Homegrown - Herbs, bees and leafy greens

I'm loving all the sweet purple flowers on my thyme and oregano plants in the herb wall. The bees are loving them too, more than the flowers I purposefully planted to attract bees. Maybe they like the herby smell more.

Speaking of bees; I want to direct your attention to the Save our Bees Charitable Trust. Take a look through their site and see what you can do from your urban locale to keep our bee populations alive and prospering.

These little guys are under danger from a lot of directions, which spells big trouble for our food production unless we help them out.

What I'm doing to protect bees:
1. Planting flowers (especially blue/purple ones)

2. Letting edible plants go to seed so the bees can collect pollen from their flowers.

3. Completely avoiding the use of pesticides and synthetic fertilisers.

When we first moved here I hardly ever saw bees, and now I see them all the time. It's possibly just the time of year, but I like to think they've found a safe haven here.

Leafy green update

Last week I didn't share any pictures of my leafy greens garden, so I just wanted to assure you that all is alive and well in there. 

All my lettuce plants have gone to seed, and to be honest I didn't really use them. I find if I want lettuce I prefer baby spinach, so I don't think I'll plant it again.

My spinach and silverbeet plants are getting really big, which indicates they'll be going to seed before long. Once they've gone to seed they'll be too bitter to eat, so I bought seed-raising mix yesterday and am going to plant more seeds in trays ready to replace them with when needed.

I mostly use our spinach and silverbeet in smoothies, so we get the benefit of all those lovely nutrients raw.

However, I also occasionally add it into a meal like this amazing Silverbeet tart you just have to try. 

These Three-cheese stuffed peppers are also a yummy way to eat cooked spinach:

What's your favourite way to eat dark leafy greens?