Follow the Fungi: Garden Compatible Mushroom Workshop with Eileen Kage

There's a new interest in my life, and that's using mushrooms as companions in gardens. So when my friend Eileen Kage offered a workshop on cultivating King Stropharia, I jumped at the chance to follow the fungi. But first, I had to visit the bees in the Community Garden at City Hall.

This is an elegant solution to containing the sprawl of cosmos.

The catmint was a hot spot for bumblebees and honeybees.

John and Judy's garden rocks the nasturtiums.

Gotta love the puns.

A Voznesensky bumblebee sleeping in on Petrovskia.

A huge wad of pollen, but not from this bee balm, which is obviously providing a long, tall drink of nectar here. This is a neon yellow variation of the species of bumblebee.

The workshop took place across the street at the Cambie Square Communal Garden, where there is a lot of signage for such a small group of plots.

And finally, the sign that tells me I'm in the right place!

Nikoo and Eileen gave us an introduction to the function of fungi in gardens.

And Eileen waxed poetic on her fondness for King Stropharia, which has the added bonus that the mycelium appears to be collected by honeybees for some mysterious reason, perhaps medicinal.

Mycelium also help some plants take up the minerals and nutrients from the soil. One would think this would also help the bees because healthier plants would produce optimum quality and quantity if nectar and pollen.

Then we went right into the demos: Eileen makes a spawn "burrito".

This is how you make a mycelium layer cake in your garden bed: dig out 6 inches of soil from the center of the bed, leaving an edge where the mushrooms will (hopefully) fruit.

Soak plain cardboard in water and then peel the top layer of paper off, placing one layer on the bottom, corrugated side up.

Put in a layer of spawn, then sterilized woodchips, then straw. Do the same process again and then top with a layer of the peeled cardboard, corrugated side down. Replace two inches of the soil. Keep moist until the fall rains come. By next May, you might get mushrooms. Eileen warned that mushroom cultivation is a fickle beast, but the mycelium will still work under the soil helping the plants take up nutrients. Some of the plants that benefit from King Stropharia include squash and raspberries. We each took a similarly layered bucket home to inoculate our own beds after we've watered and nurtured the layer cake for a month or more.

BTW, this awesome workshop was funded by a Neighborhood Small Grant.

This is the view from the workshop. Isn't it ridiculous that this lawn in not replaced with thriving garden beds? We urban humans have our priorities so screwed up.

And then I celebrated by having sunch at Chutney Villa. No, not a typo, it really is sunch--delicious food from the cuisine of Southern India.

Hummingbird Flowers are on Fire!

Perfectly behaved and neatly coifed zinnias waiting for hummingbird visitors

This spring I purchased seeds for plants that were supposed to attract hummingbirds. I have planted them in four different gardens around the city. It's the beginning of August and many of them are now in full bloom. I was sitting in my back yard moping about having spent all this time and energy and no hummers were visiting the flowers. Just at that moment, a sweet female Anna's came and fed at the Cardinal Creeper. I was so excited. But what made my heart burst, was when her male partner joined her and they both fed in the garden. Now they are returning every day.

Sweet peas in lipstick shades

They were really into those Cardinal Creepers, but they did sip at the red sweet peas and I saw one stick her beak in a California poppy that had closed for the night. Hummingbirds seem to like to travel at dusk to fill up for the long night, so the morning glories are finished, but they were still trying to get nectar out of the blossoms. Hummingbirds don't have a sense of smell, so the intense fragrance of the sweet peas is lost on them, but I have been enjoying their sweet smell of summer.

You can see why they are attracted to the cardinal climber blossoms. They are classic red trumpet-shaped flowers. I would say these and the red monardas are the flowers that really draw the hummingbirds in and then they tend to sample other plants around these ones.

 I thought these morning glories were supposed to be red, but they are next to a pink rose, so I don't mind so much. Please note, these are not invasive like the white morning glories that are a pest in this province. I've planted them in pots as I try to get a handle on the goutweed in this section of the garden.

Along with my anise hyssop for bees, I  have planted these varieties of agastache (hummingbird mint) which have the longer blossoms for the hummers.

These fragrant agastache come in shades of pink and orange.

 This is Cleome spinosa, and I am curios to see how the birds feed at these wacky flowers.

This is hummingbird salvia. I also planted some of the salvias with the bright blue blossoms, but they have finished blooming.

 One of the hummingbird salvias has white blooms, which I believe is a mutation or a throw back to its wild origins. I'll have to save the seed and see if I can cultivate more of these.

I'm always happy to see these skippers in the garden!

 I visited Banyen Books yesterday and realized that the garden along their east side contains cool hummingbird plants. I don't know what these plants with the creamy yellow blossoms, but they would suit hummers.

This is a jasmine that can overwinter in Vancouver.

 This is orange trumpet creeper vine, aka Campsis radicans. Native to the Southern US, they come with a big invasive warning. The roots can damage property and you should collect the seeds before they fall to the ground.

Finally, the bergamot next to the street is finishing up. The scavenger in me wanted to collect and dry all those lovely red blossoms.

This is monarda at the City Hall community garden. The hummingbirds perch in nearby trees and then swoop down to feed when the coast is clear. If you want hummingbirds in your garden, this plant is a true "hummingbird magnet" along with fuschias, red-flowering currant, honeysuckle and crocosmia. If you plant it, they will come!

A Diversity of Bees at Vancouver City Hall Community Garden

 Gardens are an important expression of a city's expression and spirit. Civic plantings say a lot about a city's character and priorities. What do the plantings at Vancouver City Hall say about us? Are they waterwise, sustainable, pollinator-friendly examples of permaculture? Or are they bland, conventional annuals replaced every few months from the city greenhouses? Are they a good use of labour resources? Do they inspire the gardeners that maintain them? I'm just curious.

I found this little purple garden I found at the back of City Hall. It's got lavender, scabiosa, cranesbill geranium, and salvia. In fact, it's a little bee garden. I like it. It's simple and charming.

But what I really like is the City Hall Community Garden. I stopped by to weed the school plot and do some bee watching. Yesterday I explained to my twelve-year-old son what "me time" is. "It's a day you take yourself to the spa, and do things to nourish yourself," I said. "Hmm, when was the last time I went to a spa?" Cue the eye rolling. My "me time" is bee time. I needed a bit of that in the middle of running errands in a busy city. I found this tiny bronze bee resting on a dianthus blossom. She doesn't seem to be carrying pollen on her furry legs.

There were bumble bees foraging in the white and purple salvias in the pollinator garden, but the real action was in this clump of thyme. Considering it was already 5 pm, I was glad I hadn't missed the show.

There were about six honeybees here, along with two small syrphid flies, one larger syrphid, the gold bee, a green-eyed little bee, a really tiny sweat bee, along with two kinds of wasps. The Salvia officinalis next to the thyme was being dominated by a wooly carder bee.

One wasp flew into this tiny hole in the bed. I think this is the kind of wasp that stung me once when I was watering the garden plot. It felt like there was hot water coming out of the hose onto my leg, and then I realized I was being stung by angry wet mini-wasps coming out of the cracks in the wood.

 I know this is a fuzzy photo, but this sweet green-eyed girl has a fuzzier butt than that little wasp, even thought they are about the same size. I'll try to get a better photo tomorrow.

Now I know where to go bee-watching with students! Have you had your bee time today?
Madame Beespeaker's RX for happiness: fifteen minutes of bee gardening or bee watching a day.