Organic Gardening Info from Peaceful Valley

Tim and I started working with honeybees about two years ago and like gardening, what one learns from books is not the same as hands-on-experience.

Bees are such interesting insects and are quite captivating. I love observing them at the hive and on the flowers.

At this time of year the bees come out when the sun warms their hive and they search for pollen and nectar to bring back and feed the brood. One of the pictures shows the pollen packed onto her legs. The other shows her with her long tongue in the flower getting the nectar. We have planted a variety of bee-attracting plants that bloom at different times of the year so there always seems to be a plant on which they can forage.

Bees stay in the hive when it rains, so with this week of clear weather, they have come out to work again.

We have felt very lucky to have had our hive survive this winter and are looking forward to the summer when the bees will be working our veggies and sunflowers again.

I had the opportunity to represent Peaceful Valley at the 2009 PlacerGrown Conference (Feb. 7 in Lincoln, CA). It was a great event attended by the “who’s who” of small scale agriculture in Placer and Nevada Counties. There were many workshops focused on the following “Strands”, or topics: Community, Getting Started in Farming, Miscellaneous (included workshops on honeybees, producing firewood, and carbon sequestration in agriculture), Farming & Ranching as a Business, Marketing, Interns, and Livestock. Workshop facilitators included Dan Macon, Roger Ingram, Keith Crabtree, Cindy Fake, and Carol Arnold, all very reputable and knowledgeable people involved in agriculture.

Jim Gates (“Meat Jim”), High Sierra Grass Fed Beef

I was especially excited by the Keynote speaker, Micheal Dimock of “Roots of Change” (ROC), a collaborative of people intent on establishing a sustainable food system in California by the year 2030. ROC has a strategy to get critical people and groups working together to establish political momentum, informational links, cohesive vision, and needed grant money. His talk was both intellectual and inspiring; I walked out with a larger view of the complexities involved but hope of the real possibility of a sustainable food system. Check out the website http://www.rocfund.org/, and be sure to endorse the “Declaration For Healthy Food and Agriculture”.

I’d encourage anyone in the Placer/Nevada County area interested in local agriculture to attend next years’ conference!