Harvest Begins

Worked my bottom off to get raised beds made, mulch retrieved and distributed, seeds and seedlings planted, and hand watering all the babies until I secured enough lengths of hose to bring external water to the garden.  So much energy to bring outside inputs to the system.  And now, right along with our 90+ *F temps and endless days of rain, the garden is now heading into output mode.

Costoluto Genovese

Pollinators

Just a quick post for the 4th of July.

 

The wild field on the West side of the house that merges into the adjacent unmanaged property is filled with many blooming plants - Queen Ann's Lace, yellow Rudebeckia that somewhere along the line escaped formal cultivation, some type of white Dasies, and mats of Passion Flower vines, plus other things that I can't see from the driveway.  The pollinators and other wild critters love making that area their home.  The East pasture, however, butts up against suburbia and trimmed lawns.  That pasture gets mowed at least once a week, and the most that gets to bloom are low growing clovers.  Luckily, if you build it, they will come.  I let some of the pasture weeds grow and bloom around the edges of the garden, and that brought some intrepid insects.  And then the clary sage bloomed - and the bees came.  And, apparently the bees also like the nectar from the blooms of plain old cow peas.  The sage is about done, but the cow peas are just beginning.

Bee sipping nectar from a cow pea flower.