Doing all I can to help the honey bees

Since learning about Honey Bee Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) I have been doing everything I can to try to help. I immediately thought of getting a hive here in the yard. The Town of Sidney requires a lot size of 750 square meters. I am trying to get that changed. Our lot is a good sized lot for Sidney at 603 square meters so the 750 square meter minimum needs to be reduced.

Albert Einstein said "If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe, then man would only have four years of life left. No more bees, no more pollination, no more plants, no more animals, no more man."

So, I am doing all I can to get bee hives into people's yards including mine, and personally growing more and more bee friendly plants. I garden organically. No pesticides or herbicides. Since planting my vegetable garden, I have a lot more bees, dragonflies, hummingbirds and butterflies. And it's just a little garden. I have really paid attention to what is attracting bees. They love my chives. See the bee on the chives above...yup that's mine. They also love my English Lavender. I found a huge display of lavender at Elk Lake Garden Centre about a month ago. There must have been twelve different varieties. I stood back and watched every type. After about ten minutes of research, I found that the light purple English Lavender attracted a LOT more bees than the other varieties. I am going to take seed and maybe try cuttings and spread the plants around the yard. Yayyy bees!

I don't want to get preachy, so if you want more information about the loss of honey bees, here is a brief article with a lot of information.
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/3545166/

The projects are complete and with only minor injuries!

Completed Berry Bed

The irregular shaped raised raspberry bed is done. We need to fill it with soil and put the berry back in the ground. It should be fine for a day or two as it is quite cool.

The poor raspberry. As of today, it has been potted up in compost.

Compost Bin. Tacked up, not quite ready to use.

We've run out of long screws but we figured out where to put the compost bins and set it up and tacked it with a couple screws. We found that one of the four pallets is a different size. Live and learn. I thought there was only the one size. So before you tote the really heavy pallet home...make sure it's the right size. 

Mystery injury

Injuries of the day: Allan cut his finger. See photo. Obviously it was one of those ridiculous injuries as he won't even tell me how he did it. My injury. I was holding two pieces of wood at chin level while Allan used an antique, steel, heavy drill to put a three inch screw through the wood I was holding. Duh. So, he had the drill pointing down at about head level. I didn't see what happened, but suffice it to say, he let go of the drill and it fell onto my face. My cheek bone to be precise. If I get a nice bruise or anything I'll post a picture. And yet again I say...where was my video camera.

**Update: My cheekbone is pink with maybe a titch of a bruise. Not exciting enough for a picture.

So much to do this weekend, I love it...and fresh crab

We are finally having some hot weather on the west coast. It makes me want to play hooky and just 'be' in the yard. I have a few projects for the weekend. I would like to get the raspberry bed built, the first section of my three bin compost system and make blackberry jam. I went to Karen's house today and we picked blackberries. It was really nice. I got an ice-cream bucket full. As a little treat, she gave me one of the crabs that her husband pulled out of the water just this morning. How cool is that? I boiled it up and will save it til lunch tomorrow. Fresh local crab, on a beautiful salad made from my own garden. Wow. This is what I was dreaming of when this all started.

**to update...that crab was delicious. One of the best salads I've ever had!

Soon time to start thinking of seeds for next year

Doesn't Botanical Interests do
the best seed packet.

I keep a little list of seeds that I want to grow next year. I am going to stick with heirloom varieties for this year anyway. It's my way of thumbing my nose at Monsanto. This is my list so far. I know I won't grow them all and I'll cull the list before I buy my seeds, but this is my wish list.


Seeds for 2012
Cinderella pumpkin*
Brandywine tomato
Amish Paste or super Italian paste
Yellow brandywine
Green zebra tomato
Gold nugget tomato
Spinach-Bloomsdale savoy
Lettuce-salad bowl*
Lettuce-Speckled butterhead organic
Carrot-scarlet Nantes
Marigold for companion planting with tomato*
Morning glory-heavenly blue
Borage*
Basil*
Garlic, plant late October*
Zucchini-black beauty
Winter. Italian parsley
Kale-winter kale blend
Sunflower-Tiffany
Cabbage-Danish ballhead
Squash-yellow crookneck
Cucumber-homemade pickles
Pepper-pepperoncini

* Already have the seed or will take seed from my plants.

Zone maps are hard to read

I am trying to find out which planting zone I live and garden in. It is either 7b or 8a. It probably doesn't make a LOT of difference, but I am a detail oriented girl. In the US it is easy to find out which zone you are in. There are many sites on the internet that you just put in your zip code and you get your zone. In Canada I can't find such an animal. You try to sort it out by map. It's pretty easy in most parts of the country, but if you live on Vancouver Island, off the west coast of Canada, the map is shown in tight little bands of colour, so really hard to pinpoint.
I went to pick up some vitamins today. Next door to Lifestyle Market is Sidney Pet Store. I'm not sure how I even noticed, but out front over in the far corner, tucked behind some structure, was a pallet. A really nice pallet. A brand new pallet. What I have found with pallets, when they are in great shape, there is usually a deposit on them and they aren't given away. So, being a connoisseur of pallets, I thought I'd ask. So now I have a lovely new pallet. Yay.