100 Posts and a Pollinator-Friendly Garden

Welcome to Post 101 on the PBBF blog!

I subscribe to The Herb Companion in an attempt to figure out how to use all of the herbs I'm growing. The magazine features recipes for food, spa products, and health remedies, among other helpful articles.

They also post many of the articles online.  As this author points out, one garden won't make a huge difference, but if everyone planted just a few pollinator-friendly herbs and flowers, we could help save these fragile workers.

Currently, I have borage growing from seed simply because bees are supposed to love it. I have cilantro, sage, basil, chives, pineapple sage, parsley, and rosemary too.  What do you have planted for pollinators?

Photo of a bee on borage from The Ojai Garden.

Growing More than Bees

On Thursday, Mark bought plants at the MSU Horticulture Club's annual plant sale. He found a helpful student who sold him everything from pineapple sage to a t-shirt for me.  We got up Saturday morning ready to plant. The only remnant of last year's herbs is sage. The mixture of basil seed I planted has sprouted.  I love seeing new life push its way through the soil!

Considering the dog ate the first parsley I'd planted (purchased at the Everything Garden expo), I opted to put the parsley in a raised bed far from the porch where he likes to hang out with Sarah.  Let's hope cilantro and lemon basil are less to his liking!

Out in the raised beds, we planted salad tomatoes (a sister to the one already planted, but the greenhouse resident already had small fruit growing on it!), Early Treat and Better Boy tomatoes, okra, and zucchini. I'm sure this photo documents the last time the entirety of both zucchini plants will fit in the same photograph.

We also planted some flowers designed to make pollinators happy, including lantana.  I attempted to transplant some borage seedlings, but today they're looking limp and distressed. Time will tell. Bees are supposed to love borage blossoms, so I hope these survive!

What are you planting this spring?