This has been the week to transplant pepper seedlings and by end of the day tomorrow there will be more than 400 flats of different kinds of peppers, both sweet and spicy varieties! Now the entire Lizard Greenhouse is full of peppers. Maybe we should rename this greenhouse the pepper greenhouse, but in truth, I think Lizard Greenhouse sounds a lot more interesting. Plus the visiting 2nd graders three years ago coined the house the Lizard House, so we’ll stay with that.
My Dad, Fairy House Doctor, brought back the fairy queen’s apple branch house and the log cabin fairy house from his workshop. For the past week he has been replacing the roofs on these two houses, because the deer had nibbled off the old bark and moss roofs. This weekend is slated as fairy garden weekend around here and I plan to get all the fairy garden houses, tables and gazebos, etc. back into the fairy garden so that when the fairies start to arrive from their winter retreat their warm seasons home will be welcoming for them.
Don’t you just love the smile on this man! This is my Dad, and when he smiles, which is often, his eyes twinkle. I think he is one of the best men on this earth.
Lizz and Chris began construction on our new bee yard today. This will be an electric fence that is designed by the Division of Wildlife to keep out wildlife, specifically bears.
Lizz will likely finish the fence installation tomorrow, while Chris is making deliveries to our wholesale customers. With the nice weather it is perfect to get these projects accomplished and soon things will be so frantically busy around here there won’t be time to think straight, much less install bee yard fences! It’s pretty much there now with daily doses of chaos abundantly present.
This is our new mason bee house apartment complex. It will attract not only mason bees, but many different kinds of wood dwelling solitary native bees. These bees build their nests inside hollowed out canes and stalks, so we are supplying them with a ready made situation and they can just move right in. We have a smaller mason bee house that we put up last summer and it has several native solitary bee nests in it now, which will have adult bees emerging this spring and early summer.
Solitary bees pollinate some of the same plants that honeybees do, but they also pollinate different types of flowers too. It’s a great approach to welcome and foster lots of different kinds of pollinators, not just domestic or native bees, but also flies, beneficial wasps, butterflies, hummingbirds, moths and bats. They are all very critically important to pollinating flowers, especially the flowers that will turn into fruits and vegetables from all of our food gardens.
ALL pollinators are having a tough time these days, and it is our responsibility as humans, to do everything we can to make sure they can thrive in this world. You might ask why this is so important? Well, 84% of all plants require a pollinator to produce fruit or seeds, which means that is most of everything we eat in some way or another. Nearly everything you buy at the grocery market is dependent on a pollinator.
Even your meat and dairy products require pollinators in a round about way, because those animals that produce your steak or fried chicken, eggs or cheese or milk, all eat plants and if there are no pollinators, plants will not be able to reproduce efficiently because their flowers will not get pollianted so that they can produce seed. Yes, some plants are wind pollinated like corn and beans, but they are also visited by honeybees and bumblebees which pollinate them too. That increases the success of pollination over what it would be if the task is left only to the wind. Other plants have lost their pollinators altogether like vanilla orchids where we get vanilla extract from vanilla beans. These orchids flowers bloom for only one day each and they must be hand pollinated by a human in order to produce a vanilla bean. It is a very labor intensive process that explains why pure vanilla extract is a pricey ingredient in your kitchen. There are plants that have figured out other ways to reproduce besides fruit for seed, but they are the minority in the plant world. So, what are some ways we can help pollinators out in this difficult world?
Start by planting a lot of variety in your garden so that you have flowers of many different shapes, sizes, colors, etc. Pollinators all have their preferences. Honeybees pollinate berries and tree fruits, along with a lot of other types of plants. Bumble bees like plants in the squash family, as do squash bees (a native bee), flowers that are blue and tubular flowers, along with many other types of flowers. Plants in the onion and carrot families rely on flies and beneficial wasps to pollinate them, and butterflies like brightly colored flowers that have flattish tops. Bats pollinate things that are night blooming and hummingbirds like very bright colored flowers. There are literally thousands of different pollinating insects, birds and bats.
Habitat distruction has impacted these wild creatures as more and more development happens and climate change affects when and where things will grow and bloom.
Chemicals, like pesticides, herbacides and fertilizers can all be deadly to pollinators. All those chemicals that are promoted to help you have the greenest lawn in the neighborhood or kill off every bug in your garden are deadly not only to the pollinators, but also to the beneficial insects that are helpful in your garden landscape. You can find an alternative approach to challenges in your garden landscape 95% of the time, so please do your best to avoid applying any of these chemicals. If you must apply some type of chemical, choose an organic choice like neem or insecticidal soap, which are much less harmful to pollinators and beneficial insects. You should still follow the label directions precisely to cause the least amount of harm possible to these helpful insects.
All Neonicotinoid pesticides should be avoided at all costs! The European Union has seen such a huge impact on their food crops that they are trying to ban this family of pesticides across the board. Several countries have already taken the steps to ban them and our own EPA has been petitioned to ban them in this country. The list of this group of pesticides by brand name is really long, but I’m going to list them here because this is really important. These chemicals and the brand products that contain them are in all parts of the plants including the nectar, pollen, leave snad roots. Systemic pesticides are irreversible and cumulative and they not only affect the plants but also the soil and water sources. They are linked to behavorial and immune system damage in pollinator insects even if the insects do not have first contact directly with the chemical as in being sprayed directly, because the toxin is in their food and water sources and can be in the soil where many ground nesting pollinators live.
Avoid Products for the Home Landscapes:
Bonide Systemic Insect Spray containing the active ingredient Imidacloprid
Bonide Systemic Insect Granules with the active ingredient Imidacloprid
Bonide Systemic Houseplant Insect Control: active ingredient Imidacloprid
Bayer Season Long Grub Control: active ingredient Imidacloprid
Bayer Advanced 3 in 1 Insect Disease and Mite Control: active ingredient Imidacloprid
Bayer Advanced 2 in 1 Systemic Rose and Flower Care: active ingredient Imidacloprid
Bayer Advanced 12 Month Tree & Shrub Protect & Feed: active ingredient Imidacloprid
Bayer Advanced Tree & Shurb Insect Control 12 month: acitve ingredient Imidacloprid
Bayer Advanced Dual Action Rose & Flower Insect Killer: active ingredient Imidacloprid
Bayer Advanced Lawn SEason Long Grub Control: active ingredient Imidacloprid
Bayer Advanced Lawn Complete Insect Killer for Soil & Turf: active ingredient Imidacloprid
Bayer Advanced Fruti Citrus & Vegetable Insect Control: active ingredient Imidacloprid
Bayer Termite Control: active ingredient Imidacloprid
Bayer All in One Rose and Flower Care: Acitve Ingredient Imidacloprid
Ortho Max Tree & Shrub Insect Control: active ingredient Imidacloprid
Ortho Max Flwoer, Fruit & Vegetable Insect Killer: Look for active ingredient Acetamiprid
Ortho Rose Pride Insect Killer: acitve ingredient Acetamiprid
Green Light Tree & Shrub Systemic Insect Killer: acitve ingredient Imidacloprid
Green Light Systemic Rose & Flower Care: active ingredient Imidacloprid
Avoid the Agriculture Products that Contain the Following Ingredients:
Adjust, Assail, Chipco, Intruder, Pristine: all contain Acetamiprid
Arena, Belay, Clutch, Poncho, Titan: all contain Clothianidin
Venom: contains Dinotefuran
Admire (used on potatoes, corn, grapes, vegetables, citrus), Advantage, Confidor, Gaucho (used on corn, cotton, potatoes), Hachiusan, Kohinor, Leverage (cotton), Merit (turf), Premise (termites), Prothor, Provado (fruits, vegetables), Winner: all contain Imidacloprid
Calypso (used on apples, pears, quince, crabapples): contains Thiacloprid
Atara, Adage, Centric, Cruiser, Flagship, Helix, Meridian, Platinum: contains Thiamethoxam
Well, it’s late now and I know I’ve left you with a lot of things to ponder. Please give this your most serious consideration. It truly is very important! We KNOW that these pollinators and beneficial insects are impacted negatively by these chemicals. We are still learning how they may also affect other creatures, plants and even humans. The jury is still out. Best to choose safer alternatives all around. And if you are worried that your food has been treated with any of these chemicals, well, don’t buy it. Buy organic choices instead because none of these chemicals are allowed in organic production, so you have that assurance when you purchase organic fruits, vegetables, even cotton clothing and linens. Plus, your meat and dairy products will also be clean of these chemicals because when animals ingest these kinds of things, they often store them in their fatty tissues and their milk. In other words, it is best not to eat that stuff! Make wise choices and you will be very happy you did.
Ok, good night. Talk to you soon.
