This is the journal of my endeavours to grow a range of fruit, veg and flowers from seed, grow organically, and my attempts to create a personal paradise with 1/2 acre of maintained gardens and 1/2 acre wild meadows. Northern Ireland's average daily high temperatures are 18 °C (64 °F) in July and 6 °C (43 °F) in January. Soil type: Clay

Sunday 10 August 2014

Bees and butterflies

Echinecea are flowering and looking fab this month, and the bees are loving them! Saturday was a bright sunny day and I took to the garden to take a few photos. I spent ages photographing bees.

It was a great day to be outside (today the rain is pouring down) and I did a bit of weeding and harvested salad leaves and two beetroot, which I grated, added a bit of red wine vinegar and served with caesar salad. It was very tasty!
Above: Majoram flowers are attracting lots of bees.
Above: White butterfly pictured on lavender. They seem to be everywhere! 

Copyright: All words and photos are property of Kelli's Northern Ireland Garden.

8 comments:

  1. So nice we can enjoy bees and butterflies in our gardens, your pictures still look sunny. We too had a beautiful day yesterday, but this morning it slowly started to rain and now it's pouring.
    Wish you a great new gardening week!

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  2. It's hard to resist a bee when you have a camera in your hand isn't it?

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  3. We see few butterflies here. We have the giant tiger swallow tails that flit through. We haven't see a black swallow tail in a couple of years now.rain The rain should be good for the garden and you can relax inside. Have a good week.

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  4. Re the grated beetroot: was it raw or cooked? I like the idea of doing something with beetroot other than just eating it boiled and sliced.

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    1. Hi Mark, the beetroot was grated raw and tasted great. The red wine vinegar adds just a nice edgy taste. (I'm not a fan of vinegar normally).

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  5. The weather was so much better yesterday than it is today. It's lovely to see so many bees around this year, and there's lots of butterflies too, though I'm not too bothered about the white ones which want to lay their eggs on my brassicas.

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  6. I was so rushed this year with my veggie starts that I didn't have time to plant bee friendly annuals. Luckily I have some perineals that they've been enjoying. Next year I'll make them happier! =)

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  7. Bees and butterflies, one of the main reasons that I garden!

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