I guess the old adage about March will ring true this year, in like a lion and out like a lamb. They're calling for +17 tomorrow, oh my! We'll take it, the plants in the greenhouse love tropical weather. The furnaces could sure use a break. We haven't had much sun lately, so they have been working overtime protecting the plants. They've also given us a slight scare in the middle of the night. We have alarms in case the power goes out, you only have about 15 min to get a generator going before it becomes so cold in the greenhouse we risk losing all the plants, a pretty big investment. The alarm has gone off twice now in the middle of the night, once because the batteries in one of the greenhouse thermostats died (phew! easy fix) and the second because we ran out of fuel (ah!) we were able to get some out of another tank to tie us over until morning. Those greenhouses sure like to keep us on our toes!
The greenhouses are sure filling up quickly, we've been preparing the flower-hanging baskets. We've filled one greenhouse end to end, and now we're working on filling another. Diane is working on some really gorgeous mixes this season. I can't wait for you to see them!
The tomato, cherry tomato, pepper and cucumber plants are now planted in their permanent spot in the greenhouses for the season.Right now the plants need to be protected, mostly from the elements. The plants thrive in tropical weather and that's our focus. Keep it warm and keep feeding them the right nutrition, so we get a bountiful harvest come May.
Our friends the bees arrived today, we're pretty happy to see them. When Jon was but a wee lad, he was the pollinator guy. He had a magic wand that he would touch every flower with to release the pollen from the flower. This needs to be done for the plants to bear fruits. Without pollination, you don't get any tomatoes. I need tomatoes, I need Rochon tomatoes, don't you? I can't eat the grocery store ones anymore. Where's the flavour?
I'm a big fan of our little friends in the greenhouse that do all the pollination for us. Not only because of that but they are the most docile little creatures. They're curious about you when you go into the greenhouse but they're also super mellow. They just go about their business pollinating, they come to you and say Hi! you know they're more interested in pollinating than having a chat.
I found a really cute post about which flowers you can grow in your garden to attract pollinators, you'll find it below. Bees need two things to survive nectar, loaded with sugar and a bee's main source of energy and pollen, this provides them with proteins and fats. If you're starting to plan your garden for this season, consider plants that flower at different times, so there’s always a snack available. As a rule, native plants attract native bees and exotic plants attract honeybees. Bees have good colour vision. They especially like blue, purple, violet, white and yellow. Create floral bull’s eyes: Plant flowers of a single species in clumps about four feet in diameter instead of in scatterings, so bees are more likely to find them. Bee species all have different tongue lengths — adaptations to different flowers, so a variety of flower shapes will benefit a diversity of bees.
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