JOIN US TUESDAY FOR A MASON BEEN CLASS

AT OUR BARN - 4PM - 5PM

LEARN ALL ABOUT ENJOYING AND KEEPING MASON BEES
APRIL 3, 2012 - FREE MASON BEE CLASS
BY DARREN GORDON OF HOUSE OF BEES


Please be our guest for an hour long talk on the orchard mason bee and learn how you can raise these in your own backyard or on your balcony.

Darren Gordon, the man behind House of Bees, is speaking at Abundantly Green's farm. We are one of the places that Darren places his bees so that they can safely reproduce away from insecticides and in sheltered areas. 

Darren will bring mason bees, supplies, and equipment that you can buy to raise mason bees at your home.

The orchard mason bee (Osmia lignaria) is a gentle beneficial insect that pollinates fruit trees and other early blooming flowers. While a true bee, it is not a honey bee. It does not live in a hive, preferring a single occupancy home. The past two cold, wet springs were hard on our mason bees, and this year you have an opportunity to help restore the population while they pollinate your fruit trees, spring flowers, and garden.

The next few weeks is when you can make the most positive impact on mason bees.

This will be in front of our barn. If it rains we will have tents.

TODAY, TUESDAY, Remember your milk and veggies!

NEXT WEEK — PUT THIS ON YOUR CALENDAR

LEARN ALL ABOUT ENJOYING AND KEEPING MASON BEES
APRIL 3, 2012 - FREE MASON BEE CLASS
BY DARREN GORDON OF HOUSE OF BEES
AT ABUNDANTLY GREEN - 4PM - 5PM

Please be our guest for an hour long talk on the orchard mason bee and learn how you can raise these in your own backyard or on your balcony.
Darren Gordon, the man behind House of Bees, is speaking at Abundantly Green's farm. We are one of the places that Darren places his bees so that they can safely reproduce away from insecticides and in sheltered areas.

The orchard mason bee (Osmia lignaria) is a gentle beneficial insect that pollinates fruit trees and other early blooming flowers. While a true bee, it is not a honey bee. It does not live in a hive, preferring a single occupancy home. The past two cold, wet springs were hard on our mason bees, and this year you have an opportunity to help restore the population while they pollinate your fruit trees, spring flowers, and garden.

The next few weeks is when you can make the most positive impact on mason bees.

This will be in front of our barn. If it rains we will have tents.

Join Abundantly Green on Saturday March 24th from 10:00 a.m. until 6 p.m. (18:00) for the Kitsap 99% Spring Gathering. It will be at the Port Gamble S'Klallam Tribal Center, Little Boston, WA 31912 Little Boston Road NE, Kingston, WA 98346.

Abundantly Green is one of the sponsors. We will have a table full of produce that you can buy, plus CSA membership available.

Our friends at Kitsap 99% wrote: This will be a full day of sharing. The Occupy Movement campsites are mostly quiet for the winter. Now is a time for building our communities and making plans for the spring. You KNOW it's going to be a spring to remember!

Let's bring everyone together to learn what this Movement means to us here in Kitsap County.

We know very little about the movement, but we know some of the people involved and trust them. Come and join us in learning more. It will be great fun.

The farm has been busy all month. Between storms, we are preparing the garden for the spring planting. In some cases this means removing last year’s refuse, pulling up the plastic mulch and drip tape and reforming the beds. The areas between the beds are planted with green “manure,” yet another name for cover crop. We use a low growing Dutch white clover. Clover adds nitrogen into the soil, and other nutrients. We lightly till this into the soil and reform the beds. However, not all beds are reformed each year. We rotate our crops for good soil health, so where we can reuse a bed and the plastic mulch, we do. Some crops have a longer harvest span. We will be leaving the collards and the kale through the spring, at least. As we ease into spring, both are growing new leaves that are tender and tasty.

The high tunnel continues to produce like a champ. Two beds of fennel are nearing maturity. Chefs use all of the fennel plant. The bulb has a rich taste and is often used shredded into salads, stir fry, soups, or as an accent with meats. The flavor is like anise or licorice. I tend to use it in the same way every time I cook it, so I will be looking for new ways to use it. The fronds (stems and leaves) are used as a flavoring in or a garnish with many soups. I particularly like it a garnish with tomato soup and cream soups. They also add a bright tang of flavor to salads. Finely chopped, they are the nearly invisible ingredient. Lettuce burst onto the scene, and there will be lots of it in the coming weeks to add fennel. The part of the fennel plant that we will not have is the seed. None of our fennel grows to seed.
The braising greens send up new growth every time they are cut. Kelly cuts them on Tuesday and by Friday they are half-way regrown. The tatsoi and choi have nearly run their course, but the corn mâche (pronounced mosh, I’m told), supposedly a great winter crop has finally reached the height that it can be harvested. I’m not sure if it will regrow. It’s a new crop for us and has not grown as we read it would. I used corn mâche in a wonderful duck and chicken egg frittata this week. To me, it has a light flavor reminiscent of the scent of corn husks. I added it just before the cheese I melt on top. In the time the cheese melted, about three minutes, and mâche had lightly cooked. Delicious!

We have lots of our winter-over potatoes coming out the ground. I cooked three large Yukon Golds last night and thought they would be more like the older potatoes like you get at the grocery store, so I set my timer for 20 minutes and forgot them. I was making smashed potatoes, but they were more like mashed potatoes. I am thinking of peeling them (which I don’t do since the most nutritious part is just under the skin) and making whipped potatoes. Every mouthful of these over-wintered potatoes is fresh and delicious.

We planted spring potatoes in January, so I am wondering how they will be. We will soon be planting our summer and fall seasons of potatoes to be harvested starting in July.

We are laying out the fields in the garden and will be telling you more about this as it happens.

It is a warm and sunny spring day after a skiff of snow overnight.

We have new chicks under one of the hens.

The first fennel harvest of the year started today.

We have duck, goose, and chicken eggs.

Potatoes keep coming out of the ground. The wintering over is working as we hoped!

Now that it is light over ten hours a day, the crops are growing, growing, growing.

We ordered the meat bird chicks Monday. They should arrive in three weeks. This means that we will have fresh fryers for you in mid to late May.