Bees love kale

We are noticing how much the bees love the yellow kale flowers at this time of year, when there are not so many other flowers yet for foraging.  The kale (which we are letting go to seed from last year) in our grow tunnel bed is in full bloom, and constantly covered with a loud buzzing frenzy of gorgeous bees (many types of bees too, we saw loads of bumbles, a few honey bees, some small native bees, a sweat bee).  And I get to continue my fascination with bees, and trying to capture their energy on camera.

To learn more about bees and urban beekeeping (the top bar method) consider taking our Beekeeping with Intention workshop, Sat June 11.  Register here.

Gratitude Sunday

This week we are grateful for so many things!  Here are a few that come to mind.  What are you grateful for?

- local certified organic non-GMO sweet corn (first of the season for us!) from Organic Oasis Farm Store (it's so hard to find organic corn that this was such a treat, and we brought home dozens and dozens to put in the freezer)

- freshly harvested organic edamame (yummm) dropped off as a gift from our favourite farmer Angie at Fertile Ground CSA  (thank you Angie!)

-  fresh berries in our yard, containers filled every day, especially with loganberries (here is a link to local Whiffletree Nursery where there are numerous kinds of hardy berries, fruit and nut trees available perfect for our growing zone)

- a hummingbird that has visited our yard three nights in a row now (loving Maya's pink zinnias - she is thrilled!) - to attract hummingbirds try planting zinnias, salvia, morning glory, snapdragon, cleome, nasturtium, petunias, trumpet vine...

- bees, bees, bees on goldenrod (I have such a new appreciation for goldenrod and it's many benefits to us, and for fall forage for the pollinators)

- apples, apples, apples - we hope to press our own apple cider this year at Rolling Acres farm and cider mill (the old fashioned way)

Weeds + Seeds Classes coming in September!

We love Weeds + Seeds!  If you have looked around our yard (and maybe yours too) at this time of year, you will have noticed lots of weeds...and lots of seeds... Yes, we do have a young baby here so the garden has not had the weeding attention it usually gets, and some of these weeds are certainly not growing here by our intention.  However, many of the so-called weeds in our garden are wonderful plants that we welcome, for food and medicine, for wildlife, for pollinators, for ground cover, for nutrients they bring to the soil, for health in our compost pile, and so on.  And many of our plants are let go to seed, so we can save these seeds for planting next season's garden, and to let stand all winter as forage for birds.

How to learn more?  Here at Little City Farm we love weeds + seeds so much that we offer classes on this topic every fall!  If you want to learn more about the benefits of cultivating, using and eating "weeds" - join us on Sept 19 for our Fall Wild Edibles Foraging workshop.  If you want to learn more about how and why to save your own seeds, join us for the annual Seed Saving workshop here on Sept 12.  Join the I Am A Seed Saver campaign organized by USC Canada - learn more here!  More details on these exciting Weeds + Seeds classes at Little City Farm.  Please register in advance for these classes.

Gratitude Sunday

We are grateful for so many things.  Here is what comes to mind from this past week:

~ abundant berry harvest with friends - and delicious chokecherry juice they brought us as a sample of the harvest (upon their suggestion we're going to add the juice into our morning smoothies)
 ~ fresh flowers, flowers, flowers - all the beautiful bouquets that are being picked and placed in all rooms of our house and throughout our B&B

~ eating our first garden tomatoes and zucchinis, plus so many braising greens, and the delicious black seeded simpson lettuce that just keeps on producing (I could eat like this every day)

~ wool diaper covers made by our friend Amaryah at Sew Oiseau - I am totally sold on using wool diaper covers for the cloth diapering experience this time around (even in summer she swears by them as best breathable covers for babies on hot days, next to wearing nothing of course)

~ all the busy busy bees in the garden (more on this soon) - the variety of bees I see each day: mason bees, bumble bees, sweat bees, honey bees in the bergamot, oregano, echinacea, yarrow, rudbeckia, clover, calendula around our yard - wow - it's a busy time out there right now

Gratitude Sunday

We are grateful for so many things.  Here is what comes to mind from this past week:

~ berries and cherries galore!  and wild-harvesting the bounty with friends this week...

~ wood-fired pizza dinners on warm summer nights, made here in the cob oven

~ all the abundance of flowers in the garden at this time of summer

~ the first monarchs to arrive in our yard for this season

~ peach and cherry water kefir dropped off by our friend today, and a divine lavender kombucha, and strawberry-sage kombucha made by another friend, so perfectly refreshing on a hot day

~ bees buzzing in the garden (they are all over the comfrey, catnip and lavender blossoms)

What are you grateful for this week?

The amazing bees!

I've been watching bees the past weeks, fascinated, captivated, astounded - by their diligent work, their beauty, their diversity.  My almost-6 year old and I spend hours in the garden honing our patience and observation skills, sitting quietly amongst the oregano patch, or the squash plants, waiting for the bees to come.  Mid day to late afternoon, when the sun is warmest, we find them to be the busiest in our garden.  We've seen squash bees, mason bees, carpenter bees, honeybees, bumble bees, sweat bees, and others I'm still not sure of.  Here are some photos, which are now also turned into photo cards that can be found here!  Remember to allow flowering plants, berries, trees and veggies (and wild plants such as goldenrod) a place in your yard to provide forage for the pollinators!   Then take some time to pause and observe...what is pollinating in your yard?

For my upcoming birthday I've asked my partner for a "date" building a top bar hive together, so we can embark on our own beekeeping/bee sanctuary project here.  Here is another site that has great info on natural beekeeping methods.

Bees Late Summer Forage

We are enjoying watching all the marvelous varieties of bees foraging in our garden right now.  Here in Ontario there are over 400 varieties of wild bees alone! It's a busy time, they are moving with a much faster pace than in early summer, getting all the last best pollen and preparing for winter.  Any yellow flowers, like this cup plant and goldenrod pictured, are just covered with bees from morning until dusk. 

There is so much more I want to learn about bees, and from bees!  On our fall/winter reading list is The Thinking Beekeeper: A Guide to Natural Beekeeping in Top Bar Hives, learning about top bar beekeeping, an minimal intervention approach to beekeeping that uses a hive design much more similar to how bees would build in nature.  The idea is to create a healthy hive for the bees (and let them build and maintain it), with much less emphasis on harvest of honey. 

Visit Pollination Canada to learn more about the important role of bees and other pollinators, what plants to grow in order to help attract pollinators, and other useful info.

In the garden

In the garden these days...
zucchini, eggplants, basil and more basil, chard, pumpkins growing (the patch quickly taking over the side yard)!, first tomatoes (finally!  such slow ripening this year), kale in abundance, beans climbing high, fresh cukes, and flowers! sunflowers, zinnias, bees bees bees!

Sustainable Bees - Queen of the Sun documentary

Last Friday we had the opportunity to watch Queen of the Sun: What are the Bees Telling Us, an amazing documentary that speaks to the importance of bees in our ecosystem and to our food system.  It discusses the devastating effects of industrialized agriculture and large-scale beekeeping (where bees are driven around the country by semi-trailers to pollinate monoculture industrial farms), and interviews many small-scale beekeepers around the world who are using various sustainable approaches to beekeeping - including setting up inspiring examples of bee sanctuaries.  One biodynamic bee sanctuary highlighted is Spikenard Farm Honeybee Sanctuary.  We are utterly dependent on healthy bees - do watch this documentary! Watch the trailer here.

This short video is a great overview of how to start a bee sanctuary.  It features a bee sanctuary garden in Davis, California, and shows what a top bar hive looks like.

Backyard Beekeeping

This weekend's workshop here at Little City Farm was an introductory session on "backyard beekeeping".  We had a local 5th generation beekeeper come to facilitate, discussing the various aspects of beekeeping - getting started (equipment, space, sourcing bees, setting up the bee boxes); trouble shooting (identifying queen cells, watching for swarms, moisture issues, treating for mites, natural approaches to bee health, winter care); harvesting honey (when to remove frames, using extractors, when to use a smoker, what to wear when working with bees)...there is so so much to learn, many more questions to ask, and all seems quite daunting to get started.  However, the world of bees is also entirely fascinating - how each bee has it's valuable role, how organized and efficient and hardworking they are, how tidy in repairing their comb and keeping the hive clean, how well they can communicate with each other, and then how this gorgeous amazing honey is created. During this workshop we all built a frame to practice at least one "hands-on" part of the process, and of course enjoyed tasting delicious honeycomb and goldenrod honey!