Pests: Fake and Real

Dandelion
The dandelion is more than an obnoxious weed; it is, rather, an important wildflower, and not a pest at all. It is one of the first to bloom providing a much needed food source for the honey bees and other native pollinators. It is also one of the last to bloom as the season ends and winter is knocking on the front door. It is the last meal many pollinators have.

The honey bees have been loosing for the last couple years to a mysterious disease called Colony Collapse Disorder or CCD for short. Researchers still don't know what is causing this fatal disease which has wiped out countless hives. It could be the result of a mulitude factors including chemical sprays, a new invasive mite or fungus, or any combination of environmental factors.

At the same time, researchers have noticed a noticeable decline in native pollinators, mason bees for example and other pollinating insects. All of these pollinators are responsible for much of the food we eat. Some suggest that as much as every third bite of food we eat is the result of pollinators like the honey bees and native bees.

This has been a long hard winter for the honey bees in northwestern Pennsylvania, according to Charles Vorisek, the president of the Northwestern Pennsylvania Beekeepers Association. In a recent email (May 7), he told me that the thirty member association has lost 66 percent of the hives. That means that out of 471 hives, only 161 survived. Vorisek called that pitiful. And he is right, that is a serious drop and should concern home gardeners, larger farms and homeowners.

The pollinators are needed for many home vegetable crops particularly the vines such as cucumbers, squash, pumpkins and melons. The pollinators also help boost yields with carrots, broccoli, onions and they are needed for seed savers for such vegetables as leafy greens and lettuce. Tomatoes and peppers do much better when they are also pollinated by the bees.

According to the USDA, the dandelion is one of the healthiest foods around. It can be used in a variety of ways. Some prefer the roots, others the leaves, and some the flowers. It can be used in salads, soups and stews, brewed as a coffee or a tea, used to make wine or a rustic beer. For more on the health benefits of the dandelion, see this link. For more information on recipes, click this link.

Dandelions, as an early spring flower, are important for the pollinators like the honey bee and native bees. They are more important than a neatly manicured lawn which doesn't do much for the food we all eat. Some sprays and chemicals used in dandelion control are deadly to all insects good and bad; there is no reason for a scorched earth policy against this ancient herb/wildflower. Besides chemical sprays are a waste of money; guess what will return next year minus the insects?

Certainly, the dandelion grows where it shouldn't and where it is not wanted. There are natural controls, organic and natural sprays, and hand digging. Sometimes, mowing the lawn before the dandelion goes to seed helps, but the wildflower does have an ability to escape the mower blades, although frequent mowing does help. It helps to remove the seed heads before the seeds start to spread; cut the dandelion as it goes to seed. Those seeds go everywhere, ask any kid or remember when.

There is just no reason to kill everything just because of an early yellow flower. The dandelion is an imaginary pest, it is a good plant when under control.


Mosquito's :the Real Summer Pest

The ancient mosquito is probably summer's worst pest and a dangerous insect. They can transmit any number of very serious diseases, some of which can be fatal, to humans, pets and wildlife.

One of the first steps in getting rid of these things is to eliminate standing water in pots, pails, old tires, anything that holds water. The mosquito, and there are hundreds of different species, all need water to breed.

Other actions to take include planting plants which help to repel the mosquito. Click the above mosquito link for more plant information.

Okra - a pod with a dandelion-like reputation.

While not considered a pest but regarded as not edible by some and a highly regarded vegetable by others, it is a good garden plant. Okra can be used as a defensive garden weapon against the dreaded Japanese Beetle, click the okra link for more information.

I plant three every year. It is an attractive plant and besides I like it in stewed tomatoes and other dishes. They aren't even in the cold frame just yet. It has been miserable cold, windy and too rainy.

Wildlife

Some animals in the garden area are good, like the turtle pictured above. Snakes, toads, frogs and birds are also good. But then there are others which can be pests.
Unwanted animals from cats to possum's also like to tromp through vegetable and flower garden's; some can cause a lot of destruction. Read about my solution, which I sort of stumbled upon and had some fun writing. How to Keep Wildlife Out of the Garden.

Good Blogs to Read and Follow

On Your Way to the Top

New York's Southern Tier

Urban Veggie Garden

Simply Snickers

Vincent di Fondi

more »
HubPages

Help Haiti: and the B's of January Thinking

Help Haiti

The reports from Haiti are gruesome. Try to help as much as you can. But be careful who you send cash too, there are a lot of crooks who will want to make a quick dollar. There are many good religious organizations which can be trusted, many of them on the local level.

Here are two national organizations which can be trusted: there are certainly, many, many others.

Doctors Without Borders at www.doctorswithoutborders.org

American Red Cross at www.redcross.org or call 800-733-2767

If any readers have a worthwhile project related to the Haiti Relief effort, please leave a comment with verification so it can be check as being legitimate. Many people do have family and friends in Haiti who were already on the island previous to the earthquake doing missionary or social work. If this blog can help in anyway, just send a comment with proper verification. Thanks.


Some “B” Thoughts


January and the nice colorful seed catalogs always give rise to thoughts about thing to do in the spring and summer. As usual, the list can get pretty long and ambitious in the dead of winter in January.
Give heirlooms and native flowers a good thought. The heirloom veggies are tried and tested, usually more flavorful and the seed can be saved (a money saver).
Native flowers are already adapted to local climates and soil conditions and are a tremendous food source for native pollinators.
But there are exceptions.
One experiment here will be another patch of buckwheat in the early spring mixed with the herb borage. Buckwheat attracts a lot of bees and is a good soil conditioner. Borage, a hardy self seeding herb, also attracts bees by the thousands. Buckwheat has white flowers, while borage has deep blue-purple flowers. Someplace in this bed, I want to add the sunflower.
North America is not the country of origin for either buckwheat or borage, though, both are pretty much naturalized. Buckwheat appears to have originated in China and Borage in the Mediterranean.
The newcomer plant I want to try this year is the Bleeding Heart. I like the way it looks, it is native and looks similar to a fuchsia which cost too much darn money and don't do all that well without a lot of babysitting.
Buckwheat, Borage, Bleeding Hearts and Bees, not sure how the “B” thoughts happened but it did. And it does go to show that B = A sometimes.

January Outdoors


The winter snow and ice damages many trees like this apple tree which will need some attention before the weather warms.

Pruning is one of the yard work activities which can be done during January. Fruit trees, grape vines and bushes, such as blueberries can be pruned. It makes for a healthier tree or bush and the end result will be higher yields.

January Indoors

It helps to order early before supplies run out. Besides, some companies offer special discounts. Look around, many local organizations have seed swaps or sell seeds locally at reduced prices. Dan, at Urban Veggie Blog below is seed swapping.
Spending a lot of time indoors can be troublesome and Kathleen in her blog below, On Your to the Top, has an experience all should read.
Consider some herbs this year, they are healthy, attractive, flavorful and also draw many good pollinators to the veggie garden. Now is the time to plan.
Consider maybe, planting an Oak Tree, the designated national tree.

Birds:


The birds, need to eat. Keep the feeders filled. Another reason to grow buckwheat, sunflowers and even a patch of oats. Bird food is expensive and these crops can be money savers plus adding to winter enjoyment.
I try to keep the feeders under some protection like bushes and trees. However, an unfortunate blue jay became a meal for a hawk sitting high in an oak tree.

Good Blogs

Vincent di Fondi – Vincent doesn't know what he's missing while he is living in Costa Rica.

On Your Way to the Top – Kathleen has some good medical insights in this post.

Urban Veggie Garden - Seed Swapping

Simply Snickers – More fun stuff.

Travel Destination – Fun things to see and do if your travels bring you into that beautiful area.

more »
HubPages

The Buzz about Lemon Queen, the Sunflower

The Lemon Queen -"The best bar in town."

The first of the Lemon Queen Sunflowers opened August 21st despite the cold and wet summer. Another followed the next day, a another dozen or so should be open this week. Actually, they grew pretty well; seeds planted along a back garden fence June 5 , sprouted four days later. Good for a cold wet summer.

The sunflower seeds were free from the Great Sunflower Project started by a San Francisco University biology professor, Gretchen LeBuhn. The project asks participants to become a “citizen scientist”. For about five minutes a week or so, citizen scientists are asked to count the number of bees and, if possible what species, which visit the sunflowers. Then record the data and submit it. There are over 65,000 citizen scientists in North America watching and counting.

Health and Food - We need the bees.

Bees and other pollinators are critical. In the US alone, bee activity contributes $15 billion in agricultural production.
And maybe the bees should be discussed in town hall meetings focused on health care.

“Of the top 150 prescription drugs used in the US, 118 originate from natural sources. 74 percent from plants, 18 percent from fungi, 5 percent from bacteria, and 3 percent from a species of snake! And, where did the ingredients from your lunch or dinner come from? One of every three bites you took probably came from a plant pollinated by wild pollinators. This is just the beginning of the list of the services provided by healthy, natural ecosystems," according to the Great Sunflower Project.

Here is the link for the Great Sunflower Project and this is a link to further information in an front page article from the San Francisco Chronicle.

The Lemon Queen Sunflower was chosen for the Great Sunflower Project because, "They are the best bar in town," according to LeBuhn. If no bees are noticed on the sunflowers, it indicates a problem with the population in that neighborhood.

Trouble in Bee World

Wild pollinators and the non-native honey bees are in trouble for a number of reasons and their populations have been dwindling at an alarming rate. But there are very few and limited studies about these valuable creatures. "we have to pay attention," LeBuhn told the Chronicle.

Some research, from Penn State and other universities, indicate the problems facing the pollinators are a combination of factors, including: lack of good native plants, loss of habitat, widespread use of killer pesticides, mites and other disease organisms.

Pollinator gardens are another very important way to help. A pollinator garden, useful in the vegetable garden or anywhere, is comprised of native plants and flowers which benefit the pollinators and bloom continuously throughout the season. This is a good time of the year to start a pollinator garden in most of garden Zone 5 in the US.

Independent Book Stores : Click the ad to link up Independent book stores in your area. How about a book on pollinators?


Grange News

Nominations for the Ag Hall of Fame and the Ag Industrial for Crawford County are due by September 10. The names should be submitted to either Chester Tau or Susan Tau. Both awards recognize outstanding achievements in agriculture. The award program is organized by the Grange but involves all agricultural organizations in the county. Awards will be presented at the annual banquet in November. For more information, contact the Ag Extension Office in Meadville at 814-333-7460.

For the Heck of It:

August 26th is National Dog Day, at least get some treats for the dog.
And this is cool, while trying to figure out my latitude and longitude for the Sunflower Project I came across this Web site. Enter your address and you get it.
Get ready the next Full Moon is September 4, the Full Corn Moon.

From the Sunflower Project:...the value of pollination services from wild pollinators in the U.S. alone is estimated at four to six billion dollars per year. While these ecosystem services are currently produced for “free”, replacing the natural ecosystem would cost many trillions of dollars. Unless human activities are carefully planned and managed, valuable ecosystems will continue to be impaired or destroyed.

Good Blogs to Read:

Vincent di Fondi- Vincent just published his first novel, Blessed Abduction, available through the link above. Or check his blog to learn more about the novel and his new home in Costa Rica.

On Your Way to the Top – Kathleen always has good insights

New York's Southern Tier – A travel destination in nearby New York by Richardson

Urban Veggie Blog – Dan is located in nearby Ontario and is a good gardener.

Other articles I have written for Helium can be found by clicking the title; others can be found below in the box at HubPages.

more »
HubPages

The Eternal Herb: A Buzz Guarentee and Cheap

For a reason now lost, I planted the herb Borage, maybe ten years ago. Young borage seedlings have been popping up all over the vegetable garden this spring, as they have every year since, and yesterday the first two began to bloom; they are the first of hundreds of plants which will be covered with “talk of the garden” blue, star shaped flowers.

Besides adding vivid color to a veggie garden, the flowers attract bees by the the droves from sun up to sundown. There are so many bees you don't have to strain your ears to the bzzzz. That is a guarantee. Here the two main species attracted to the flowers are honeybees and the big yellow bumblebees. I've never been stung by the bees feasting on the herb; maybe they are so contented, they just ignore us humans.

Once Borage is planted, it readily reseeds itself every year. If several get too gangly, or even after the infamous visit by Jack Frost, I just take the plants and place them where I want more to grow next year. No tilling, no mess, no fuss.

According to all sources, the herb originates from the Mediterranean area and is widely grown in Spain. Some bee keepers keep fields of Borage because of the light colored and highly flavored honey produced by the honeybees. Borage can bloom in white and shades of pink. Mine are good ole blue.

Borage is edible; the flowers, the stalk and leaves. It has a mild cucumber taste and can be used in salads, stews and soups, dried and used as a tea, and the flowers are used as garnishes, sometimes placed in ice cube and used for some drinks. Never tried one in a drink, but there is a recipe to fry the leaves in a battered like a fritter. That will be on the list this summer, well, maybe an ice cube or two as well.

Borage is also reputed to be a good companion plant for tomatoes, squash and strawberries. It is claimed that the herb enhances the flavor. But it certainly has to increase the amount of vegetables with all the bees it attracts.

The lone photograph of the herb without an insect was taken the first day of summer, June 21st; the others were taken in previous years. Borage is a good herb to consider in the vegetable or pollinator garden, even as July approaches, it is not too late at all for this spectacular herb.

For some additional great reading, click On My Way to the Top, by Kathleen Richardson. She also writes a blog on the nearby Southern Tier section of New York. Also Dan at Urban Veggie Garden , in Ontario is already picking brocolli!

Sunflowers and Frogs: Apples and Peas

Back sometime in the middle of winter I signed up for the Great Sunflower Project. I forgot all about this sunflower project until my free seeds arrived in todays mail. The project is sponsored by the Department of Biology at San Fransisco State University.
They send the seeds, free, then I in turn plant and tend them, along with thousands of other volunteers across the country. Once the sunflowers bloom,taking note of how many are blooming and the time of day, one counts the number of bees which visit, stopping at five or after a half hour. The data is then sent twice a month to their Web site.
I thought this would be a responsible, educational and fun project and already have a couple of friends interested in counting. There were about thirty seeds in the package, called Lemon Queen Sunflower. I planted the first ten along the pea fence after planting a short row of Italian Pole beans. I'll keep a post going live here on the Sunflower Project. Tomorrow or Sunday I should be ready to plant the rest. Check out the project on a google search, there is a lot of other information.
The Alaska peas for the most part were a disaster this year. In a ten foot row only two sprouted and the other rows was sparse. Along another fence at the opposite side of the garden, the Little Marvels did pretty good, but not excellent. Usually, I have peas by Memorial Day but they are just now beginning to bloom.
Weather is the likely culprit. We had a cold and rainy spring. It was so cold last week it appears that the apples will be non-existent. The neighbor down the road says his thermometer dropped to 23 degrees F two mornings last week in a row. I had some scattered frost here on top of the hill but even so I am not seeing any apples though I haven't spent a lot of time looking just yet.
While planting the sunflowers, I snapped a photograph of the frogs in the small pond adjacent to the veggie garden. I am pretty certain they are called leopard frogs.
I never saw the second frog in the water until I download the picture. “Jump in, the water is fine,” the frog in the water seems to be saying to the one of the log. Someplace back there the bullfrogs were croakingthis afternoon; hope that is a good sign for the sunflowers and the bees.
For more information on how to attract the bees in the garden click on the title or here Thanks.
UPDATE: A good site I found after posting is the Xerces Society.
For some additional valuable information on the honeybees, check out Maarec. It's really worth the time and effort.