Magpie, Magpie, how does your garden grow?
Slowly. Oh, so slowly.
This past June here in Edmonton has been the coldest, windiest and wettest June that I can remember. My plants are growing SO slowly this year, am I the only one? How has the past month been for your gardens?
Luckily, I plant a lot of different sized flowers to hedge my bets (I DO live in Edmonton, so I have learned my lesson over the years) and I have blooms in my yard for the honey bees even though it’s been cold. I also planted my Buzzing Gardens Seed Kit that I had ordered from the Bees Matter website. We celebrated National Planting Week by making a gorgeous wall garden that was surprisingly easy to make!
I have a herb garden in the trundle and then all sorts of flowers on the pallet, making nice little corner of my yard that is filled with blooms of all kinds!
There is an entire Learning Centre on the Bees Matter website that is full of information on honey bees and other pollinators. All the resources are downloadable as well, so you can share with your kids and have some fun learning about bees on their summer vacation!
There are a lot of different toolkits in the learning centre that have tons of information about identifying bees, the life cycle of bees and more. In addition you can also find useful infographics that the kids will enjoy, like the one below. The toolkits are made for school curriculums so if you are a homeschooler – or just want to have a project for the kids this summer – make sure to check those out!
As for me, I’m going to keep on plugging away at my garden this year, making sure that I get as many blooms as possible for those honey bees! I’m looking forward to cucumbers this year, so I really need to attract them to my yard!
Now, just because National Planting Week is over it doesn’t mean it’s time to stop thinking about the pollinators that we need for our backyards. I have squash that is starting to bloom and will need pollinating – and with such a cold month I am going to have to keep an eye on my flowers! Helping the honey bees and other pollinators doesn’t stop with planting season, it’s something we should be thinking about all summer long.
By helping the honey bees have access to nutritious pollen and nectar, we are helping to support their hives. Honey bee health is directly linked to adequate nutrition and it really takes so little for us to help them out!
Let’s keep those blooming, buzzing gardens of ours healthy and strong all summer long!
Disclosure: I am participating in the Bees Matter program and have been compensated. Any opinions expressed in this post are my own.