My son and I recently moved to a 15 acre piece of farm land and are creating our first garden since he was a toddler. I'm so excited! I don't want this to be just any garden, but also a nature habitat for local wildlife, including honeybees, and a source of food for most of our needs throughout the year.
We both envision vegetables, fruits, and flowers. And, abundance!
But, without honeybees to pollinate, why bother?
With that in mind, headed to the library and looked for books on honeybee gardening. I found the sweetest little book -- Planting for Honeybees: The Grower's Guide to Creating a Buzz by Sarah Wyndham Lewis. This book appealed to me for several reasons:
- It's on a topic I am committed to learning and implementing.
- It's short enough to not be overwhelming.
- It's pretty! The illustrations throughout are gorgeous!
- It's easy to read in chunks, but short enough to read all at once.
- It's written in clear language that is easy for a beginner to understand.
I also like how Planting for Honeybees is laid out. There are the usual overview chapters about gardens, bees, and so on, but there are also sections and chapters that are almost like bullet points -- simple, quick lists of plants for various situations and garden sizes, seasonal breakdowns of various plants, and so on. The goal of the book is, in large part, to help you keep honey bees happy all year long.
Although our farm is several acres in size, most of that space is dedicated to cows. We'll be limiting our gardening and crops to a plot that is about 80 feet x 40 feet and almost rectangular. It's a lumpy, bumpy, weed covered, sloping mess, but it's ours and we love it! After my first read through of Planting for Honeybees, we've made some changes to our initial gardening plans and layout and will be including a few patches that we leave wild (we LOVE our dandelion patch!), and we'll be planting some flowers in large groups of single varieties. According to Wyndham Lewis, this is what honeybees really enjoy!
Now, I'm going to sit down with Planting for Honeybees again to make a list of plants to buy and sow now, as well as a list and plan for the rest of the year to keep our bees happy and working!
I'm looking forward to having an abundant flowering garden, busy with the hum of happy bees, and a huge, producing vegetable plot that will help keep our bellies full all summer, fall, and across winter!
You can learn more about Planting for Honeybees and the author, Sarah Wyndham Lewis, by visiting her website HERE.
Do you have a garden? What's your favorite flower to grow? Your favorite vegetable? Leave a comment and let me know!
While I found Planting for Honeybees at my local library (one of my favorite places!), you can find it on Amazon HERE or by following the links below:
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