Bees and Borage

If you want to attract bees to your garden you can't do better than Borage. This lovely herb flowers before a lot of the main bee attracting plants and I've seen lots of very industrious bees visiting it this weekend.

I grew the borage from seed and it was the easiest thing to grow. They germinated in no time at all and grew with great enthusiasm. I planted them out in the herb bed at the start of May and they are now about a metre tall!

Borage originiated in Syria and was known and the starflower. The leaves are slightly hairy and smell like cucumber when crushed and from May onwards have these beautiful blue flowers. The flowers are sweet honey tasting and are one of the few blue coloured things in the plant world that can be eaten.

It can also be used as a companion plant to tomatoes, spinach, brassicas and even strawberries to protect them from pests.

I have five different types of Monarda (Bergamot) that will be out shortly which will bring bees from near and far but until they flower you can't go far wrong with the surprisingly exotic borage.