Into the hive

Today we had a big tidy up in the garden and a nice visit from Ian, our mentor bee keeper who talked to us all about our bees and the amazing way in which they work. He explained how if you lose your queen bee, another one will soon be chosen, so its not something to worry about. Another great fact he shared was the way that the bees communicate to each other. They really do perform the bee dance to let their fellow workers know where the best flowers are. They dance around in a figure of eight style and dictate through angles which way to fly on leaving the hive to find lots of tasty pollen. In addition to this they vibrate and wiggle at a certain rate which indicates the distance at which the flowers are located in relation to the hive. That's pretty amazing directional advice and all through the medium of dance!

The garden getting a good tidying. We cut so much grass we could have made hay!

 The queen bee herself Jan, checking the frames for Queenie

Bees working away in a Ian's demonstration glass window frame

Watching and learning

A whole lot of bees, buzz buzz

The Edible Terrace

After a couple of months of hauling soil up 3 storeys, contending with urban pigeons and struggling with windy wet weather the Edible Terrace at my office is finally growing. The idea of the project is to see how much food we can grow on the un-used section of the roof terrace and to inspire my colleagues about urban food growing whilst also creating a nice green space which can be enjoyed throughout the summer. We are trying to source materials for free and make use of items in the local area that would be doomed for the rubbish tip. So far we have made mini-greenhouses out of pallets and plastic sheeting, used cable reels as planting containers and collected thick tubing to harvest rain water. Here is what we have done so far...

How the space looked at the beginning with our first mini-greenhouse on the right

Terrace transformation

The beginning of our climbing wall of beans, peas and edible flowers

 Safe and cosy out of the wind inside mini-greenhouse number 2

 Cable reels recycled from the electrical store across the road making a nice home for courgette plants

Salad bed with rocket, lettuce, mizuna and chard made from old pallets

Blooming beds

So, the two new beds that we set up on our Volunteer Day at Cordwainers Garden back in February have come on leaps and bounds. Here are a few photos to show what we've got growing in them.

 The dye bed with a front border of Calendula Officialis or good old Pot Marigold. We have also got some madder and wode and some other dye-tastic plants popping up now the weather has warmed up.

 Our potager style bed with bean/pea tripods, onions, salads, squashes, beetroot, broccoli to name a few.

Pretty flowers on the sweet peas which had been grown over winter. They had a bit of a slow start, but soon got going and are now happily climbing up the tripods and providing us with an array of beautiful little flowers.