If I create a wildlife friendly allotment nature will come. My allotment is really filling up and blooming now even though I’ve only had it since February. Most of the plants are from seed, cuttings or rescued from other gardens. For the first year I plan to let the plants develop before harvesting properly.
We’ve had so much rain in recent days that I didn’t need to visit the allotment to water during the week. So last Saturday was the first time in seven days that I visited my plot to undertake major garden tasks. It was the summer solstice and the weather was glorious.
As I walked around to check how things were, I noticed a large number of wildlife; nature had come.
The first things I saw were two Small tortoiseshell Butterflies (Aglais urticae) pollinating the Thyme ‘Lemon curd’ (Thymus ‘Lemon curd’)
whilst Oedemera beetles were taking advantage of the Dandelions (Taraxacum officinale) left on the grassy walkways.
Several Buff-tailed bumblebees (Bombus terrestris) busily flew between the flowers on a neighbouring allotment’s Hebe and flowers on my patch, including the Lacy Phacelia (Phacelia tanacetifolia)
as well as the Borage (Borago officinalis).
A Honey bee (Apis mellifera) also visited the Borage.
There was even a solitary bee buzzing about; an Ashy mining bee (Andrena cineraria) pollinating the Hebe.
Most likely this is the bee that was accidentally unearthed the previous weekend while getting rid of bindweed from around the potatoes (see photo below).
I had contacted the Bumblebee Conservation Trust to see if they could identify this silvery bee, if indeed it was a bee. Stephanie Miles answered my query explaining; ‘This is indeed a bee! It’s a male solitary bee of the genus Andrena. When these bees first hatch from the pupa they’re completely silver-haired, like this – over a day or so they dry out, lay down pigmentation, and the normal colour appears. Once the normal colour appears they can be identified to species level. You disturbed this one before it was quite ready to be seen in public!’ Therefore the Ashy mining bee seen on the Hebe seems a likely candidate.
Seven-spot ladybirds (Coccinella septempunctata) in different stages of development were resting on potato, Calendula (Calendula officinalis) and Borage foliage. There were newly formed adults along with the larvae.
Outside of my allotment wildflowers that are beginning to bloom included;
– Ladies bedstraw (Galium verum),
– Rosebay Willowherb (Chamaenerion angustifolium),
– Spear-leaved Willowherb (Epilobium lanceolatum),
– Creeping thistle (Cirsium arvense),
– Spear thistle (Cirsium vulgare),
– Hedge bindweed (Calystegia sepium)
– and Self-heal (Prunella vulgaris).
Bee in the Moment 