Tag: bees

Hello sunshine!

The last few days here in Cornwall have been fab! The sun has shone, I feel like I’ve got plenty done and the rate of seedling demise seems to have slowed. The alliums in the garden have started flowering, I’m definitely planting some on the allotment next year – the bees can’t get enough!

I have plans for making more rhubarb jam this week (hopefully I won’t burn it this time!) and have seen a recipe for a rhubarb cordial that I’d like to try.

On the allotment, the peas we put in at the weekend have so far avoided any significant damage from birds and we found a birds nest above our potting bench – the chicks are now big enough to peek out of the nest:


Yesterday, Ashley and I collected some carpeting from a local marquee company that was to be dumped or burned – we are going to use it to mulch our paths and other areas for the next year in the hope of really getting on top of the weeds. I’m hoping for another good weekend so we can get some more work done – although it’s a bank holiday in Cornwall which practically guarantees rain!

I’ve spent loads of time this week sat out in the garden potting on seedlings, sorting and clearing pots that have been emptied by the slugs and re-jigging plants to hopefully have some colourful flowers in the garden in a few weeks time.

Hope you’re all enjoying some sunshine too!

Brilliant Bees, Fabulous Flowers

Whilst the main aim of having an allotment (for me) is to grow more vegetables than I could possibly squeeze into my tiny little garden, I would also like to grow some flowers there. For one thing, I just like flowers and secondly, the more food for the bees the better really! I am in the pesticide free, #savethebees camp although I don’t think I do nearly enough about it. In an effort to do more, I treated myself to these seeds today – Rudbeckia and two types of Scabious. I bought a small Scabious plant a few years ago and was amazed at how many bees would scramble all over this little plant every single day. And for a very small plant, it provided copious amounts of flowers over a long season. I managed to keep this little plant going for about 2 years before it faded to nothing. I also have a Rudbeckia plant, but would love more and buying them as plants is an expensive way of doing it so thought I’d try the seeds. Both are recommended as good plants for attracting bees and other pollinators, which is obviously great on an allotment! We already have several lavender plants dotted around the allotment, one of my favourite plants alongside Scabious, another fabulous plant for bees and other insects.

Bee friendly seeds

I’d love to be proficient enough a gardener to grow a huge variety of flowers for cutting, but my current gardening skills and dedication does push me more towards growing simple to care for, but effective plants! Bushy plants that I just dead head, then cut back and protect over winter seem to work well for me – and it’s a good job we live in the relatively mild climate of North Cornwall as I regularly neglect to protect plants over winter! Good job we haven’t really seen much in the way of frost this year!

Unfortunately, as mentioned in my previous post, the poly tunnel didn’t survive the winter on the allotment (it gets pretty windy there) and we haven’t sorted a replacement yet. So starting seeds will have to be done at home. The trouble with this is space and a lack of protection, but we will just have to try and see what happens!