We had an amazing meeting Sunday with our team in-person and by phone. I cannot say enough about our team. We have a master gardener, an environmental scientist, a researcher/author/author assistant, and avid nature lovers. Our farm is also surrounded by a USDA certified organic farm. We walked around the farm visiting our locations for our bee friendly farming. We picked out a great location for the berry bushes located near our blackberry vines. Planned out our herbs (lavender, dill, chives, sage, mint), sunflowers, goldenrod, marigolds, daises, zinnias, nasturtium, and milkweed. We also picked out great locations to plant perennials such as bee balm, snow drops, liatris, phlox, asters, blue bells, trumpet creeper and peonies. We discussed flowering and fruit trees such as apple, pear, cherry, peach, hazelnut, and redbuds. Our hopes is to use species native to the east coast, provide favorites for the native bees to Virginia, and also try to have plants that flower from late winter to late fall. There were plans made for different forms of lodging for native bees, such as decaying logs, open soil, and mason bee houses. Bee baths with solar powered burble water pumps are in the plans. If awarded this grant we will all work together to help the bees on our farm and in our area. Another idea if we have enough money would be to purchase native bees.

YAY! I am so excited to be getting started on our Bee Friendly Grant. Here are some of our friendly bees, butterflies, and flowers that are ready to have more neighbors.