alfalfa

i have bees coming in a few months...alfalfa leaf cutter bees to be exact...a couple of hundred in cocoons ( as well as some that wil hatch out on the trip )...

and while the alfalfa i have in the yard is greening up i came to the conclusion i needed another stand ( it will be the third )...

so yesterday when i cleaned out the alflafa bed at the campus garden i saved some of the seed heads and brought them home...

when i got home from work today i crushed some of the dead flowers and sifted them...

just to be certain that seeds were actually produced...

then i went out back and dug up a patch by the back fence, well away from the other two stands...

and stripped the flowers and seeds off the stems onto the soil...there is a rain/snow mix going on right now so they will be well watered...and since they have been out in the cmapus garden all winter they will have been cold shocked and so dormancy should be broken...we will see how it goes in a week or two and, if it goes well, the bees will have a larger supply of nesting materials in the summer