Bee Friendly Vineyards // Harvest and Flower Prep

Meanwhile on the west coast…

Our “Bee Friendly Vineyards” partners are busy as bees with harvest. I’ve been loving watching the hard work and celebrations from afar as crews pick, stomp, and squeeze grapes.

This spring Eric Weisinger and I planted 50 milkweed starts and 150 sunflower seeds along the bottoms of his wine grape rows. Unfortunately, the little milkweeds didn’t survive, but the sunflowers are thriving and are continuing to adorn the vineyard and feed all kinds of bees.

A few weeks ago, Ginelle met up with the Weisinger vineyard crew to cover 360 square feet of fallow vineyard with landscaping tarp, solarizing the grass, which we will replace with flowers! (Thanks to a Xerces Society plant grant)

This project will be similar to the planting that we did at Sound & Vision’s “Matriarcha Vineyard” last fall. Those flowers are over there living their best lives, feeding bees and just generally being beautiful.

Ginelle weeded, composted, and mulched the Sound & Vision flowers a few days ago to get these babies ready for winter. The rabbitbrush is the star of the show – a perennial plant I HIGHLY recommend planting if you would like to provide your bee friends with some good mineral and protein-dense nutrition going into the winter.

We ALWAYS need a few extra hands for vineyard work, if you would like to be on the volunteer list – send Ginelle an email at ginelle@beeregenerative.org.

If you would like to taste the splendors of our winemaking partner’s hard work, stop by my art studio for the Ashland Gallery Association’s “Southern Oregon Open Studios” event. Sat. and Sun., October 18 and 19, from 11am – 5pm. I’m in The Enclave at 1661 Siskiyou Blvd in Ashland (where we’re also hosting the afterparty).

Cheers and happy harvest!