Spring is certainly busting out in Texas. We have been busy planting our garden and planning for another great growing season. This year we planted crimson clover to help amend the soil and keep the bees happy this spring.
This year we have planted over 100 tomato plants that Tony grew from seed, 40 sweet potato slips, over 300 feet of potatoes, corn, squash, zucchini, cucumbers, and lots more! We also planted a few more fruit trees. Our goal is to plant 4-5 per year so that we can eventually have a nice variety of trees. We are even trying a Yellow Apple tree, which will take some attention in central Texas, but hopefully we will have success with it.
One of the things that we tried this year was planting crimson clover. Clover is a great cover crop to plant during the winter to help add nutrients back into your garden soil. We did this in several of our raised beds and hopefully it has helped our soil some.
The other added benefit of crimson clover is that bees use it for pollen in early spring. We currently have 3 hives, with 2 more on the way! This is an excellent source of food for them before the real nectar flow starts. Our issue is that we had to cut the clover before it was bloomed in order to get our garden started on time. However we did leave one small 4×4 raised bed of crimson clover for the bees to enjoy.
The clover has been bloomed for a week or 2, but there was not a bee in site. We were hoping the crimson clover would attract the bees to our garden to help pollinate our squash blooms. Finally yesterday we saw our first honey bee investigating the crimson buds!
By the afternoon we had dozens of bees buzzing all around the clover. Apparently the bee had gone back to the hive and did a little dance to show the rest of them where the food was at. All in all I call that a success! Now if they would just wander over to the squash blooms we will be all set!
Our Peace Rose is also blooming in the garden which is a welcomed site to spring! We planted this rose in memory of my mother, who loved peace roses too. I love the smell and the variety of colors a single bloom can have!
