Down on the Allotment

Matron grows vegetables and fruit in a Hampshire garden. I've been growing veggies since I was knee high to a grasshopper. Some traditional varieties and old favourites as well as new ideas. I share my garden with my allotment assistant Daisy the Labrador. On Twitter as @MatronsVeggies

Thursday, September 26, 2013

Perfect Pollinators

 The bees and butterflies are just loving my garlic chive flowers at the moment.
 This Comma butterfly was very happy yesterday.  These flower heads have multiple flowers on one head so bees can pollinate many flowers at a time without having to fly to the next flower.
 I have observed that pollinating insects seem to prefer many vegetable flowers to flower flowers.
 I would encourage growers to leave a couple of veggies at the end of each row to go to seed for a few months for the sake of the bees.  Parsnips, beetroot, broccoli, leeks all produce wonderful flowers for pollinators.
 Meanwhile, I picked my biggest Beefmaster tomato yesterday. Not bad at 2lbs 6 oz... but the British record is over 5 lbs so I have a way to go to beat that!
My final tally of Winter squash is displayed here. They are being dried out and the skins 'cured' on a sunny windowsill indoors.

posted by Matron @ 6:58 AM

2 Comments:

At 3:04 PM, Blogger Mark Willis said...

What a fab tomato! Not pretty, but what a whopper.

 
At 3:49 PM, Blogger Donna said...

I always leave some veggies to bloom, I enjoy the flowers and so do the pollinators. I also have the terrible habit to the dismay of my neighbors of letting a few weeds go to bloom, the pollinators seem to prefer these the best.

 

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