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.

Kids Homestead Club held at Little City Farm

A few weeks ago we held our first Kids Homestead Club here during the March Break.  For four days we had a wonderful eager group of 12 kids here (aged 6-12) to take part in hands-on homesteading fun.  We focused on learning about birds and pollinators, while using natural elements like soil, wool, wood, seeds and grain to create homestead projects and art.  The kids made their own bread in the wood-fired cob oven while talking about the importance of eating locally grown organic food; shaped dozens and dozens of pollinator-friendly seedballs with clay and compost; crafted wool-felted acorns and set out wool for birds to use as nest material; and each built a bird nesting box for small birds such as nuthatches, wrens and chickadees while talking about why our bird habitats are increasingly endangered.  It seemed to be a good pairing, learning practical hand-skills (such as hammering nails and kneading dough) while at the same time generating discussion about important environmental issues.  We all had a great time, and look forward to more kids activities here as we help to inspire our younger ones in the community to bring more homesteading hand-powered eco skills to their families.  Thank you to all the parents who also helped out during this week - we could not have done this without you, and hope you enjoyed yourselves too!

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.

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.

Permaculture Seed Balls!

This may well be my favourite activity to do with kids in the spring.  We are aching to get our hands into the soil, so playing with clay and compost muck to shape seed balls is the perfect thing.  And this takes lots of hands to get it done, since the "recipe" makes a huge batch!  We made over 140 seed balls.  Our recipe was not exact - approx. equal parts clay and compost, and enough water to make a good sticky mix that holds a ball shape.  The wetter the mix, the longer it will take to firm up and dry fully.  Plus enough seed packages to get a large number of seeds distributed into each ball.  The idea is to fill the mix with seeds that are held in safe keeping until they have the right conditions to germinate - the clay protects the seeds, the compost is there to feed the seeds once the seed balls are tossed onto the ground and rained/watered to break them open.  We seeded our mix with a bird/bee/butterfly pollinator mix of perennial and annual seeds saved from our garden (bee balm/wild bergamot, poppies, new england asters, black eyed susan, purple coneflower, butterfly weed, borage, eastern columbine, forget-me-not, coreopsis, lemon mint, lupines, and more).

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.