Bzzzzzzzzzz

Bees are actually buzzing around some early wee flowers these days. The local beekeepers tell me the bees were hungry and happy to see the sun.

There have been continued challenges with bee colonies in Canada this year - more losses of bees with no clear cause. This is all the more reason to support your local small apiaries. They will be the ones building up the colonies and keeping bees healthy, and bees are responsible for the pollination of more than half our food supply.

Last spring was so cold the bees were looking in the pine trees early in the season. As honey flavours are affected by the bees' choice of food, it made for some very interesting honey which one local producer called "treeflower". Clover is the most common flower in the Canadian countryside, and lends its name to most of our honey. Bees have to visit two million of them to produce a pound of honey! As bees fly 2 or 3 miles in a nectar-gathering run, getting a specialty flavour means placing the bees in the middle of acres of one crop or wildflowers. Buckwheat is especially tricky - if bees can go to another plant they will because the flower is a little tricky to negotiate for the bee. The honey has a special taste, and although I'm not a buckwheat honey fan, I keep it in stock as best I can for those who are.

Everyone has their preferences in honey. Some insist on it raw - never been warmed for filtration. Some love it as a beautiful golden liquid, others like it creamed. All honey will crystallize over time, and if that's not the way you like it, just set the far in a pot of hot water and it will liquefy again.

The reduction in garden chemicals will increase the number of pollinators this year, including honey bees, and that will be great for our veggies. Before long we may see some of the healthy urban bee-keeping that's sprouting up in Vancouver and throughout the US.

Still 10 days away.....

The first day of spring, the vernal equinox... is still ten days away on the calendar. But when the sun is shining, the birds are singing and the snow is melting so some of last year's beds are exposed, you can forgive gardeners for feeling it's time to get in there and dig.

Resist the temptation! Digging cold, wet soil can damage the soil structure you've created with all the compost and other soil amendments you've added over the years. There are lots of other things to do before the digging season begins. If you are one of the many people who are going to plant some food this year, some of your plants can be given a headstart indoors. Tomatoes, sunflowers, squash, lettuce, and basil can all be started in the house from seed, along with some companion plants like marigolds and sweet peas that discourage pests and encourage pollinators.

Building raised beds, window boxes and planters are good projects for the garage or workshop this time of year. I'm going to try a stacking box for potatoes this year - (you add a layer of box or old tires and more soil as the plants grow and then deconstruct it to harvest the potatoes). You can also start working on scrounging the materials for upside-down tomato planters. They should produce some double-takes from people passing your garden.

It really is the time to check your hoses, sharpen your tools, and tidy the potting shed or garage. Boring, I know, but think how much better you'll feel when you don't have to spend a sunny day in the basement looking for your gardening gloves, or nursing your blisters if you never did find them.

And one more thing...if you don't have the space or the knees for gardening anymore, get involved with the community gardens planned for public spaces and schools all over the area for this spring. They can use your experience and you can have the delight of watching a neighbour experience the joy of a garden for the very first time..

Yes, we have no tomatoes...

A little sign on the till of a local fast food restaurant caught our attention. It seems that severe weather in Mexico and Florida means that "round tomatoes" will only be put on your burger if you specially request them. I had to read the sign twice because I was trying to imagine what other shape tomatoes came in, but also because the deeper implications were sinking in.

This is how dependent we've become on other countries to provide our food. And how dependent we've become on off-season food to provide our sustenance. You get tomatoes all year long, in even the cheapest stores and restaurants, for three reasons - oil is still relatively cheap, labour in the south is still cheap, and varieties of tomatoes have been developed for no other characteristic that they can be picked green and travel.

In Canada, the tomato season is July to frost. It can be extended, to some degree, with greenhouses where it's sunny but that can suck up an awful lot of energy. Remember August, when the cherry tomatoes tasted like candy? And September when the beefsteak tomatoes were so ripe you could order a BLT and be perfectly happy if they left off the B and the L? That's they way fresh tomatoes are supposed to taste, and it's a taste worth the wait. In the meantime, there are a million delicious things to do with the tomatoes you and your Ontario neighbours put in the freezer or jars when the fields and gardens were overflowing. It's the season for eating pizza and pasta and chili and homemade soup and stew and for starting the tomato plants that will supply the bounty to see you through next year.