Bee Rescue Kit DIY

My conservatory seems to be the place to Bee. The rain seems to be driving them to find flowers that are in dry places. The greenhouse is fine, the conservatory is not. They tend to go to the top and I find them dead or exhausted the following day. So I catch them and put them out as safely as possible. I have a bad reaction to stings, so have to be careful.

Bee rescue kit

A jar and a glass is the answer. When they’re too exhausted to fly a little sugar water to drink seems to be the answer. I use muscavado as it will have a few nutrients in it as well as pure energy. The wildlife needs all the help it can get in this crazy season!

Weather or Not? Certainly not summer

Alpine flowers

First my apologies. The last few weeks have been mayhem, a lot of it boring stuff. It’s dragged me away from my blog, though not my hearth. I’ve spent far more time in front of it than I would normally expect to in May and June. Brrr, it’s not summer, is it? April poured, May did mostly the same and now June! Awful, cold and not easy to get anything done outside.

BUT the great, fantastic upside that’s taken far longer than I ever expected to get done (drum roll please…) my greenhouse is UP. And it has plants in it.

My new greenhouse

My partner and I just don’t have the skills that were needed to build a solid base on a slope. Three times the heavens opened when we were due to have someone come and do the job. Then last week, finally, the workforce and the weather needed came at the same time. My tomatoes, started in the conservatory, are now in, staked and watered. I left out some slabs to allow one border access to the soil beneath. I’ve got a layer of gravel and sand in there, put the tomatoes in growbags but made slits in the bases so the roots can get down to more water when they need it. As we do go off camper vanning, it will reduce my neighbors kindly watering duties and mean using less water. Not that there’s a shortage at the moment.

Also, that border I started to strip of Spanish Bluebells is almost finished, and I  planted most of it between downpours. It was hard work and I had to take it slow, but it at least can get on with growing now. This means that my patio area is now clear of greenhouse, plants in pots for the garden and other clutter. We had to buy a mower, too, if we weren’t to need a machete to get to the bottom of the garden. The birds have continued to delight us and have reared their chicks which now visit the bird feeder with mum and dad. So cute! Photography has been for the most part impossible because of the weather, so I haven’t many new shots at all, especially as you need good light for birds and fairly dry conditions for the camera! I’ve included a couple of shots of plants that have managed to bloom despite this weird, wet drought!

Clematis adorns the net supporting it. Eventually this will be hidden by foliage.

I have managed to do a little writing, though. I write on Squidoo, too, on special areas that would be too detailed to discuss here. You might be interested, though, in a few of the Squidoo ‘lenses’ I’ve done as they directly relate to what I’m doing here on Earth and Hearth. One, called Wild Flowers For Gardens highlights some of my favorite wild flowers that won’t go rampant and look great in the garden. 30 Top Flowers For Bees continues my crusade to get more people planting nectar rich flowers. After all, we benefit as much as the bees from their hard work when we eat! Foraging Wild Plants To Eat focuses attention on picking from the wild. Given the current food shortage issues and economic climate, I wanted to educate people on what CAN be found for free all around us. I’ve since heard that the latest, fashionable word in the city for this is ‘invisible food’. My aim is to make it more visible so more people can benefit.

I hope you’ll pay these lenses a visit for more details than I could possibly bring to this blog.