The Honey Factory

[R2elk]

not quite sure what a autumn-olive is.

They produce a small olive.

 

[WannaBeHillBilly]

Fake honey from China.

I called it sewage juice.

 

[WannaBeHillBilly]

Every state has their own regs.

Which is (imho) a good thing, so they can be tailored to the specific conditions of that state and the politician's wallets, of course.

 

[WannaBeHillBilly]

If they are anything like the Russian Olives here, the bees make a dark honey from them and the nectar flow is substantial. It is a later bloom.

Might be the same plant: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elaeagnus_umbellata
Here they start flowering in early April and cycle through multiple sequences of producing tiny berries/olives until the first frost. The ducks go bananas for these fruits, i have tried them too and they are tasty. Juice may be great but Its just a pita to harvest them because they grow as single fruits, no droves and the shrubs have long sharp pricks. But they will turn my ducks into cobra chickens sooner or later…
And yes, last year's honey was very viscous and dark. I thought it was from the tulip poplar that was trying to glue my ducks to it.

 

[WannaBeHillBilly]

I broadcast yellow sweet clover seed. The bees go crazy over it and it makes a wonderful light colored honey. It has a two year cycle. Comes up one year, blooms the second year and then is done. It may or may not reseed well.

I though about red clover. There is that only piece of flat land on my property that i would love to turn into a garden because - its flat. Yet the soil there is just garbage, yellow loam that turns into knee-deep mud aka West-Virginia Concrete during the summer.
Almost nothing is growing there, so i thought red-clover as a pioneer plant. It is from the legume family, so it will be fixing nitrogen from the air and the strong roots will soften the soil over the time. Problem is, the area needs to be plowed initially before sowing the clover and i don't have a tractor yet. So that plan is postponed for now.

 

[WallyG74]

I though about red clover. There is that only piece of flat land on my property that i would love to turn into a garden because - its flat. Yet the soil there is just garbage, yellow loam that turns into knee-deep mud aka West-Virginia Concrete during the summer.
Almost nothing is growing there, so i thought red-clover as a pioneer plant. It is from the legume family, so it will be fixing nitrogen from the air and the strong roots will soften the soil over the time. Problem is, the area needs to be plowed initially before sowing the clover and i don't have a tractor yet. So that plan is postponed for now.

I feel your pain. We have lived here 17 years and had a garden every year but one. The soil is terrible. Instead of red clay, it’s red sand. Triple 13 and chicken poop to the rescue.

 

[WannaBeHillBilly]

not quite sure what a autumn-olive is. but if it produces a berry am sure it will be good for them. ours have raspberries, blue berries and saskatoon berries (all wild) and we planted a bunch of haskaps, apples and planning on a few plum trees this year for them.

i too have looked into planting sunchokes for the bees as well, only issue was finding them in time for sale up here in Canada.

I bought mine on the south-American tropical river's web-site for a few bucks...

 

[WannaBeHillBilly]

I feel your pain. We have lived here 17 years and had a garden every year but one. The soil is terrible. Instead of red clay, it’s red sand. Triple 13 and chicken poop to the rescue.

One of the reasons for keeping many ducks! - Using the soiled wood-chips from the duck's run i was able to turn the soil in the garden beds from yellow to chocolate brown as Laura Duck demonstrated here:

But that took four years and the soil is still not where i want it to be.

 

[R2elk]

I though about red clover. There is that only piece of flat land on my property that i would love to turn into a garden because - its flat. Yet the soil there is just garbage, yellow loam that turns into knee-deep mud aka West-Virginia Concrete during the summer.
Almost nothing is growing there, so i thought red-clover as a pioneer plant. It is from the legume family, so it will be fixing nitrogen from the air and the strong roots will soften the soil over the time. Problem is, the area needs to be plowed initially before sowing the clover and i don't have a tractor yet. So that plan is postponed for now.

I broadcast the sweet clover on top of the snow. Of course I live on a sand dune.

Unless the area has thick growth, just scratching the surface with a rake gives the seeds a place to settle in.

Sweet clover is the legume of choice here. Till it in to really get the benefits for soil improvement. That it's life cycle only runs 2 years is one of the reasons it is chosen. It is a much taller plant than red clover and provides cover for other developing plants.

 

[itsasmallfarm]

I bought mine on the south-American tropical river's web-site for a few bucks...

I don't think it will grow near my bees then, as there right next to the boreal forest, last time i checked it was zone 3a or b but really cool, as i never knew olives grew here (or a type could)