Eight Acres

Since we went to the Valley Bees Open Day last year , we've been really keen to get some bees ourselves (they are running the open day again this year  (.pdf flier), be warned, attendance may lead to compulsive beekeeping).  Pete and I read lots of books and listened to podcasts and went our local beekeeping group until we were confident that we were ready to get some bees. A lot of the beekeeping information out there says to wait until Spring to get bees, but that's not really necessary in our climate .  Actually we have several gum trees flowering at the moment which are providing plenty of nectar and pollen for the bees.  Although we do get frost, its not too cold during the day for bees to forage, so there's no reason not to get bees.  If you're anywhere north of Brisbane, you are probably in the same situation, I don't know about further south, but have a look at your local climate and what's in flower.  Chances are, you could get bees now too if y...

I had this plant in my garden where I'd tossed out some "friendly bug mix" seeds.  I thought it was clover, but it didn't look quite right.  I'd been wondering what it was for over a year when my mum finally pointed out that it looked like lucerne (or alfalfa).  Its so silly that I didn't recognise it, but I'm used to seeing lucerne dried as hay and I'd never really seen the living plant.  Now that really got me thinking because I remembered reading somewhere that lucerne tea is really good because the plant has such deep roots and accumulates lots of minerals, but I didn't want to use any of the hay we buy because you don't really know "where its been" so to speak.  I forget now where I read that, and when you goggle lucerne or alfalfa tea, most of the links are about making tea for your garden rather than for yourself!  (here's one semi-helpful link )  Anyway, I didn't think it would hurt to cut some of the lucerne leaves an...

I've never been a flower gardener, my garden is all about eating, however I do recognise the importance of flowers in the vege garden for attracting bees and beneficial insects.  I think there's three kinds of flowers in my garden at the moment: The perennials: things like comfrey, arrowroot, sage, and lavender are flowering at the moment and they are the good flowers, because they let you know that the plant is happy enough in its surroundings to flower for you. The annuals: these are the bad flowers, these make you think "oh crap, you're bolting to seed and I haven't planted any seeds yet to replace you".  At the moment that would be the parsley and the broccoli, and over the past few months have also included lettuce and rocket.  The only consolation is at least you get to keep the seeds!  And they do look rather pretty. The plants that you actually want to flower: plants like peas, beans zucchini and tomato that you NEED to flower so you can gr...