It's plum season here. The tree was here when we bought the house. It's unpruned and crazy, and a large branch fell down recently, full of fruit. We can't reach all of the fruit and the birds love that. The plums are small and not that sweet, but very edible. This is where the bees made their hive overnight before they moved on. So plum jam is on the list for this week.
after a fallow year last year, we have somewhat late in the year got our two garden beds cleared, composted and planted - three kinds of tomatoes, broccoli, eggplant, beetroot, kale, silverbeet, capsicum, lettuce, red corn, yellow squash, nasturtiums. Also new basil (2 kinds) and dill. I have other stuff in seed pots (carrots, epazote, pumpkin) but don't know where to plant them at the moment.
we really have no good sense of when to plant things, so I think that will be next year's learning... of course, a big issue here is how wet it was this winter. we'll see what the summer brings.
despite the fact that my back hates gardening, for the first time ever, literally, this year, i have found being out in the garden for an hour or more immensely peaceful. I think it was because I wasn't doing back-breaking work, but turning soil, weeding, planting seeds, etc. Myers Briggs personality theory would say that my tertiary function (sensing) is finally getting a workout, but then that, I think, is what my growing love of cooking over the last decade has been about. well, that and the desire for solitude...
while I was away Yvonne discovered what she thought was a wasp's nest in our compost bin. when I came home I doused them in talcum powder one evening (based on previous advice). we didn't think that it had done anything, but two days later they'd all disappeared. an inspection of the compost bin revealed a beehive in progress. later that same day we discovered them 'hiving' on our plum tree.
today, for some reason, perhaps the rain, or the fact that the branch was likely to break, they have moved on (we hope).
it so happens that they're talking about bees at Yvonne's playgroup, so she got to take along the abandoned honeycomb and a photo of the "treehive". all quite fascinating and amazing.
