The garden's hardest workers

I know I talked about this last year, but I LOVE bees and what they do for us. Because they are so busy, they are very hard to get a picture of. I stood out by this apple tree for probably 10 minutes and got maybe one bee in every 10 shots. These guys move around quickly! Not easy to catch with a digital camera, but this one will do:


These little guys have had a tough few days with fairly chilly temperatures and a stiff wind, but they persisted and were diligently working to make little baby apples for us to enjoy in the fall. They were also working over the blueberry bushes quite well, too, but pictures of that were impossible to catch. Thank you bees!


As you can see, the peas have sprouted in the garden. Also up are the red potatoes (the yukon golds are still sleeping, apparently), radishes, lettuce and the green beans are just poking their little round heads to see if they want to come up yet. I am having trouble with something eating my tender green transplants of bok choy, basil and cilantro, but don't see any footprints of our resident deer in the garden (plus it's netted) so I'm thinking it's slugs, so I put out some pet-safe Sluggo to see if that would help. The good news is that I planted so early, that I still have plenty of time to replant things that don't make it. The herb garden up next to the house is complete now with a couple kinds of thyme, rosemary, oregano, catnip, and peppermint. I also had enough room to plant two small tomato plants up against the warmth of the house and a couple of artichoke plants just to see if they'd work here. I'll get a picture of that for next time.