For a more sustainable Valentine’s Day, buy your loved one a potted plant. Unlike cut flowers you can watch it grow.
Category Archives: Honeybees
In Production Today
Food production is quickly changing since summer arrived two weeks early…
In Production Today
In Brisbane, winter crops have finished flowering. Their seed is ripe and ready for harvest.
Predator Attracting Plants
Organic gardening isn’t conventional gardening, so why not enjoy some unconventional pest control?
In Flower Today
Brisbane‘s subtropical winter comes to a happy, floriferous end in mid-August. Today there’s around a hundred different plants flowering, two weeks before Australia’s official first day of spring.
Towards A National Food Plan
Draft notes for Queensland Conservation’s submission to aid in the development of a National Food Plan. The final draft was submitted by QC on 2.9.11…
Beerwah Farm
Introduction
A National Food Plan is vital for Australia’s ongoing food sovereignty.
Food Sovereignty may be defined as a nation’s self-sufficiency in food, where affordable staples are made available to its people irrespective of their age, personal wealth, or place of residence.
Without a well-researched National Food Plan the long-term outlook for Australian food sovereignty is not good. Our nation produces a relatively small food surplus in good years, mostly meat and grains, sufficient to feed between 30-40 million. This is a small amount of food compared to current and predicted global population statistics.
Australia covers 7.7 million km2, our fossil soils are infertile and 3 billion years old, and our current population is 22.4 million. In a good year we produce a surplus of grains and meat sufficient to provision another 30 – 40 million people. By contrast the neighbouring island of Java covers 1.9 million km2 (1.8 times the size of the state of Victoria), its volcanic soils are young, fertile and well watered, and its current population is 138 million. In a good year, Java is almost self-sufficient in most staple foods.
Honey Bee Colony Collapse Disorder. Bayer = Yates = Confidor
It has recently been reported that due to the rise of colony collapse disorder in honeybees that within five years this insect will be extinct in England.
Read on…
Sow Pigeon Peas For Native Bees
Pigeon peas are a 21st century crop. Last spring I decided to grow my own dal. Protein-rich split peas are the main ingredient, also added to soups and stews, and these are dried pigeon pea seed, Cajanus cajan.
Pigeon peas are as useful as maize, but have a far smaller ecological footprint, and are easier, but slower, to grow. They’re a universal food, but India grows 80% of the global harvest. Continue Reading →
Honey Flora Report – June
The common bedding begonia, Begonia semperflorens, flowers all year round and loves Brisbane’s cool seasons. Blue-banded and honey bees forage their flowers.
Blue-banded bees are up early, busily pollinating our eggplants and tomatoes. Our potatoes and Phillip Island hibiscus are budding. Meanwhile our honeybees are zooming around gathering far and wide...
AUSTRALIAN WILD PLANTS
Broad-leaved Paperbark, Melaleuca quinquinervia
Forest red gum, Eucalyptus tereticornis
Spotted gum, Corymbia citriodora subsp. maculata (syn. C. maculata, Eucalyptus maculata)
Brisbane wattle, black wattle, Acacia concurrens (syn. Acacia cunninghamii) Continue Reading →
Hive Society! A Bee And Wasp Gallery
Gardens are full of surprises if you keep your eyes open – and have a camera handy. This autumn, flowering Pigeon peas proved irresistible to six different native bee species. What’s going on in your garden?
This gallery contains 77 photos
