Community #Gardens Rock!

I've started on a plot at a community garden this fall, so the plot will be ready next spring. Luckily, there were some vacancies this year so I could start int he fall--normally you buy the plot in February and you are stuck with what you get. Since the plot I took was empty, we get free time to plan things out.

Pics are below of our progress so far: keyhole beds, tearing out the Jerusalem artichokes that had taken over, and spreading out leaves and local sheep manure to rot over the winter.

And what's news without a good resource? The American Community Garden Association has lots of info, including how to find gardens close to you.




I've been meaning to pick up Growing a City Garden by Jeremy N. Smith & others. Has anyone read it? I must petition the local library!

A Pile of Vegetables from the #Helena Farmers' Market

Love Soup for Fall Kitchens

I love the book Love Soup: 160 All-New Vegetarian Recipes by Anna Thomas (of The Vegetarian Epicure fame--which, by the way, I was shocked to find is out of print and I feel lucky to still own a rather tattered copy). I grew up with The Vegetarian Epicure in the kitchen and inherited it from my mother--although my vegetarian-phobic grandmother's name is oddly on the inside cover. I wonder if she ever used it?

This new book (it came out in 2009) was a really great surprise. Anna Thomas explains in the section on fall and winter soups that she feels like this is a great time of year for soup--and I wholeheartedly agree. One of her main reasons is that the late-summer harvest is still in high gear, but the cooler weather puts us all in the mood for a warm bowl. Since we've been getting cool nights here in central Montana, I completely agree. We have potato leek soup (made from local farmer's market leeks and potatoes) on the stove right now. Actually, I should admit that it is not one of Love Soup's recipes I have going. But I have plans to make more soup tomorrow to take for lunch the rest of the week. Possible contenders for tomorrow's "lunch soup" include Roasted Golden Beet Soup, Green Soup with Mushrooms, or Green Soup with Ginger, all choices from the book.

the last of the season's tomatoes

FYI, the book in the corner is the Organic Farming Manual by Anne Larking Hansen.

The Elusive Western Artichoke

I have lived in the Western United States for over seven years and this is the first season that I have gotten both artichokes and eggplant. It's so dry here, and the nights are cool. Is it the floating row covers? Or some other miracle? Amazing.

Honey Harvest Time

It is September, and that means the days are feeling obviously shorter in Montana. The sun seems lower in the sky, and the nights are definitely colder (even if the days have still been pretty darn hot!). To beekeepers, all of that together means that it is time to harvest honey before it is too cold for the bees and too cold for the honey to flow easily.

We always had top-bar hives, so I can appreciate the sentiments of this blogger on the crush and strain method. Sometimes it is laborious, and I always find myself wondering if switching to traditional Langstorth hives make more sense just for the extraction ease. I still don't think so, but many others do. For those considering what kind of hives to use in the future, compare the crush and strain method with this basic "traditional" explanation, eHow Guide to Honey Extraction.

Any thoughts from other keepers? Extraction methods that work well for you? I am still waiting for the library to call and tell me the new edition of The Beekeeper's Handbook (4th Edition, 2011) is there for me. It is getting excellent reviews, so I eagerly anticipate great improvements over the now pretty outdated 3rd Edition (1998). In particular, the absence of colony collapse in the 3rd edition makes it clear that it is missing some info.

Bees on the Catnip

When we moved into our current house it helped that there were already many perennial plants in, including catnip and hollyhock all along the front yard. The bees and other pollinators have enjoyed these all summer.

I have noticed so many different pollinators, in fact, that I interlibrary loaned The Bees of the World by Charles D. Michener to try and identify the many different bees. The book, however, is 600+ pages and covers a lot of the technical aspects without necessarily helping with identification. A good book in its own right, but not what I needed for identification (however, if you are interested in classification aspects and historical development of bees I would recommend it).

Does anyone know of a good bee identification website? Here are a few of my bees on the white-flowered catnip. Click on the image for greater detail.

Sharing good book lists on WorldCat

I was looking up a book on worldcat.org today (Small is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered) and I realized how much I love living in a digital age.

For those of you who don't know WorldCat, it is an online library resource that provides the "official" library record with all of the publication info and library holdings worldwide, but it also provides Web 2.0 tools for everyone--like tagging, reviews, and the ability to make reading lists. If you want to create a reading list, you can create a free account and keep track of all the books you like, want, need, or hope to use later. However, if you don't want your own, you can still see other people's lists that they have made public.

So, at the bottom of the (Small is Beautiful) record I could see all of the public lists that include the book. In particular, I was impressed by this list: "Ecominimalism" by meg2584 [WorldCat.org]. The list's owner describes it as "A messy reading-list-in-progress, for a back-burner project of mine, synthesizing works on the natural and built environments, health, (anti)consumerism, development economics, and both upper- and lower-case-m minimalism." Awesome list, currently 69 books. I have read a few of them, and heard of a lot of them. But there are many I will be seeking out (probably using WorldCat, since the list is already right there).

Speaking of Mushrooms

We are in week two of a new mushroom kit and the mushrooms have sort of tapered off--then I realized, it said 6-8 hours of indirect sunlight a day & apparently someone closed the blinds. I have been in a mushroom mood of late, leading me to explore this great, relatively new mushroom book: Mushrooming without Fear: The Beginner's Guide to Collecting Safe and Delicious Mushrooms (See all Outdoors & Nature Reference Books). I have seen some great mushroom books, but this one is the best I have had the chance to come upon. It is very colorful, very clear, and tells you when you need to be concerned that something you've found looks similar to a poisonous variety. Good read, if only to take my mind away from the indoor mushrooms we are trying so hard to grow. Perhaps in the spring we will get brave enough to go OUT and look for mushrooms.

Librarians Share Bad Teacher Traits #learntrends

This post has been moved to a new location at melodycondron.com.

The Beekeeping Librarian will continue to have posts, photos, and resources pertaining to gardening, urban homesteading, beekeeping, and cooking. Library-specific posts and things for librarians can be found at the new site.