Regen Farms has Sea Minerals to enrich the soil

Sea Minerals
Sea Minerals

The shipment of sea minerals showed up yesterday. Today I spread some out at the garden area at The farm. I was told it is best to dissolve it in water and spray it this time of year but it was raining so I threw it out.

The idea is sea water has a good mix of all the minerals. The water is evaporated and the salt removed ,along with another element, and you are left with a lot of minerals.

The plan is to first use them on the Swales and plants we planted to help the nutrient density then on the grass areas.

They recommend a 200 gallon tank to mix and spray from. I doubt I get anything g that large unless I can borrow or rent one.

Mixing a sea mineral solution with biochar sounds like a winning solution. Adding molasses and microbes and maybe some comfrey or compost tea should help as well.

Check the search engines and youtube for sea mineral information. Sounded like a great fertilizer to me.

Some August updates

Just a few days ago I thought I should order some plantain.  Probably because of the mosquitos that like me.  When I saw photos of it I went out side because I swore I saw some growing.
Looks like I have some at the new homestead.  Anyone think this is not Narrow Leaf Plantain?

The long leaf with lines running down it

Is this narrow leaf plantain
Is this narrow leaf plantain

The flower (made me rather certain that it is plantain)

Narrow leaf plaintain flower
Narrow leaf plaintain flower

The long leaf plantain plant.

Long Leaf Plantain
Long Leaf Plantain

Other updates –

Hazel Nut Bushes
I noticed how dry the soil was around the hazel nuts that were planted this year so I added them to the drip irrigation of the 2013 food forest.  Since I premade the 1/4 inch micro tubing pieces with dripper and connector the process for 20 plus bushes went rather quickly.  Both at the farm and the home stead I’ve been surprised by seeing plants that are totally leafed out drop all their leaves.  I then think they are dead only to find a new shoot coming up most of the time.  The “champion” plant at the home stead was about 18 inches tall and died back to the ground and has a new stem coming up now.

Bees
The bee hive now has a ‘honey super’ on it.  I was told that once the bees fill in a second box that I could put a honey super on the hive for a while.  The honey super is for honey for us.  To get only honey on these smaller frames I put a queen excluder in between the top box and the super.  I think I’m supposed to remove it by the end of the month to make sure the bees have plenty of honey for the winter.  I’m tempted to buy some hives with bees for the farm.  Originally I didn’t think there would be enough flowers out here for them but now that I see all the flowers I realize they would do great out here.  So at some level I see the farm producing honey.  Oh seeing pallets of bees in an empty field the other day gave me even more confidence in having bees at the farm.

Condensation
I was a bit surprised to see so much condensation at the home stead a few mornings in a row.  As I learned in the Permaculture PDC, condensation can add a significant amount to total condensation for an area.  These berry leaves has the water droplets around the edges.

Condensation on the edge of the leaves
Condensation on the edge of the leaves

Sun Flowers
The sun flowers are in full bloom.  Bumblebees, small bees and some other kind of bugs are enjoying them.

Sunflowers in full bloom on the 2014 swale
Sunflowers in full bloom on the 2014 swale
Two large sunflowers on the 2014 swale
Two large sunflowers on the 2014 swale
Bright black oil sunflower on the swale at RegenFarms
Bright black oil sunflower on the swale at RegenFarms

Other Flowers
Other flower seeds were also thrown on the swales along with some vegetables.

Wild flowers planted as cover crop on the 2014 food forest swale
Wild flowers planted as cover crop on the 2014 food forest swale

Goji berries at RegenFarms.  Mature but small goji bare root plants were planted this spring and this one is already producing fruit.  Probably 10 so far.

Goji berries at RegenFarms
Goji berries at RegenFarms

 

Vegetable on the food forest swale, we seeded the swale with some vegetables as well as clovers, wild flowers and sunflowers.

Vegetable on the swale
Vegetable on the swale

And I now know what a split head of cabbage looks like.

Split cabbage vs not split cabbage
Split cabbage vs. not split cabbage

I found some more wood for the other half of the 2014 swale that is above the 2nd food forest.  Hopefully I can get about twice this much before covering it up as it becomes part of the swale.

wood base for the hugel swale
I brought a bit more wood out for the rest of the swale for the 2014 Food Forest

 

Adding Honey Super Bee Update Colorado

Yesterday the 10th of August I added a honey super to the bee hive. The honey super is used to collect honey. It should only have honey placed inside of it because the queen been can not get to it since I added a queen excluder between the honey super and the hive.

I only put five frames inside the honey super instead of all ten. Was this a mistake?  Would the bees like it better if it was all filled in with 10 frames instead of 5?  I’m not sure.

I added the honey super after seeing that the bees had filled most all of the 2nd hive box I added a few weeks ago.  I was told that the bees fill the outside frames last so I pulled one of those out to make sure they had filled it.  It looked filled to me!

This morning I headed downstairs to get the camera I used to film the adding of the honey super and I found a bee on top of the bee hive separator piece I removed. Then I moved my bee veil thinking I’d put it on and take the bee back to the hive when I discovered another bee. I’m not sure how to tell how old a bee is but one looked rather small and neither of them flew. I’m assuming they were young. So I took them out side on top of the veil. By this time they had made contact with each other. I sat them by the hive. When I came back several minutes later I realized they were still there so I placed them inside the honey super so as they are back in the hive.

Here is a great BBC special on bees. I learned a lot like how bees have different jobs as they age with gathering nectar and pollen being their last job.