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Bees and Borage

bee on my borage blossom

As I was planning my garden early this year, I found a chart of companion plants. I planted everything that is supposed to attract bees, including borage, although I didn't have much of an idea what borage is. In fact, I'm not really sure how to pronounce it. Does borage rhyme with porridge? Or is it French with an ending more like mirage? I keep reading that you can eat the blossoms. Does anyone? It has huge, hairy stalks, and if it gets a lot of water at once, it collapses for several hours with the weight.

Since I have the new shed, which is not in the exact location of the old shed, I had to move my garden. I also had to experiment with the sun exposure of my new spot. I have three cherry tomatoes, which seem promising, but so far they are just for snack-picking and I am not sure that they are going to end up in many meals. They do taste very nice. I also have several pepper plants, which I started from seed, I'm proud to say, but alas! no peppers yet. I have several volunteer pumpkin vines, and other miscellaneous curcubits which we have yet to identify. Beyond that, it's all herbs: lavender, sage, thyme, chives, dill, (all perennial here); rosemary, basil, borage. I haven't gotten the use out of my herbs that I should be. They aren't fresh all year round, although the sage does try; I should be taking advantage of them now.


I was reading a lot of garden blogs in March and April, and someone mentioned her lemon thyme, and how she didn't know what to do with it. She got lots of comments for uses, so I thought I should try that, and I have a decent spot of lemon thyme, now. I haven't done anything but pinch off bits and smell it. It does have a lemony scent.

PS I would like to acknowledge that, while I know Kristina may make fun of me for referencing Wikipedia, a la Michael Scott, I find it is often the most concise page on a given subject, and doesn't have a lot of personal comments or advertisements!

Comments

  1. Good luck with your garden. Mine is just now really starting to come up. Hopefully we will get some corn and pumpkins, but it looks like tomatoes are out!

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  2. I won't make fun for the Wikipedia, I use it myself sometimes. I am just a little more careful than my classmate that used it on her paper on Steven Spielberg and the oxymoron of her film being his "second directorial debut" : ) As for your peppers, I planted mine last year thinking I'd have a fajita festival with them for my birthday--and didn't have any until September! Maybe yours are "late bloomers" as well.

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