Learn how to build a cold frame and extend your growing season with Nikki Jabbour, author of The Year Round Vegetable Gardener. We talk with Nikki about how to use a cold frame to start plant early and keep your harvest going into winter, even in Canada! ( Nikki lives in Nova Scotia, Canada, btw...
Inside the Hive: Views from a First Year Beekeeper (Scene 14)
It was a Father's Day hive inspection. Dad (that's me) and son checking out our two hives. Beautiful day. 78 degrees Fahrenheit and just a light breeze. Quite a few things to say and show about this inspection so expect more posts from me in the coming days. There are a LOT of bees in...
Easy Container Garden You Can Create
Here's a easy container patio garden in front of one of my favorite food places in Brooklyn, Brancaccio's Food Shop. Its square foot gardening on steroids, and it works really well. Take a few oak wine barrels and a few plastic plant containers, and stuff them full of plants, and your done. The container garden...
Swarm Box Bait Hive from political signs
Need Swarm Box or Bait Hive plans? Check out this honeybee bait hive made from those corrugated plastic lawn signs you see for politicians and yard sales. I've been making swarm boxes from old honeybee supers and old frames, but GardenFork viewer Howard upcycled some of those plastic signs you see in people's front yards....
Tomato Planting Tips & Selection with Priscilla : GF Radio
How to plant tomatoes? What kind of heirloom tomatoes to grow? What about hybrid tomatoes? Which are the best ones? we talk with tomato growing expert & Eric's neighbor, Priscilla the Egg Lady about how to grow tomatoes, tomato planting, and all things tomato. Every year Priscilla selects way too many varieties to grow in...
Chainsaw Wont Start - Chain Saw Repair : GF Video
Chainsaw wont start? Wondering how to fix a chainsaw and the chainsaw to start? Watch our how to fix a chainsaw video and you will be on your way. Chainsaw repair is not hard, and if you're ready to go out in the yard and cut down some trees, your chainsaw has probably been sitting...
How To Cook With Cast iIron Dutch Ovens with Gary House
This is the second of a series of articles about how to cook in a dutch oven, dutch oven recipes, and how to season cast iron and dutch ovens by Gary House, of Cooking-Outdoors.com. A big thank-you to Gary for contributing this. Last time we talked about the different types and sizes of Dutch ovens...
Amaranth Urban Foraging Edible Green
Urban Foraging while walking the Labs, I ran across a familiar sight in urban areas, an edible green, a type of amaranth that farmers refer to as pigweed. Amaranth comes in several versions, the one pictured here is not one of the more floral ones, but it is an urban edible green that you'll see...
Henry In Prospect Park post mudhole
DIY Worm Composting How-To : GF Radio
How to do worm composting in your house is our main topic. Rick has almost zero waste in his house by using worms to compost his kitchen scraps. Rick tell us how to make your own worm composting bins and where to get composting worms, aka red wigglers. You can also use night crawlers for...
Squash Vine Borer Treament Prevention #1 : GF Video
Squash Vine Borer eating your squash, pumpkin, and zucchini plants every year? Squash plants dying? Here's how to prevent squash vine borers from eating your squash plants. The borer is the caterpillar of the Melittia cucurbitae moth. The moth lays eggs at the base of young squash plants, both winter squash, summer squash, and pumpkins...
Inside the Hive: Views from a First Year Beekeeper (Scene 13)
Bees, particularly those in new hives, require a lot of energy to draw out comb. To help jump-start the hive, a 1:1 sugar syrup can be used to help feed them during this time. I'm pretty certain they could make it without this feeding in the spring assuming there were sources of nectar around. But,...
Inside the Hive: Views from a First Year Beekeeper (Scene 12)
The queen is dead. Long live the queen. Well, not yet. And perhaps not for a while. But since I've got an interesting picture here, I want to write a bit about the topic. So, there is a bit of wiggle room in the hive - there's space between the frames and if not spaced...
Inside the Hive: Views from a First Year Beekeeper (Scene 11)
If someone were to ask me to make a list of adjectives describing the time in which we live, most certainly near or at the top of that list would be the word "connected". Texting, email, Twitter, Facebook, online forums, Instagram, Skype, IRC, email, VoIP, cell phones, land lines and even snail mail. There are...
Inside the Hive: Views from a First Year Beekeeper (Scene 10)
Field Marshal of Obvious here. There are a lot of honeybees in a hive. I would say "more than you can shake a stick at" but then two things would happen: My sister, The Teacher, would lecture me on my poor English skills. Some idiot fine person would go shaking his (because it would be...
Inside the Hive: Views from a First Year Beekeeper (Scene 9)
One of these things is not like the other.... Take a look at this close up of a frame and you'll see around 40 adult bees, busily attending to their duties - cleaning out cells, feeding brood and capping cells. Most bees in a healthy hive are female workers. But in this image one of...
Inside the Hive: Views from a First Year Beekeeper (Scene 8)
Everything about honeybees is interesting to me. I have seen this brood layout in several hives and I think it is interesting that bees make this sunrise-shaped brood pattern. So, what you are seeing here is capped brood in the center of the frame with some open cells - some were cleaned out, some had...
Inside the Hive: Views from a First Year Beekeeper (Scene 7)
Hey there folks. In this scene from the hive, I'd like to show off something that my son and I saw today during our inspection of hive #2 (the hive from my mentor's nuc). I almost missed this because it was quite hot out today with no breeze whatsoever. It was the first time we'd...