New bee family

The previous owners had an outdoor cat house. It was just a wooden box with some bedding in it.

Our cats never used it. And it was slowly rotting. With half an hour to spare, we decided to break it up and get rid of it.

But shortly after starting the demolition it became clear that someone was living in it - a family of bees.

It's just a little family.

We like bees. Bees are good. But bees sting and one of us reacts really badly, so keeping a hive of bees in the middle of the yard wasn't really an option. They had to move house.

We could have phoned the local bee man. But this was our little family, who had chosen to live with us. How could we exile them? And what fun it would be if we could watch them grow.

This box seemed perfect as a potential bee house. It has 4 walls and a floor, a front door and a back door

But no roof.

Luckily, we now had a pile of wood from a demolished cat house. A few batons added to a handy plank, and we had a roof.

Underside of roof:

House fitted upside down on roof:

Front door, right way up.

I plugged the doors with grass and in the evening, moved them in. The whole thing was then relocated to our veg plot, half way up the field. Far enough away that we're less likely to annoy each other. But close enough that we can watch their progress.

Fingers crossed they are happy with the idea.

The result of hard work

The veg garden is growing. Weeds as well as veg, of course.

But the veg is winning enough to give the first meal of the season totally from the garden.

This is always very satisfying

Peas, courgette, leek, cauliflower,  aubergine and cucumber fried in a little butter. Does that make it a vegetable stir fry or a warm salad?

Either way, it was yummy.

The aubergine was an experiment. I'm not normally a big fan of it. Somehow it always seems wet and slimey when I've had it cooked for me. But home grown and home cooked it was great and I'd definitely do it again.

The cauliflower was a mistake. I'm sure the seedlings were labelled kolrabi but I guess it was one of those "lost in translation" things. I'm not normally a fan of cauliflower either, but variety is the spice of life, and all that. 

Tomatoes are coming. I'm expecting a bit of a flood - there's a lot of self seeded volunteers. Quite funny really, after all the disasters with my attempts to grow seedlings.

And the carrots! I've never suceeded with carrots. But this year I ditched the seed packets and bought plants. And I'm totally sold on buy seedlings - I'm never going to buy seeds ever again. And next year I'm doing carrots big time. Because what could be better than a freezer full of carrots? Carrot soup. Carrot cake. Everybody like carrots.

I wish I'd thought of the freezer for the beetroot and turnips last year. I didn't grow them this year due to last year's storage disaster - too disappointing. But freezing solves all those problems. Seems a bit of a cheat - shouldn't need to freeze root veg to store them - but you've got to start somewhere. Next year.