I have added to my garden are sunflowers. I added these because they are like bee magnets. The sunflowers are over eight feet tall, and act as a billboard advertisements to local bees who may be a few houses away flying over six feet tall fences.

Sunflowers are relatively easy to grow and most of them seem to reproduce flowers throughout the summer. I see honey bees, bumble bees, and lots of other kinds of bee like insects. I also have parasitic wasps that are real beneficial to the garden because they lay their eggs and makes snacks of nematodes/grubs which turn into beetles that can lay waste to a good garden after hatching.

I speculate that genetically modified plants are causing colony collapse disorder in bee hives. The reason I think that is is something like this is that the disorder does not seem to be something that existed 30+ years ago.(I'm guessing) I have heard the idea that it could be radio waves from cell phones and Internet, but I think that the collapse disorder is more related to something biological. One of the reasons are that radio frequencies cover large wave like radius projections out from a transmission point. Not all hives are effected in a series of hives. I think bees get out and pollinate genetically modified crops and bring the genetically modified plant dust/pollen back to their colony and then it kills the colony like a pesticide. It's something on the nano-level that starves out the bee without the bee knowing it is happening. Maybe like the difference between eating real peanuts and peanut flavored Styrofoam peanuts.

I do have wasps around, but not in the garden and none of them have any interest in botanicals. Mud daubers, hornets, and the brown paper wasps sometimes frequent my yard, but i see more bees than anything else. I have a few bees I see every once in a while but I am not sure what flavor of bee they are at this point, and I have not captured any on virtual-film.

The other bee magnet in my garden is a vine called Passion Flower/Passion Fruit vine. The bees really are attracted to this vine. It comes up in my yard every year and I have to pull a lot of it to keep it from taking over my raised beds. It grows real fast and there are usually lots of flowers on this plant in mid summer that bees are working over. (I have seen both bumble bees and honey bees resting on this flower... just lounging around.) The fruit from this vine is like a mini crisp like cucumber... It's not something I get excited over, but it did produce fruit last year. It has not this year because it has been too hot for it. (I guess.)

This vine takes over trellises and fences so I get a nice spread of bee magnets from eight feet high to creeping across the ground and across the fence. To get the bees closer to my vegetables I have Borage and Basil herbs and I end up with enough bees to keep me out of the garden during peak daylight hours.

Global Warming and Me.

This is the Arkansas river in Wichita Kansas. It's been a little dry here but fishing along the banks of the river have never been better!

It's sort of like a Mind Freak magician trick, but it's not an illusion. (This photo is from 2009) It's been hot... 2011, has been a record breaking hot year. 111+degrees Fahrenheit. Wait till you see my garden photos!

 

This is a sculpture by Blackbear Bozin entitled, "Keeper of the Plains." This is about the location of where I made the snapshots of the Arkansas river (above.) This photo was created in 2009.  It's one of the sculptures in Kansas that is an icon of the city. 

 This is the view of what the fish see when there is water in the Arkansas river. 

This is a little further back showing you that the river really isn't that deep, but it would be deep enough to cover the top of my head by a few feet. (I'm over 6 feet tall.) I think that this is an very unique perspective of the sculpture that I have never seen before. It's almost like seeing it like it was new again.

From a distance things sometimes appear smaller than they actually are. I suppose Wichita, does not have to worry about the invasive Asian carp that is invading American waterways. 

Right here, I feel like that NRA bible guy spokesperson who was being chased by Yul Brynner in the mid 1950's Cecil B. DeMille flick.

 There are a lot of plants that sprang from the river after the water went on vacation. I am not sure what they are, but the city has (what few) employees (that they have not let go) out spraying chemicals to defoliate. When the water comes back they won't have to worry about the invasive Asian carp in Tulsa, Oklahoma either.

If anybody was wanting to know what grows well in dry river beds, some of these photos may help you if you know what you are looking at. (Zone 6a, semi wet-dry sand and silt growing medium.)

 I am surprised that sand and gravel companies are not down here raiding the river bottom.

 This is a a mini pond in the river that has guppies and mosquito larvae. I think this is a red dragonfly/damselfly.

This is about a mile up river bed, and the plants here started to look more desert-like.

 It's seemed more dry up here than down by the Bozin statue.

 The sand is starting to bleach out.

 "Oh look," the Kansas state flower growing amongst the weeds. This could be symbolic of something. 

There's an old Native American story about how the earth was formed on the back of a turtle. It's a long story of Genesis probably created long before the Epic of Gilgamesh was rolled out. ~Mother Earth falls from the sky and is drowning in a giant ocean. A giant turtle saves Mother Earth and the turtle pulls up soil from the ocean floor so that Mother Earth has something to sustain her self with, and grow things. Eventually, the Earth is formed and it rides upon the back of a sleeping giant turtle. Everything is okay until the land becomes too overpopulated with people. Digging up the earth, trashing the lands and waters and cutting down the trees. People make the giant turtle stir in his sleep. The earth shakes, the wind blows harder, and the water sloshes around. Subsequently, when the stress from the heat and weight of the world is too much to bare, the turtle will flip over to cool his back. 

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Estate Sale Finds

 It takes time, but you can collect some real neat things at estate sales. I've been on a real basket kick lately and I think it has to do with pattern or grids, but I am not too sure yet. Basketry is one of the oldest forms or art on Earth. They are all handmade and each basket comes from a practical need to carry or contain something. A fish basket is used for fish, a lobster cage is for catching lobsters, a minnow basket is for catching minnows...

 This is a mid 19th century mass-production Ginger Jar with a nice cherry blossom motif in nice celadon glaze. It's practically flawless and has a level of craft that is unmatched by today's utilitarian standard.

 This is a Chinese Fang ding. Also known as a Ding. It is about 18" tall and weighs about 30lbs to 40lbs. This solid bronze incense burner is so unique that I have yet to find another like it. The closest one I have found that that has a lot of the same characteristics is in the Phoenix Museum of Fine Art and it is a late 17th century artifact. My favorite part is the removable lid (below)

 This two piece cast bronze sculpture is one of my coolest finds ever. On top is a Fu dog tearing up a lotus flower riding n top of clouds, or fire, or wind, or abstracted water motif.  http://www.phxart.org/slideshow/index.html#/COL/72157606187498905/2671933700/

 I think this is from Paraguay. I am not too sure. It is difficult for me to know, but is is a nice ceramic sculpture.

 This is a ceramic oil lamp that has never been used. I really like the glaze on this one.

 This is a Tarahumara basket in front of two English candlestick holders from the early to mid 1800's. The candlestick holders have three stones in the base to add weight to the holders. Everything in the photo was made by hand.

 Detail of the cattle skull and wildflower themed motif.

 This is an extremely well made basket. This is a basket that is made in Mexico by an indigenous peoples tribe called, the Tarahumara. (The people who run 120 miles in two days in their bare feet.) I think this is made from pine needles.

Here is another one I just enjoy looking at.

This is Nigel and the first yield from the garden around the first week of May. Nigel sampled the radish leaves

Out of the bunch of radishes that I grew, there were a couple darker radishes that were so dark they were difficult to distinguish that the were more violet than black.

I replanted the black radishes so that they would seed out and I could see if I could grow black radishes. Subsequently, the radish tops died and new leaves grew and both radishes are getting ready to bloom. (I may be able to see if I have heirloom black radishes in the next month or two.) I ate a couple of the black radishes and they had a pleasant mild flavor to them. Sometimes the red ones can be as hot as the white icicle radishes, but these were not hot. The red ones seemed like they had more snap too them but the black radishes were really nice.

Nigel and Fiona look for beetles to bite.

Kittyscuro Nigel

This is Nigel.
Nigel is a biter.
Siegfried & Roy haven't a chance.
Nigel is a hungry Meezer
NOMINOMINOMINOMINOMINOM.

Pelargonium/Geranium

This is a geranium that occupied a window of my art studio.  It received little attention, water, and only the heat from the sun though a West facing window. It has a deep dark purple flower that seems to be hard to find. I like the way it spills out of the container. I might try to make cuttings this year.

Mosaic Virus and a Practical Treatment

One of the other local nurseries I go to in Wichita, Kansas is a place called Dutch's Greenhouse. I like this place because of the variety of plants that I can choose from. I bought a few Heirloom plants from Dutch's that I had not seen before including a tomato plant that was supposed to get red and green stripes. (It was called the 4th of July or something along that theme.) It started out okay, but then I started to notice that the stems became thin and the leaves curled and looked really distorted.

 (Click the photos for a larger view.) I am not sure that this virus was imported from Dutch's, but I was watching my other plants vigilantly as to see if any other plant had abnormal growth. None of my other plants had this problem and when I went to Google image search tomato viruses and diseases, the virus that closest resembles my tomato plant pictures was the Cucumber Mosaic Virus. Other than not having a way to fix this problem, I watched the plant for a few days and then decided that it would be best to pull it and send it to the closest public landfill. (Mosaic Virus isn't always killed off in a compost pile unless it reaches temperatures of 160 degrees Fahrenheit or above.) I have over 30 tomato plants this year because I am trying a lot of Heirlooms. It seemed that the most reasonable thing to do was to get rid of the problem before it became a problem to the other plants. There are a number of things that may have cause the leave to do this other than the virus including cooler weather. (I think.) However, this was the only tomato plant to look like this so it is possible that the plant had a virus.

The bottom leaves appeared normal and the spots were from the cooler weather (I think.) It totally threw me when the top started to grow out ratty. My whole garden this year has been kick started with Ammonium Sulphate 21-0-0. I used light applications of this about once every two weeks. This is type of salt and it's probably not the best fertilizer to put on your vegetables in heavy concentrations. I usually use it in my compost to break leaves down faster. I was going to use Ammonium Nitrate 34-0-0 (Which is about the next best thing to having access to Chanel No. 82-0-0, AKA-Nh3, Anhydrous Ammonia.) However, I have seen how Ammonium Nitrate can burn spots on lawns, so I opted for the lesser and gradually built up the soil applications every two weeks. Other than buying 13-13-13/17-17-17 I had calcianated lime and bone meal that I added deeper in the soil so that the plants could tap some calcium and at least some 0-10-0 to get some blossoms cranking when the roots tapped it.

*Dutch's Greenhouse doesn't have a website so I can't link it.

In-A-Gadda-Da-Elmer

It was exciting for gardening this year. I picked up my first two tomato plants from Johnson's Gardens the first day their tomato plants arrived. I was told that it was way too early to plant tomato plants and that the first frost would kill them. I bought a couple of solid hardened tomato hybrids called Jet Star. This particular indeterminate variety for South Eastern Kansas grows great and is resistant to a lot of tomato diseases. Usually, it takes about a month and a half for Jet Star to start cranking out fruit. (These Jet Star photos were taken on May 28th of 2011.)

http://www.johnsonsgarden.com/ 
I was worried at first that I may have planted too early. I had some blighted looking leaves, but I knew that the cool weather had caused a little leaf yellowing and leaf curl. Other than that, the Jet Star tomato plants are my oldest plants in the entire garden and they are just starting to reach about three feet tall. (Almost one meter.) My beds are filled practically with straight compost, but I have added other soils for just to fill to beef up the bed. I've didn't have much luck with my garden last year because of the heavy rains and lots of overcast cool days. A lot of my tomato plants developed brown spots on the leaves and blossom end rot. I tried some permaculture techniques and compost tea, and aerated compost tea and it just did not yield any results that I could notice. So I went back to what I think I know.

Elmer's Fantastic Garden

This is one of my raised planters I photographed in bug vision. I have ornamental oregano, onions, 1 Juliet tomato plant, lemon grass, 1 Celebrity tomato plant, and a California Wonder bell pepper plant packed into one picture. I'm in Zone 6a and I has an early start planting because of great weather. I started planting around the first week of April. Most of my beds are raised and I have windows so while the plants were smaller, the windows made improvised cold frames. It's the end of May and I already have tomato vines/bushes that are over three feet tall and have tomatoes growing on them.