Kitchen Garden Forum

A plea for the bees, we like a varied diet and that is good for our health, bees do too. Help the bees, hoverflies and moths, and help yourself to better pollination on your plot for next year by including some bee magnet seeds when selecting seeds for next year. Try to include some early and some late sources of pollen for them.herbs are useful in the kitchen and if you let them flower they are bee moth and hoverfly magnets too, if you have a pond watermint buzzes while in flower, but all the usual herbs like chives and garlic chives, mint, oregano,marjoram, comfrey, rosemary, thyme, borage etc will buzz with activity. They love flowers like foxglove, nasturtium, mallow, cornfllower marigold, tagetes,poppy, teazle etc
consider ordering some white clover, plant between rows to keep down weeds add nitrogen to the soil and feed the bees.
Fruit trees and cane fruit, black, tay, and loganberries will also attract pollinators while in blossom, and we can enjoy the fruit too.

http://www.devon.gov.uk/index/environme ... t-bees.htm

http://www.bumblebeeconservation.org.uk/about_bees.htm

i'm currently making a designated bee/insect corner where i'm going to plant lots of wild flowers and have some insect habitats in an unused corner of my allotment as well as having insect friendly flowers in my more 'formal' flower bed.

Hi Meow,the bees will love you, flowers pretty up the veg garden too, and nasturtiums attract the blackfly away from crops like beans

We have a wildlife garden and pond on our allotment site, which has been a bit neglected the last few years. I have just recently taken over the whole project and have been busy clearing weeds and overgrown annuals to make way for lots more insect friendly planting. So far I have planted quite a few new lavenders, heleniums, and sedums. I have lots of foxglove seedlings to go in, as well as some purple toadflax. The pond is looking better now as well, and I've seen quite a few newts, as well as diving beetles, pond skaters and water boatmen. The whole plot takes up a 5 perch allotment. I'm in my element

Good on you P.J.

A few pics of the project at the moment

Besides having a wild patch in the garden, specially cultivated with insects in mind (almost all the flowers you mention, NB, as well as hemp agrimony, field scabious, knapweed and buddleia), we are also wardens of the 2 acre village nature reserve, right next to our house. This was created more than 20 years ago with a pond, beck, woodland, lots of flowering and fruiting native bushes and a meadow area in the middle, open to the south. So we are really trying to do our bit for wildlife!

The allotment, quite a different kettle of fish, is really devoted to vegetables, although we do grow some tagetes there and lots of borage, poached egg flower, calendula and nasturtiums for the beneficial insects and buddleias for butterflies and pea sticks.

Don't forget Lavender!! I have two big bushes in the front garden and the bees are all over it and have been for a few months

CoMpO

Hi Monica and compo, sounds like you are both doing your bit, it needs many more to be doing the same as your wild areas Monica, to help stem their decline.

It doesn't have to be a wild area for bees - it's a case of choosing more bee friendly decorative border plants. Double flowers and pollen free varieties should be avoided.

That's right Gallohtments, open flowers that the bees can utilise.
PJ That looks like fun, and very worthwhile project, we have a pond and a well in our garden, when its hot the newts can be found playing a long way down in the well water.

I've saved all the seed from my foxgloves this summer and as soon as this wretched rain stops I plan a walk down some of my local footpaths to do a bit of "guerilla sprinkling" in the hope of getting some new areas with foxgloves to encourage the bees, even if it takes a while before they flower. The negative is that some of our wretched local council contractors always seem to arrive and slash down undergrowth or wild flower areas which are about to burst into flower, just as the bees need them most. They seem to have their slash and burn schedules and nothing must be allowed to interfere with them.

I was planning on doing the same Primrose, and choosing the sites carefully for the same reason.

There's a verge fairly near to us that is designated as a nature reserve and each year the is a good show of bluebells but each year when they are in full flower someone mows the verges and the flowers with everything else. One year I complained to the council and they said that they didn't know who looked after the verge! So why the designation. It's a while since I passed that way during bluebell season as it used to be on my way to work so I don't know whether or not the bluebells have been destroyed completely!

I found a couple of people interested in getting a communal beehive at our allotments. However when I mentioned this to the committee, you could see them getting cold feet as they started to list the things we'd need to do before they could consider it.

In the meantime, to pick up NB's suggestions, we added some more Borage plants to our back garden. I'd forgotten how vigorously these can grow and the bees are now having a whale of a time