Poppies are open.
A Painted Lady adorns a Diablo Ninebark.
Three pink echium spires made it through the winter.
Scabiosa (Pin Cushion Flower) is ready to entertain bees and butterflies.
Mid June, the first Gazania, grown from seed, finally opens up.
Buttons and poppies.
More California Poppies
Carmen poses on the comfortably warm metal table. (Might be time for a catnap)
Sue plants 3rd set of cabbages.
We let these mustard greens flower for the bees. They will come out in another week or so.
Potatoes are looking good.
A hot day calls for some solar baked beans. My favorite recipe is white beans with Fakin-Bakin Tempeh, and mustard greens.
Adventures in Natural Beekeeping 
Hi Pat, really fine to read about your bees again. Is the flowering turnip the purple root vegetable or kohlrabi? I have one baby echium started this year. I hope it gets to look like yours one day. I also have a gorse seeding in a flowerpot but I’m in dubio about planting it in the garden because of things I have read about it overtaking ground and becoming a fire risk…. What do you think … Do or Don’t? Very good filming of bees gathering pollen, Cool.
Hi Lindylou,
Because my town of Bandon had a devastating fire in 1936 during which the town was almost completely burned down due at least in part to the overgrowth of the gorse, I would hesitate to plant it. Around here (Oregon Coast) it grows fast and thick with spiny stems. If you want to grow an impenetrable natural fence, you can throw some seeds out and stand back. 🙂 Yes, it is a fire risk.
We grow two types of turnips. A couple of years ago, we bought a cover crop mixture that was mostly yellow turnips. They grew well so we saved the seeds to plant last summer. They grew well again so that’s what we’re planting this year. We also plant the purple top turnips. I haven’t grown kohlrabi for so many years, I’ve sort of forgotten about it.
I hope your echium does well, but it might get too cold there. It still gets cold there, right?
Great to see so much colour as the weather turns to grey here in Poland. The only thing of note in flower at the moment is some Jerusalem Artichokes which I planted for the first time this year, quite a unexpected display.
Yes, the days are getting shorter. We’re trying to figure out why the bumblebee workers have completely disappeared. Is it because the temperature dropped high 30’s F (+/-3˙C) or because the days are getting shorter? We can still see the bumblebee queens.
Did you harvest a bunch of Jerusalem Artichokes or does that happen AFTER they bloom? I can’t remember.
Now yet, but then I’m not sure when I should dig them up, Gosia asked me the other day and I have yet to check…my next job now you have reminded me 🙂
I love the video! My favourite shots are the bumble pushing open the lupin flower and the bumble with purple pollen from the phacelia. I like the idea that our bees are on the borage at the moment. My sole echium looks healthy but has not flowered, all I can do is mulch it and hope it survives when winter comes. I have the hypericum all over the garden and one or two had a few flowers this year. Amelia
That’s exciting about the hypericum growing all over the garden. I hope you have lots and lots of blooms next year. It will probably winter well with no protection. I can’t say the same thing about the echium, though. I’ve protected them with sacks and tarps during the cold nights. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes the unprotected ones come through with no protection. This winter, I’m not gonna tarp them. I’ve got so many going, it’s worth the risk.
You’ve got borage there too? It grows wild here, well at least in OUR garden. And now, due to us burying crab shell all over the place, the borage seeds have been spread here and there. We’ve got some very healthy looking (crab shell influenced) borage plants which I’d be willing to bet will outlast the winter. I’m not sure about the bees lasting the winter…more on that later.
The borage comes up so quickly from seed that even if all is lost in a cold period, plenty new ones will pop up. They can get untidy looking but it is difficult to remove them when all the bees like them so much.
Enjoyed the video and the music, here it is mostly ivy that provides the bee forage now, but a flowering ivy bush covered in insects at this time of year is a sight to behold!
I’m glad you enjoyed the music. Kirk has a great voice and he was kind enough to let me record it.
Our ivy has just started opening up around here. I’m hoping to get some video of bees on it, but the blossoms are sooo small and the bees so fast…
Such a reminder of summer!
I’ve moved from the south coast of England to the urban North West and have created a new blog to reflect the change.
Loose and Leafy in Halifax.
https://looseandleafyinhalifax.blogspot.co.uk/
Hope you are having a happy new year.
I love your blog and have been reading very far back into your posts. I am going to favorite and hopefully you will post again one of these days. You write so well and I feel I know you from reading these. Thank you for sharing your life and journey in the garden and with your bees. My husband and I are getting our first hives started. We live in Wyoming and envy your greenery! Best regards. Teresa
Thanks for your kind words, Teresa. Our garden still has color in it now from the yellow turnip blossoms…but very few honeybees. We lost our last hive last year and decided to concentrate more on growing flowers for the wild bees which also need our help.