My Contribution to the Bees

[digitS']

First of all, the tree in the background is a Klamath plum. They grow wild about 400 miles south of here. A bird must have carried the seed.

This little tree has a heck of a time bearing fruit. I think that hours of sunlight prompts it to bloom too early here. Hard frosts destroy the crop every spring. There are usually only 4 or 6 fruits that mature somewhere in the middle of the tree. However, the little volunteer keeps trying! It is absolutely covered with honey-scented blooms in May!

:bee :bee

A windstorm essentially destroyed the tree about 5 years ago. I pruned off the broken branches and it has regrown nicely.

The white flowers in the foreground are Queen Anne's Lace (wild carrots). I have left this area unmowed so that the bees can make use of them.

:bee :bee

The wild plum and Queen Anne's Lace sit only about 6 feet north of my garden. The garden sprinklers do a fairly good job keeping this area watered.

:bee Steve :bee

Edited to substitute the name "Queen Anne's Lace" for "wild carrots."

 

[hoodat]

I always had that trouble with peaches in Oklahoma. They'd bloom and freeze almost every year. I'd get peaches about one year in ten and then it was usually Indian peaches, an astringent variety that is great canned but not much use for eating fresh.

 

[digitS']

It is so strange that it is here, Hoody!

Klamath plums are literally everywhere out in the wild around Tule Lake in southern Oregon. You can go out and get bucketfuls of the fruit.

It gets darn cold in that high country but I really think that it is the light here. That plum responds to the increased daylight by blooming and it is just about 2 weeks too early. Blam! That's it for the fruit.

The other strange thing is imagining a crow or gull trying to pass a plum seed after flying 400 miles due north . . . . ouch!
Steve

 

[hoodat]

Trying to get it out was probably what kept it flying.

 

[dragonlaurel]

:bee Ouch.
Check with the local extension service and find out how many chilling hours you typically get.
Then look for plum varieties that want that many hours. They may pollinate each other. It's a pretty tree.

 

[digitS']

Well, I suppose it could have a pollination problem. There is a cherry and apple orchard just up the hill. I don't know about neighboring plums.

Despite its lack of production, really, the tree isn't in the way. Neither is the Queen Ann's Lace. Behind them is the largest rock pile imaginable! It takes up nearly as many square feet as the hay barn beside it!

I have one neighbor who has little field of about 3 acres. For about 5 years, he sprayed that field with herbicide so that nothing grew! Nothing! There are some rocks . . .

I suppose he would kill everything outside my garden if he was the "gardener" on this side of the road. I consider his behavior beyond laughable :/ and wonder what the heck he thinks he's doing out in a semi-rural part of the world.

In there with the QALace is a blackberry. This isn't a part of the NorthWest where wild blackberries have a chance of producing fruit. Still, there's a plant about every 1/2 mile throughout the countryside. Might be the fault of the birds, again . They also bloom in the spring but nothing comes of it and the plants cannot takeover like they do on the west side of the Cascades.

Also, there's my volunteer catnip in that mess. Really, it can show up anywhere but catnip likes to grow in kind of "protected" areas, like in the middle of a blackberry bush. After I get some foliage off it for catnip tea , the catnip blooms. The bees love it too!

I bet that we can all find a small area of our growing space to allow something to grow that has little use to us but is beneficial to the bees.

Steve

 

[hoodat]

My cilantro is just coming into flower and boy are the bees going for it. My digger wasps like it also.