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Discover the buzz at California Honey Festival

Sacramento Digs Gardening
BY Debbie Arrington PUBLISHED APR 30, 2019

Hard-working bees and their honey are celebrated Saturday at the California Honey Festival, Woodland.

(Photo: Kathy Morrison

Bee-happy free event fills downtown Woodland on Saturday

Love honey? Interested in helping bees? Want more fruit and vegetables in your own garden?

Catch the buzz at the third annual California Honey Festival, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday, May 4, in downtown Woodland.

In partnership with the Honey and Pollination Center and the Robert Mondavi Institute of Food & Wine at UC Davis, this free festival is dedicated to all things honey and bee-related. It has quickly grown into one of the largest events of its kind.

Honeybees continue to be in peril. This family-friendly fest combines education about how to help bees and the issues these important pollinators face with the delicious product of their work – honey. Downtown Woodland has embraced the Honey Fest’s message with restaurants offering honey-filled menus and bars serving honey-laced drinks.

At Saturday’s festival, scores of vendors will offer honey-related products in booths along Main Street between First and Third streets. Taste dozens of different honeys and discover their wide range of flavors. (Not all honeys are sweet!)

Learn how to help bees by creating pollinator-friendly gardens filled with flowers that bees love (and need). Ever thought about beekeeping? This place will get you inspired and supply you with the basics.

A bee flits among Betty Boop roses. Learn how to help bees during the

California Honey Festival on Saturday. (Photo: Debbie Arrington)

Sample honey-based mead as well as beer and wine in the bee-happy festival garden. Plus there will be plenty of tasty honey-enhanced things to eat.

A cooking stage will offer demonstrations all day on using honey as a sugar substitute as well as making the most of this special ingredient. The UC Davis educational stage features eight workshops, ranging from beginning beekeeping and how to make mead to attracting more bees to the urban landscape. There’s also lots of family entertainment, including Uncle Jer’s Traveling Bee Show (3 p.m.). Find the full schedule here: https://californiahoneyfestival.com/schedule/

In addition, celebrity landscape expert Ahmad Hassan of “Yard Crashers” will host the festival’s Pollinator Garden, offering his expertise on how to plant your own bee-friendly habitat.

Proceeds from the festival support several bee- and pollinator-related non-profit programs and projects aimed at supporting bee health worldwide.

Details: www.californiahoneyfestival.com .

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Keywords:

gardening Sacramento family events bees spring gardens Yolo County events honey Woodland pollinators UC Davis

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Garden Checklist for week of Nov. 3

November still offers good weather for fall planting:

* If you haven't already, it's time to clean up the remains of summer. Pull faded annuals and vegetables. Prune dead or broken branches from trees.

* Now is the best time to plant most trees and shrubs. This gives them plenty of time for root development before spring growth. They also benefit from fall and winter rains.

* Set out cool-weather annuals such as pansies and snapdragons.

* Lettuce, cabbage and broccoli also can be planted now.

* Plant garlic and onions.

* Keep planting bulbs to spread out your spring bloom. Some possible suggestions: daffodils, crocuses, hyacinths, tulips, anemones and scillas.

* This is also a good time to seed wildflowers and plant such spring bloomers as sweet pea, sweet alyssum and bachelor buttons.

* Rake and compost leaves, but dispose of any diseased plant material. For example, if peach and nectarine trees showed signs of leaf curl this year, clean up under trees and dispose of those leaves instead of composting.

* Save dry stalks and seedpods from poppies and coneflowers for fall bouquets and holiday decorating.

* For holiday blooms indoors, plant paperwhite narcissus bulbs now. Fill a shallow bowl or dish with 2 inches of rocks or pebbles. Place bulbs in the dish with the root end nestled in the rocks. Add water until it just touches the bottom of the bulbs. Place the dish in a sunny window. Add water as needed.

* Give your azaleas, gardenias and camellias a boost with chelated iron.

* For larger blooms, pinch off some camellia buds.

* Prune non-flowering trees and shrubs while dormant.

* To help prevent leaf curl, apply a copper fungicide spray to peach and nectarine trees after they lose their leaves this month. Leaf curl, which shows up in the spring, is caused by a fungus that winters as spores on the limbs and around the tree in fallen leaves. Sprays are most effective now.

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