The number and diversity of bugs that want to eat what you grow is truly staggering, but take a deep breath- we’ll tackle organic garden pest control together.

With new insects coming into our gardens every season (thanks climate change) it can seem like a losing battle…

But looking at each insect as part of a larger ecosystem can calm fears and get us into the right mindset when finding yet another new bug eating our plants.

Spending time in your garden with an insect identification book (like the Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Insects & Spiders) will give you quite an education. And if you find an infestation of insects, take some time to learn more about them by asking some questions like:

• Is this their larval or adult stage?
• How long do they stay in certain stages?
• What do they ultimately turn into?
• Where do they go at night?
• Where do they overwinter?
• How do they reproduce?
• What do they eat?

Asking these questions can really help you plan your response.

Say there’s a caterpillar eating your dill, but you find out it’s a swallow tail butterfly and you love those. You might choose to plant more dill rather than remove the caterpillars. Remembering that when you plant a bio-diverse garden, you’re giving nature the best chance to balance itself out.

For more info on ways to balance your garden, read my Companion planting article for tips on pollen and nectar rich flowers to attract beneficial insects helps curb these infestations!

Organic Garden Pest Control: Integrated Pest Management

This introduces the idea of Integrated Pest Management (IPM). IPM gives us a framework to assess and choose options that are less harmful to the overall ecosystem, yet effective at stopping the spread of insects and plant diseases.  For a good overview of IPM and how to implement it check out the U of MN Extension Services page on Preventing pests in your yard and garden

When searching for information on a pest or disease in your garden, try adding “.edu or .extension” and look for information near your area to find researched information.

Pro Tip

The Usual Suspects

Imported Cabbage Worms:

Eggs are oval and start white but turn a tinted yellow and are found on both sides of leaves. These are the bright green, and velvety soft to the touch caterpillars. You’ll often have to look very closely as the tend to blend into the broccoli, cabbage and cauliflower leaves that they eat. The adults are the white butterflies with a black dot. The best way to manage these are hand picking or capturing the butterflies before they lay eggs as one butterfly can lay 300 or more eggs! Floating row cover helps deter. Planting early to get plants well established before they arrive en-masse helps too. You can confuse the butterfly egg laying by interplanting different herbs (like dill) that have very different leaf structure from typical brassicas. Parasitic wasps will lay eggs inside the caterpillars ending the lifecycle.

Cabbage Loopers:

The eggs are tiny, white and laid on the underside of the plant leaves. The caterpillars move like inch worms. They look more segmented with more pronounced ‘legs’. The adults are gray-brown moths. Hand picking and floating row cover work to deter, as does early planting. You can confuse the moth egg laying by interplanting different herbs (like dill) that have very different leaf structure from typical brassicas. Parasitic wasps will lay eggs inside the caterpillars ending the lifecycle.

Cucumber Beetles:

You can discourage egg laying (they lay by burrowing into the soil) by heavily mulching around newly planted cucurbits, or by add floating row cover early in the season- but remove in time to aid in pollination. Hand pick beetles early in the season, I’ve found having soapy water to drop them into helps- good luck, they’re fast! Plant a trap crop like a Blue Hubbard squash nearby as the beetles are drawn to the plant’s higher level of cucurbitacin. Larva cannot overwinter in Zone 4 or colder but migrate from the south each spring.

Colorado Potato Beetles:

Look for clusters of orange eggs on the underside of leaves and are easily squished. Larva are deep red and eat the most leaves compared to other stages, they are easy to hand pick. But these are seriously one of the grossest bugs for me- so I wear gloves). The adults can fly in from other gardens so stay watchful, especially as the tubers are bulking up which is right after flowering. There’s been some luck with capturing beetles in plastic lined trenches set in the midst of a potato bed. Check daily and remove. If infestations persist, consider taking a year off from growing potatoes. Or see if another gardener can grow those for you, while you grow something else for them.

Japanese Beetles:

Eggs are laid underground and become white grubs which feed on the roots under the soil. They emerge as flying beetles to eat all the things, they eat well over 300 types of plants! Thankfully they don’t usually spread much disease, just devour leaves. The plants usually survive, but repeated stripping of leaves can eventually stunt or kill plants, shrubs and trees. Start picking off bugs as soon as possible, the more damage, the more beetles will come. Netting can be added as a physical barrier but needs to be removed if pollination is required.

GOOD JAPANESE BEETLE NEWS!

A parasitic tachinid fly, the Winsome Fly, has finally followed the Japanese beetle north! This unassuming looking fly lays white eggs on the thorax of the Japanese beetles. So if you see Japanese beetles with the tell tale white dots on them- do not kill them, let nature take its course. The beetles will burrow underground within a few days where the eggs will hatch and bore into the beetle and kill them from the inside out. Making more Winsome flies and less Japanese beetles!

Winsome Fly are attracted to marigolds, calendula and nasturtium

nature is neat

Squash Vine Borers:

The adult squash vine borer moth is bright orange and black with two long antennae. They’re also very fast and can fly in from neighboring yards so be aware through the end of July. They lay eggs at the base of your squash and cucumber plants and the larvae bore into the base of the vine and feed from inside. Careful inspection of plants is the best defense.

Wilted plants, especially in the morning, is a sign of squash vine borer. Look for the entry wound at the base of the vine. Slice the vine open where you see the entry point until you find the grub. Then remove and then cover the wound with the soil. If caught soon enough many plants survive. Plant a trap crop like a Blue Hubbard squash nearby as the beetles are drawn to the plant’s higher level of cucurbitacin. Also, planting resistant alternatives like butternut, ‘Cocozella Di Napoli’ and ‘Costata Romanesco’ helps.

PS- All Hand Picked Pests = Chicken Approved Treats

We haven’t covered slugs, pill bugs, cut worms, jumping worms or tomato horn worms…  A great place to start digging deeper into the world of garden pests is Jessica Walliser’s book, “Good Bug, Bad Bug”.

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Let’s dig in together, Michelle

Recipe for Organic Garden Pest Control Spray

Sometimes the bugs just become too much, and you need a solution. This simple, organic garden pest control spray works great on any soft bodied larvae like cabbage worms and potato bugs, as well as aphids, leafhoppers, thrips, and mealy bugs. This spray will not hurt pollinators like the bumblebee!

• Use a 1 quart bottle
• Add ¼ Cup Olive Oil (or another organic vegetable oil)
• Add 1 tablespoon of castile soap
• Fill the rest of the way with water.
• Swirl the contents to mix (shaking creates too many bubbles) before each use.

Spray directly onto pests in the morning or evening, avoiding spraying in full sun. As with all natural remedies, this will have to be reapplied more often. But this spray is quite effective in quickly suffocating the larvae by coating their skin. It lasts an entire season.

Quick Tips:

• TP/Paper Towel collars placed into the soil around newly emerged seedlings will fend off cutworms.
• Place short pieces of 2×4 lumber or corrugated cardboard in the garden to lure in earwigs and Roly-polies/Pill bugs over night and remove in the mornings.
• Adding sound ‘scare’ tactics can work, if used infrequently, so save for right before a harvest for racoons, even leaving on a talk radio station can work.
• Place copper strips in the soil to fend off slugs, it makes their slime sizzle!
• Apple Maggots are lured in by red balls hung in trees, so coat with a non-drying glue and you’ve got a non-toxic trap.
• Molasses and water mixed together lures in flies, ants and grasshoppers, which will often drown in the mixture.

**One trap I avoid are the pheromone traps to lure in Japanese beetles etc. I find they just bring in more trouble than they kill.**

Organic Garden Pest Control

For more ideas on organic garden pest control, check out my companion planting article and free companion planting guide. On the other side of this topic, is how we create habitat for wildlife to help balance out our garden spaces naturally.

Hopefully this helps ready you to deal with the common pests that every gardener deals with. Is there a specific pest you have trouble with that I didn’t mention?

Have you found a new organic solution to pest control? Let me know in the comments below.

Dig In,
Michelle

The post Organic Garden Pest Control appeared first on Forks in the Dirt.

Bringing wildlife into your garden will bring you higher pollination rates, more food, less pest pressure and the joy that comes from watching an ecosystem thrive. The best part about it is that the ways to bring wildlife in are all tied together, kind of like nature itself. This is a great reminder that we and our yards are part of nature and not separate from it!

There are lots of specifics to follow, but it really comes down to diversity, and making all the things you want to live in your garden feel welcome. This is my take on companion planting in general as well. You can listen in on a companion planting conversation of mine on the Grow It Minnesota! podcast.

We started by deciding to not use synthetic chemicals in our garden. This is a first step that is truly the most important! Then we added a bird feeder and a bird bath and luckily had some beautiful mature trees on our property. Since then, we’ve added more wildlife features as we could, from more native plants they feed from, more watering spots and more cover, creating a little wildlife sanctuary. We actually went ahead and made it official with the National Wildlife Federation as a Certified Wildlife Habitat .

Getting Started

Think about the food chain- from the microorganisms on up- and you’ll be thinking like a master habitat builder. Along with planting certain things, like plants native to your area, there are some other simple steps to make your garden an oasis for lots of beneficial wildlife, from the soil dwelling microorganisms up to the birds flying above.

Tip #1 Keep things covered! From adding layers of compost, leaves or mulch, or growing living cover crops, the earth is more inviting to all living things when covered.

Michelle

Worms:

Inviting the underground microscopic players into your garden starts the chain off! Worms are an integral part of your healthy garden. Giving them food, leaves and/or decomposing organic matter keeps them happy. An easy way to invite them into your yard is to start composting. I’ve got a basic how to article HERE. Composting is one of the best ways to reduce food waste, lower your carbon footprint and create great garden food for your plants.

Tip #2 Composting will jump start your soil life and reduce your overall carbon footprint!

Michelle

If you want to keep composting year-round and harness the power of worms, look into Vermicomposting as well. We love being able to keep composting indoors over winter knowing that we’re creating ‘garden gold’ aka worm castings.

Beetles + Bugs:

We all know Ladybugs are beneficial to our gardens because of their voracious appetite for aphids and lots of other bugs. They do double duty, eating pest insects both as larvae and in their adorable red beetle form. Adding Dill and fennel will attract lady bugs, and most other beneficial insects. And there are so many other beneficial bugs you should want in your garden!

Tachinid flies, Hoverflies, Soldier beetles, Braconid Wasps, Lacewings, dragonflies… the list goes on. Each insect has a favorite prey, from aphids to cabbage moth caterpillars.

For a great beginner’s guide to bugs in the garden, check out Good Bug, Bad Bug by Jessica Walliser. Planting Herbs like dill, fennel, parsley, and letting cilantro go to flower all attract the flying bugs listed. The beetles appreciate a good leaf cover, or really any mulch to burrow under- another reason I love my leaf mulch! Simply collect leaves in the fall, shred if you can and keep either bagged or in a breathable pile to sit over winter. Next spring you’ve got nature’s perfect mulch!

Tip #3 WAIT! Give nature a chance to work. A plant sends out chemical signals once it is attacked by a pest. These signals attract the insects that prey on the pests. By waiting a day or two, you give the beneficial insects a chance to show up, eat their fill and stop the pest cycle!

Michelle

Another common practice that hurts our native bug population is laying down plastic or landscape fabric under mulch, this creates a barrier that keeps burrowing insects from laying eggs, stopping their reproductive cycle.

Frogs + Toads:

Frogs and toads are known for eating flies, but they also love slugs and snails, reason enough to make them feel welcome. Friend and local author, Sarah Nelson, shares the magic of frogs in the newly released children’s book, Frogness. Available online and locally at Lake Country Booksellers. So, I figured I’d let the frog expert chime in on this topic- take it away Sarah!

Although frogs may not leap across highways to explore your garden, if frogs share your general neighborhood, you can attract them to your yard by making it hospitable and healthy for them. Creating frog habitat starts with avoiding chemicals. Frogs also eat insects, so a bug-free, chemically-treated lawn or garden is no place for a frog. For these reasons (and a thousand others) avoid using synthetic fertilizers and pesticides.

In general, frogs thrive where life grows wild. If you are ambitious, a rain garden—a low-lying spot where rain water collects and native plants flourish—is the perfect habitat for many types of frogs. Alternately, consider leaving part of your yard untamed. Plant shade trees, wild flowers, ferns, and other perennials. Let select grasses grow tall. Allow leaves and twigs to gather and compost where they fall. In addition, mulching below trees and shrubs and in the garden is helpful to frogs, who like to hunker down in the duff to hide from predators and (in winter) to hibernate.

Most frogs like to visit water and also lay their eggs in water. A frog pond can be a fun addition to your garden and can be as simple as a bird bath or plant saucer placed at ground level. Keep it filled with fresh, clean water and surrounded with plants and stones where frogs can hop, hide, and stay cool. A solar light nearby will attract insects and make night hunting easier for frogs. With a few simple changes, a yard and garden can be happy habitat for frogs.

*I never would have thought of solar lights, thanks for the tip Sarah!*

Pollinators:

Did you know that two out of three bites of food we eat is thanks to a pollinator!? Much of the garden food we grow requires a pollinator to move between plants to make a flower produce fruit or veggies. So naturally we want as many of them buzzing and flitting around as possible. The basic idea to attract pollinators is to have a source of pollen and nectar available in your garden area all season long.

Tip #4 Planting the original version of marigolds (the French Marigold) is much better at attracting and providing nectar and pollen to your visitors.

michelle

Some of my local pollinators’ favorites flowers include calendula, nasturtium and cilantro. For a deeper dive into bringing pollinators into your garden, you can dig in deeper, with two of my articles. One focuses on perennial plants for Pollinators and one focuses on annual flowers to companion plant in your veggie patch.

Also key during the hotter months is providing shade and a water source for bees and butterflies, adding some rocks to a shallow water dish provides the perfect perch.

*A note on raising monarchs
We love doing this, but only take in caterpillars or eggs once we see lots of predators, otherwise we let nature take its course. For a how to, read my Raising Pollinator Lovers.

Birds:

Besides adding beauty and song to your garden experience birds also earn their keep by swooping in and catching pesky bugs. Some birds (hummingbirds top the list) are great pollinators. By the way, when birds pollinate a plant it’s called ornithophily.

Birds love a good bird bath, especially when placed in a protected, shady location. If you’re into winter birding I’ll suggest a heated bird bath, it was well worth the money to be able to provide our chickadees and cardinals with water all winter long!

Tip #5 Locate bird feeders and bird baths away from each other so that the birds will fly between them where you are most likely to see them. This sets you (and the birds) up for a season of fun, watching them flit between the water and food sources.

michelle

Urban and suburban birds benefit from bird feeders as well, especially during the winter months. Of course adding a bird house to the mix is another way to create habitat for your feathered friends. Be sure to clean it out annually. Planting evergreen shrubs and trees like cedar or arborvitae, and any fruit bearing bush will invite birds in as well. Local podcast, Grow It, Minnesota! has an episode well worth the listen on Creating a Landscape for Birds.

Bats:

I have to include these misunderstood mammals in my list of animals you want in the garden! You had me at “eats mosquitos” but these little nocturnal wonders earn their keep so many times over! We recently added a bat house to our backyard as one more way we invite wildlife into our suburban yard. My boys worked with their Dad to make me one for a Christmas gift.

Bats eat mosquitos, pollinate food and create highly beneficial fertilizer with their droppings. Fun fact: Bat pollination is called “chiropterophily”. Mostly, we added the bat house because I’ve witnessed a decline in bats in the decade since we’ve been on this property.

Sadly, White Nose Syndrome (WNS) is a disease that has wiped out 93 – 94% of our Minnesota bats, chiefly the Little Brown Bat. As of last summer (2020) bats in 35 states have been confirmed with the disease. And there is no end in sight. WNS is a fungal disease that has killed an estimated 5.7 million bats in North America since arriving just over a decade ago.  Providing habitat for bats can help them rebuild populations after these outbreaks. Click HERE for a PDF of Plans recommended by the MN DNR. Or if you’d rather skip the woodworking, you can buy a bat house from National Wildlife Federation designed by the Organization for Bat Conservation.

Welcome the Wildlife

Just enjoying what you do have in your yard is a great place to start, and see what you think is missing… There are so many ways to invite wildlife into your yard, pick your favorite and sit back and watch them flit, tweet and pollinate away! What steps will you take to welcome in the wildlife first?

Dig In,
Michelle

The post Creating Wildlife Habitat in your Garden appeared first on Forks in the Dirt.

Adding a few perennial pollinators to your vegetable garden border can really get your garden buzzing. There are so many reasons these flowers made this list. But lush, easily accessible nectar and pollen sources paired with beauty and easy growth were baseline qualifiers.

These plants bring in pollinators, they add beauty to the garden, and all plants listed here are Minnesota native (unless you ask the DNR, then Yarrow is still in the ‘undecided’ category), unless noted so they are quite literally at home in your garden.  But really, pollinators are looking to get nectar and anything you plant will help them. There are just a few that do really well here in the Midwest that I want to share.

At this point in the season, we can see where our gardens have some holes. We likely know where we want to fill in or add another layer of color or texture. This is a great time to add perennial pollinators to your mix!

Milkweeds –
Asclepias syriaca

These plants hold a special place in any pollinator lover’s heart because of their direct symbiotic relationship with Minnesota’s struggling State Insect, the Monarch butterfly! I love the common milkweeds shape and form in my garden, which may explain why I let it compete with my potatoes, and the flowers are spectacular! Weed is part of the name But, with the milkweed comes the monarchs.

Both hunting for eggs and caterpillars and watching them grow in the garden and bringing them inside to raise is part of our routine. Swamp Milkweed is more often suggested for garden use as it is slightly less invasive and the monarchs love them just as much. Our plants just showed up once I started digging our garden beds- so I figure they’re supposed to be there! Here’s an earlier post all about Raising Monarchs with my kids.

Meadow Blazing Star – Liatris Ligulistylis

My Meadow Blazing Star creates this magical draw for ALL the butterflies and bumbles in August, but the Monarchs hold rein here! My boys patiently wait for the monarchs to gather so they can walk underneath them and just “BEE” with them.

“It blooms primarily in August, just when the Monarchs are preparing for their long migration south; a synchronization that has evolved over hundreds of years, and a good example of how native plants and pollinators are deeply dependent on one another.” – From the Prairie Moon Nursery website.

Blue Giant Hyssop – Agastache Foeniculum

Agastache was such a revelation to me. I’d heard of Anise Hyssop, giant Blue Hyssop, Lavender hyssop, but never seen it ‘doing its thing’ until a walk through a friend’s garden and WOW! This pollinator MAGNET is at home in the perennial border, the herb and veggie garden, and the prairie. She’s a true multi-tasker, attracting bees, butterflies, and hummingbirds (I’ve had hummingbird moths visit ours as well!) with its long bracts of flowers. Its leaves make a delicious licorice tea that soothes throats—if you can bear to take away blooms from the insects… A very hardy Minnesota Native, it even boasts deer resistance!

I seeded mine and the plants were off and running first year. I’ve been getting tall flowy stalks of blooms since the second year. The free flowing form and solid later summer nectar make this a natural addition.

Bee Balm – Wild Bergamot – Monarda Fistulosa

With a name like Bee Balm it has to be good. Well, all the pollinators certainly agree this is one of their favorites. I have a large swath of native bee balm next to the path leading to my vegetable garden, and I dubbed it the pollinator runway (see photo below). All kinds of pollinators are drawn to these beauties—including the hawk moth!

These plants will take over an area, so be ready to pull out the babies that will pop up from underground runners. I rarely throw any plants away, though, usually just tucking them into a spot a little further away or back, adding to my pollinator radius. They have a shorter bloom time than the hybridized varieties of monarda—but some of the hybrids don’t have viable nectar sources for pollinators, which kind of defeats the purpose, right! I’ve got a list of verified pollinator-friendly stores towards the end of this story.

Yarrow – Achillea Millefolium

MN Native and besides bringing in the bees, it also accumulates nutrients, great for growing under fruit trees. It also has those special umbel-shaped flowers which attract so many beneficial aphid eating insects (lacewings to parasitoid wasps). You can also use it as a tea and compress for inflammation. The flowers come in an array of colors, the most common being white, ranging to bright yellows to pinks. Blooms June to September.

Comfrey – Symphytum *Non Native*

This may be a lesser known perennial, but it is making a fast and furious comeback due to its widespread use in permaculture gardens. The sweet little umbels of blue, then purple, then fading to white bell-shaped flowers emerge from a large (mine is over 4 feet tall and 3 feet wide) plant that attracts bees by the hoards. The leaves contain a chemical that jumpstarts composting when added to the compost heap that are most potent if clipped before the blooms open. It is an easy plant to tend that grows almost anywhere, with little disease and no pest issues. It is also used as an anti-inflammatory. Comfrey is toxic if ingested, so even though I have used it on myself I can’t recommend it here. Non-native from Europe and Asia.

Perennial Pollinators I’m Adding this Summer

Smooth Blue / Sky Blue Aster – Symphyotrichum / oolentangiense

Native to dry fields and open woods these aster take over in the late summer, blooming August through October. I’m adding these to extend my pollinator season a little further. I got a variety that’s close to this froma  frien’d raing garen gone crazy, but I’ll grab a few of the Sky Blues this summer.

Who’s Missing?

Where’s the Coneflower (echinacea)?? Well, while I do see tons of pollinators on mine, I think of these as more of a bird flower—as the finches go nuts for the seeds every fall. They are a beautiful multi-tasking plant too.

Where’s the Butterfly Weed (Asclepias tuberosa)? This is also a great perennial pollinator plant and, honestly, I just had to draw the line somewhere.

Where’s the False Indigo (Baptisia)? This is not often mentioned as a pollinator plant, but with this LARGE plant and all its blooms, it brings in the bumbles like mad.

Perennial Pollinators WITHOUT Neonicotinoids

Here’s a short list of my favorite places to buy local, chemical-free plants for pollinators:

White Bear Lake
Seed Library

Prairie Moon Nursery

Prairie
Restoration

There have been tomes written about pollinators and helping plant habitat. My favorite valuable pollinator sites are the Xerxes Society and our local Pollinator Friendly Alliance.

If you’re interested in digging deeper into your native flowers, check out our local chapter of  Wild Ones native garden club.

As I was collecting my thoughts on these plants, I kept noticing that many of the perennials that the pollinators are also loved by humans. I get such a kick thinking about flowers + bees + humans all evolving together to be mutually beneficial on this beautiful earth! Let’s see if we can’t be as beneficial as our pollinators someday.

What Are Your Favorite Perennial Pollinators?

Everyone has their own list of favorites flowers… our tastes grow from of a generous friend giving you a plant, memories of grandma’s garden, or maybe you were inspired by a photo on Instagram or in a magazine… I’d love to know, what are your favorites and why? Are you adding any flowers to your vegetable patch this season?

Dig In!
Michelle

The post Perennial Pollinator Plants appeared first on Forks in the Dirt.

It doesn’t take rocket science to understand why we love flowers. I mean just look at these beauties! They are Nature’s purest form of eye candy!

If you’re looking for an overall guide to Companion Planting, I’ve got you covered too, with this Free 5 page Guide!

Flower Power

As I’ve grown up (well, a little anyways) and understand more of the science behind why flowers naturally create a more balanced garden, I’ve fallen head over heels all over again. They are essential for organic vegetable gardening. Plus my gardens are more colorful, fruitful and ALIVE because of these growing works of art. I mean who wouldn’t want to get a chance to work with beautiful nature to grow more and bigger veggies!

While planning and plotting a fresh new local garden (I’m loving my design + consult sessions!) I kept hearing myself going on and on about the importance of saving space for flowers in the garden. Turns out I’m pretty jazzed about the power of pollinators and beneficial insects in the vegetable garden. So, I figured if it was that important to gush about one on one, it was probably worth a deeper dive here

All About the Annuals

I talk more about using flowers in companion planting and garden planning in the blog post Garden Dreams to Garden Goals. But honestly, just bringing in the nectar sources from any of these flowers will make your garden hum – literally! The flowers listed here can all be started by seed. I tend to direct sow them into the garden soil (follow soil temperature guidelines on seed packet) because I run out of room under my grow lights. But you can start any of the plants listed indoors to get an early bloom- aka nectar source going. And, please- take all these ideas with a pinch of salt (or garden lime- who has the tequila), because what works for one garden(er) won’t necessarily work for another. And therein lies the ephemeral magic of gardening!

Calendula

Variety: Calendula Resina, Seed Savers Exchange

This flower IS sunshine reflected. I’d grow this plant for its bright blooms alone, but the powerful medicinal properties make it (dare I say) my favorite beneficial garden flower. Calendula was one of the first flowers I grew for its herbal properties. It has taught me so much, so of course it holds a special place in my big old flower loving heart. Calendula also attracts the good guys such as ladybugs, lacewings and hoverflies that help control aphids, thrips and other destructive pests. Easy to start from seed, I have direct sown in mid-May and gotten bumper crops of petals late in the season. If you want earlier harvests start seeds indoors, though I’ve heard they are a bit tricky to transplant. I grow a swath of these among my rhubarb in the veggie patch and in another sunny corner of the yard to ensure I have enough of the powerful petals to make some of my soothing calendula salve. They seem to be deer and rabbit safe. They do tend to reseed, so plant where you’re OK with them continuing to pop up.

Cosmos

Variety: Sonata Mix

These are true show stoppers and can easily take over a LARGE portion of the garden. They run tall, 5-6 feet, and a packet of seeds can cover a good 4 square feet. That being said, I’ll always have some of these beauties in my gardens, because- well, just look at them! The color and simple yet full petal design combined with being drought tolerant makes them a keeper! They also play their part in happy garden insect play- attracting the bright green/metallic long-legged fly, (shown on white Cosmos) hover flies, bees, parasitic wasps, butterflies and even bird. The chickadees and hummingbirds frequented mine last Summer. Those beneficial bugs and birds nibble the pests (aphids, squash beetles etc) that prefer to eat my veggies.

Marigold

Varieties: French Marigold (Tagetes patula)
Mexican Marigolds (Tagetes minuta) + Lemon Gem (Tagetes tenufolia)

I’ll admit there was a time I thought I was too cool for the old school marigold. But when you plant true varieties (not the puffed up hybrids please!) they attract all the right insects and are so easy to collect seeds from, you’ll never want for color again! My favorites just might be from the White Bear Lake Seed Library (read more about the WBL Seed Library HERE). I planted these in both my home garden and the YMCA Community Gardens last Summer and they were marvelous! The kids especially loved their vibrant colors and collecting all those seeds (there’s a reason everyone had them in their gardens for centuries). Technically they produce a substance called alpha-terthienyl, a chemical that suppresses nasty nematodes and cabbage worms. Some botanists think the smell conceals other vegetable odors too, keeping more bugs further away from your precious crops! Marigolds keep my tomatoes, peppers and eggplants happy by keeping away some bad bugs!

Zinnia

Variety Pictured: Magellan Mix from Jung Seed

Zinnias deter cucumber beetles and tomato worms. They attract predatory wasps and hover flies, which eat insects that would otherwise destroy garden plants. Zinnias attract hummingbirds, which eat whiteflies before those flies can damage tomatoes, cucumbers and potatoes. They manage to do all that while bringing a striking color pop to the garden border. The colors look like you amped up the ‘color saturation’ filter every time. They *can form tidy little rows of color blasts- depending on the variety you chose. Heights range from 12 inches to 5 feet, and every color under the sun. Which also means there will be a zinnia you’ll fall for And they keep blooming into the fall here in Minnesota. A pollinator favorite, these zingers brighten the veggie patch with their own colors and their colorful visitors.

Sweet Alyssum

Full disclosure, I’ve meant to plant this for years, but somehow last year was the first time it made it into my gardens. Tucked in along the rows of potatoes. They were pretty much teeny tiny powerhouses of pure plant magic. And as I started writing this, I realize that I once again forgot to order them… Good thing Gardens always give you another season

Garden Growth

The concept that I can work with nature, using plant’s natural chemical reactions has captured my imagination and keeps me exploring! The practice of using trap crops (plants that draw insects to them rather than nearby vegetable plants) and companion planting (using certain plants to mutually benefit each other’s growth) is fascinating. I practice the basics both in how I plant my veggies and which flowers I plant where. But I never get too hung up on specifics, I figure it has to look good to me as much as the bugs

As I mentioned earlier, there are as many ways to garden as there are gardens. And soil is a living breathing, changing medium to work with, different even a few feet over let alone in a different town or state. But we can sway things in our favor- and make our gardens more colorful lively places at the same time by bringing in a mix of proven flower power.

I’m continuing to learn new and better combinations, varieties and uses for these multi-tasking beauties.

For an easy way to ID some of the common insect visitors, check out the very visual Good Bug/Bad Bug book. Written by Jessica Walliser, I will attest that kids and adults alike enjoy being identifying bugs using this book! She also has a great podcast episode with Garden Expert, Joe Lamp’l on The Joe Gardener Show. So cool to get a glimpse of just how much is going on in our gardens!!

Everyone has their own list of favorites flowers. Maybe developed because of a friend giving you a plant, memories of grandma’s garden, or even an Instagram photo…  so tell me, what are your favorites and why??? Are you adding any flowers to your vegetable patch this season?

I’m working on a perennial pollinator guide next, so many flowers to chose from!

Ready to Dig In and get planting!
Michelle

The post Companion Planting Flowers for Your Vegetable Garden appeared first on Forks in the Dirt.

I know that sounds dramatic, but saving seeds is a big part of why humans hunkered down into communities and began our long march towards civilization (we’ve still got on our marching boots though, right!?). Variations of those seeds still sustain us today. 

Until a few generations ago, most people planted what they had saved from the last harvest. With a few additions now and then from neighbors or travelers.

But for me and many home gardeners, saving seeds had fallen off our radars. It is making a bit of a comeback and I am encouraging as many people as I can to jump on this bandwagon with me!

To start saving seeds please remember:
Not all seeds are suited for saving!

There’s a simple trick to buying the right seeds so you can save + grow again.

Grow Heirloom varieties, or open pollinated varieties.  Hybrid seeds will not produce the same vegetable that you took the seed from.

Garden Planning, my Favorite!

I love getting those seeds catalogs and will have larger than anticipated bills at a few seed companies once I finalize my orders, but I am proud to be able to skip over a few seed sections because I’ve saved my own seed stock from what I grew last year.

Saving seed is intuitive- if we stop to see the plants we nurture as part of Mother Nature. Everything has a cycle, and the whole reason tomatoes exists is to grow more tomatoes so they make it easy for us. Or as Michael Pollan suggests in a few books, like The Botany of Desire and TED talks, “the plants have us working for them”.

Back to the real world application of all of this-

We’re half way through one of the coldest Januaries on record across the northern US, so most of us are looking forward to those lazy days of summer even more than normal. Oh Summertime; being surrounded by lush green growth, the sounds of birds chirping and bees buzzing, smelling flowers, picking strawberries warmed by the sun… (the weeding, mosquitoes, heat and humidity have conveniently faded into the back of our memories.)

And this is the moment the seed catalogs begin storming in, right when they know we’re at our weakest, most desperate state. Well played seed companies, well played.

The colorful pages of these catalogs offer escape from the winter weather and promise sunny days filled with so much growth it overwhelms our senses, often including our common sense.

A sample of saved seeds from my garden. Picked, dried, stored and ready to plant.

As much as I still revel in these catalogs and all they promise I’m able to skip over a few sections now because I’ve been saving seeds of plants grown in last year’s garden.

There is something so empowering about growing your own food AND saving your own seeds so that you can grow more food again next season- without the help of anyone except Mother Nature.

The simple act of bringing in a seed connects you to a 10,000 year-old heritage of saving the best seeds to better the food we eat. It also makes sense to this frugal mama because you save cold hard cash on your next seed. With both reasons, you get to play with Mother Nature and see what happens.

Luckily for us (and our ancestors), the process is pretty intuitive with most seeds. You pick a seed and save it. But like all the things worth doing, seed saving is worth doing well.

And I’ve found just the local lady to help us ALL learn to do it well!

Pam talking with visitors at the WBL Winter Market.

I’d like to introduce Pam Larson Frink .

Pam started the White Bear Lake Seed Library in April of 2016 and has been gaining steam and seed stock ever since. She also holds a Masters in Environmental Education and a Horticultural degree, so she knows her stuff inside and out. For those of you that were able to attend the White Bear Lake Winter Farmers Market, Pam was there representing the seed library.

The Seed Library at the White Bear Lake Library.

She also thinks a lot like me, “I think saving seeds connects you to the food you eat. It’s so easy to buy produce at the grocery store that you don’t understand that it’s more than just food. It’s soil and insects pollinating the plant and clean water and sun to grow the plant. And if you don’t take care of the soil and the water and the insects you soon will not have food.”

I couldn’t have said it better myself!

Pam often shares her knowledge of seed saving during seed packing events at the WBL Library. Sign up for the email list to get notices of when packing events, classes and seed distribution events are coming up!

I’ll suggest the highly regarded books, Seed to Seed by Suzanne Ashworth and  Seed Sowing And Saving by Carole Turner and The Seed Garden by the former director of the Seed Savers Exchange Lee Buttala

And here’s where the planning comes in!  It is easy to forget when you’re looking at all the glorious varieties in the seed catalogs that…

If you want to start saving seeds, you have to start with save-able seeds.

Look for seeds labeled ‘open pollinated seeds’. This also means NO HYBRIDS, often labeled as F1! These are NOT good options for seed saving. They will not ‘come true’ if the seeds are planted, they will often revert.

Reverting

Johnny’s Potomac Custom Mix (F1) Snapdragon Seed, which I still order even though the colors will never stick, now I know why!

Pam had a perfect story from her early days of gardening that explains this “reverting”… She had grown a beautiful rainbow of colored snapdragon flowers. So she decided to save the seed to enjoy the color burst another season. Pam planted the next Spring, getting sturdy snapdragon plants. But every single flower bloomed pale yellow. This is nature saying nice try The seed of a hybridized plant most often does not “come true” and reverts to one of the gene pools it was hybridized from. In the case of the snapdragon seeds, this meant pale yellow.

Swinging Squash

Things get a bit more complicated with certain groups that cross pollinate; squash are the notorious for cross pollinating with each other. Some open pollinating plants will cross pollinate. Seed growers have tricks like growing inside greenhouses, growing miles apart or bagging seed heads to avoid cross pollination. I might try to bag a favorite zucchini after she’s pollinated this summer!

Before I understood that squash were ‘swingers’  I had already saved and dried a few butternut and acorn squash seeds. So, after talking it over with Pam, I’m going to do my own squash experiment, I might grow something delicious, or something horrible. Either way, I’ll be playing with Mother Nature which is a win for me!

The Seed Stacks

Seed Libraries are places where people can ‘check out’ seeds to grow on their own.  The hope is that you can save some seed and replenish the seed stock the following Fall/Winter. They’re usually housed inside public libraries, but also co-ops and community centers. Checking out the seeds are free, but some ask for  membership info or volunteer commitments.

Our WBL Seed Library asks for membership info, but as Pam quipped, “There are no seed Nazis around”.  Started in April of 2016, the WBL branch is serving the community well, going through over 1,000 seed packets in 2017!  They take both home saved and purchased seed. With a few necessary caveats.

Donating to the seed library? Please keep in mind:
Heirloom or open pollinated varieties only. If they are home saved seeds, a few choice vegetable varieties; Beans, Peas, Lettuce, Sweet Peppers and Tomatoes, plus native flowers.

This year the White Bear Lake See Library is especially looking for some native pollinator plants like Milkweed, Liatrus/Blazing Star and Monarda /Bee Balm– but only the native non-hybridized varieties.

To save seeds of native flowering plants, wait until the flower forms a seed head, knock off seeds (or cut seed head) and bag.

So far, I’ve only ever saved enough seeds to use the following year, and keeping them in paper bags inside paper envelopes has worked well for me. But if you want to save for multiple years you’ll be better off storing in an airtight container- like a mason jar. Just make sure they are completely dry before you seal that jar!

Seeds make tasty treats too!

I want to give a shout out to the people who have worked to secure our right to save and share our own seed, with a Minnesota bill signed in May of 2015. The business of seeds is BIG business, and without the efforts of many groups working together to protect our rights to save and share seeds, thank you!

A few more online resources:

• Seed Savers Exchange– One of the best nationwide sources for heirloom seeds, they have a stunning selection of seeds for sale (but don’t get sucked too far in!)
• They also have their actual “Exchange” program, outlined HERE
• The University of Minnesota, as always has gathered simple, accessible practical information about saving Vegetable seeds grown in MN. 
• If you’d like another online read about seed saving, The International Seed Saving Institute has some easy to read info as well.
• White Bear Lake area residents, be sure to check out the WBL Seed Library’s Blog site and sign up for their emails, its a great way to connect with other local gardeners!

Like all things gardening, saving seeds is less daunting and way more fun when you get to talk to someone else who either knows what they’re doing, or is making the same mistakes as you are

I hope you can join one of the many local  Seed Library ‘seed packing events’, this is such a great way to find your local garden family!

A special thanks to Pam for sharing her deep plant knowledge and vision to help the community and creating our local Seed Library, thousands of plants and pollinators are thankful!

“Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant.”
― Robert Louis Stevenson

Will you try to save any seeds this year? Which ones? I’m determined to save my tomato and peppers this year!

Can’t wait to Dig into the Dirt again with all this talk of seeds!

Michelle

The post Seed Saving Starts Now! appeared first on Forks in the Dirt.

There is something magical about watching life transform before your eyes, and that magic gets magnified when you share the experience with children and their innocent, impressionable eyes… These memories are here to stay!

Like most of how my life happens, we were in the right place at the right time and stumbled upon a chance to adopt and raise these butterflies.

I love it when serendipity takes center stage!

My mom spotted this one in her gardens!

Most people find their eggs or caterpillars on milkweed leaves outside, but we were fortunate enough to get three monarch caterpillars from a very special children’s librarian, Anna Haase Krueger, who found our little gluttons on milkweed around the Maplewood Library grounds.

The Ramsey County Libraries are amazing “Monarch Mentors”; many of the libraries have been finding and saving eggs, raising and releasing monarchs for a few years now.  This summer all the libraries did it as part of the Countywide Pollinator Project! This grass roots effort is run by the awesome people over at the Pollinator Friendly Alliance.

The day we went to pick up our caterpillars, there was one butterfly that was ready to be released. Being a part of this butterfly’s first flight got my boys extra pumped up for raising their 3 caterpillars!

So with that we brought home our hungry little caterpillars! At first our runt was so tiny I couldn’t pick her up to move her so I just cut out the leaf around her and let her move off in her own time.

They grew and ‘grew on us’ quickly!  They are almost as hilarious as the chickens to watch. (ps- chickens and and caterpillars DO NOT mix!)

In the larvae (cute caterpillar) stage, they undergo five ‘instars’, which means they shed their skin around 5 times.

They poop A LOT! the cage needs to be cleaned pretty much everyday. If this is the part where you’re like, “I want to help pollinators and all, but already clean up after kids, dogs, myself etc- consider making your yard more pollinator friendly with a nesting site outside, Xerxes Society to the rescue!

The second biggest caterpillar didn’t want to leave the leaf her sister was on…for almost a day!

The next day, she made a webbing and attached her silver button to the GLASS!! Talk about adapting…

A few days later, the littlest sister snuggled right next to big sister and made her chrysalis there…which I happened to catch on video with my phone! Bare with the first few seconds, but the process is mesmerizing regardless.

The boys were especially entranced with how much the chrysalis changed after the monarch was done making it, before it hardened. The chrysalis on the right just finished forming. The one on the left is a day old.

In this stage, the pupa will not consume food but just hangs out for around 10 to 15 days. The first stayed quiet for 13 days, the second only 12 days. With the first two popping out withing hours of each other! They Chrysalises went from the gorgeous jade green color to paler and then transparent- when we could see the orange wings they broke through within the hour, but we missed all three times (arghh). Just another reason to gather some of our own next summer again!

It was really hard waiting for them to get strong and dry enough to fly… they pump a liquid  into their wings to inflate them fully and this takes a while. Add that it was raining the evening they became butterflies, which meant it was best to keep them inside rather than get cold and wet during their first attempts at flying. (Seriously, that’s got to be a weird feeling, right!!)

The last girl hung out for 5 more days, just like she went into her chrysalis 5 days after her sisters.

But finally, she decided to show off her stuff too. Her wings are not quite fully inflated here.

This was really such a fun experience for the kids (and me)! Being able to remind them (again and again) that these beautiful creatures also help pollinate the beautiful flowers and maybe even some of the food we eat was an added bonus for me – and one that finally sunk in for them.

Thank you to Anna Haase Krueger, and the Ramsey County Library for sharing these little nuggets with me and my boys- I just wanted to share this experience with you all as a way of paying it forward.

The look of pure joy at the butterfly’s first flight says it all!

Next summer, we’ll be checking our milkweed for eggs often and probably raising even more of these magical monarchs!

The more time I spend in the gardens the more I see how we’re all connected and dependent on all of nature. To that end,  I’m buzzing with excitement for the upcoming Polli*NATION Festival this Sunday! Party with a purpose for the bees, and support local food trucks, craft beer vendors, bee science and live music!

More info and Tickets HERE!

For now, I’m going to to Dig In and plant a few more fall flowering plants to help extend the pollinator’s nectar season!

Michelle

The post Raising Pollinator Lovers appeared first on Forks in the Dirt.

The passions that bind this blog together: gardening, cooking, local farmers and food shelves all rely on one thing to exist:

Pollinators!

We need those busy bees, butterflies, wasps, ants, moths etc..

Now they need us.

**GIVEAWAY**
…has ended, thanks for all who participated

WIN 4 Passes to the Polli*Nation Festival Sept 10
Live Music* Food Trucks* Craft Beers*Bee Science*Art
Contest Ends Tuesday Sept 5 at 7pm
Like us on Facebook to enter: www.facebook.com/forksinthedirt/

Unless you’ve been hiding under a garden paver, you know that bees are in trouble. Honeybees in particular have received lots of coverage in the news- topics like Colony Collapse Disorder, Varroa Mites destroying hives, and pesticide kills after a windy day. Honey Bees get most of the news coverage because they are the easiest of the pollinators to observe, being raised in a controlled area rather than being so spread out like the other wild and native pollinators. But there are signs that ALL the pollinators are in trouble.

Luckily, there are many dedicated people already working hard to help our bees, butterflies, and other beneficial insects. From you and your neighbor planting pollinator-friendly flowers, to cities adopting Pollinator Friendly Resolutions, to farmers (including bee farmers) choosing to use organic practices over spraying pesticides, and legislators working to get state dollars to research pollinators and planting more pollinator habitat.

Yet we’re still losing bees…

My love of gardening has had me bumping into all kinds of pollinators since forever. As a child I was fearful of that buzz, but now I plan my planting precisely to welcome their buzzing into my gardens. Without bees, I’d have to hand pollinate pretty much everything I grow in my vegetable and flower gardens. I’m not sure I’d be able to hit all the blueberries on the bush…

Squash Bee Doing Her Thing

On a larger scale, according to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization, “90% of the world’s food supply comes from about 100 crop species, and 71 of those crops (especially fruits and vegetables) rely on bees for pollination.”

Let that sink in for a minute. In the US alone, bee activities across orchards, pumpkin patches and alfalfa farms, not to mention many other kinds of farms, generate $15 to $19 billion (depending on sources) every year. Looking at dollar amounts is one thing, but imagine not having the variety of foods we enjoy now, like strawberries, almonds, cucumbers and pumpkins. So yup, we’d loose a lot more than honey.

If you really want to freak out your taste buds, here’s the Wikipedia list of foods pollinated by bees. Or just do a google search for ‘world without bees’ videos…

Honey Display at the 2017 MN State Fair

Vote with Your Voice

“Diversity is our strength, which by the way, applies to more than just bees and their food sources,” stated Representative Rick Hansen, from District 52A. He’s one of the good guys, fighting for protection of our pollinators. He spoke at a recent Honey Bee Club of Stillwater meeting I attended and is proud of Minnesota being ahead of the curve on legislation to help pollinators. Rep. Hansen’s a great source of honest info, follow his Facebook Page, Twitter account or get on the list for his email updates.

Our very own U of MN’s Bee Lab, being well known around the globe for advancing the understanding of bee science helps our local pollinators’ more than we can imagine. Dr. Marla Spivik heads this growing group of bee lovers with passion and it shows. I feel much better about my weedy lawn, now that I can call it a Flowering Bee Lawn, thanks MN Bee Lab!

Also, a huge shout out to the MN Honey Producers Assoc. – did you know MN State Fair boasts the largest pollinator & Honey display of any state fair in the country, not to mention the Honey Ice Cream!

From the best way to test for mites, to quick response testing of bee kills, these scientists are on the front lines of ‘save the pollinators’ campaign. But trying to stay and reverse the average 30-40% loss of bees annually is a tall order. One that needs our group efforts!

Grass (& Flower) Roots

Because state and federal legislation reducing or eliminating harmful pesticide use have been halted by lobbyist efforts (from Monsanto to the different state “Growers Associations”), city level resolutions have been huge in getting pesticides off city owned lands- and raising awareness of the pollinator plight. That’s where groups like the Pollinator Friendly Alliance come in.

Changing the system that allows the harmful pesticides into our communities needs the whole hive. Many of our Minnesota communities have taken the “Pollinator Protection Resolution”. Check HERE  to see if your city is on the list. If it’s not and you want to help your city become more pollinator friendly, check out the Pollinator Friendly Alliance online to get linked to ways to start the process. There are some powerful things happening in city legislation! If you have questions or are ready to help, email Laurie Schneider, Co-Executive Director at Pollinator Friendly Allinace.

Pollination Station inside a beautiful garden at Minneapolis’ Loring Park.

Just keep Buzzing

With articles like “Popular Pesticides Keep Bumblebees From Laying Eggs” and “The Honeybee problem is only getting worse” coming out every week we can almost get desensitized to the pollinator troubles.

Almost.

Although with the U.S. leading the numbers in bee die off (yes I see a direct relation to our high pesticide use and high numbers of ‘pests’ dying) our U.S. farmers will be the first to feel the pinch. Followed by U.S. eaters.  This is another reason I really like knowing how to grow some of my own food.

Remind Me…

“Bee researchers first reported massive die-offs back in the 1990’s. But the plight of the honeybee didn’t truly buzz into the national consciousness until the spring of 2013, when data revealed the average beekeeper had lost 45% of her colonies the previous winter. A mysterious phenomenon known as colony collapse disorder (CCD) further stoked the fires of public interest”. From a 2015 Time Magazine article.

Between 2008 and 2013, wild bee diversity in the US dropped by 23%, and a previously common bumblebee species was recently listed as endangered.

Varroa mites, one of the most well-known parasites definitely share in the blame. Neonicotinoids, a type of pesticide is also to blame. Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD), when bees die just outside the hive, for reasons unclear, is also adding to the decline in numbers, with losses of up to 43% of bees kept in hives around our country. More info on CCD HERE.

Feeding Healthy Bees

Turnip Rock Farm’s Hives hanging out between the fields.

Just like us, bees need to ‘eat the rainbow’ in pollen to be healthy and strong enough to fight off minor infections. Monoculture farming, with less and less land planted in anything other than Corn, Wheat or Soybean is also hurting the pollinators. There are so many ways farmers can be the heros in this situation, and some of them are rising to the occasion. The Big River Farm, part of the Minnesota Food Association, works with the Stillwater Bee Club whose hives are set up on their farm. They are an organic teaching farm mindful of the big picture, and true friends of the bees. Many of the small farms I’ve visited have a hive or three of their own, like this one on Turnip Rock Farm.

How you can BEE the Change you want to see

#1 Stop using pesticides!

Especially systemic insecticides including neonicotinoids and fipronil (these ingredients must be listed). Remember *There are organic pest control options*, they’re not the ‘point and shoot’ variety; most of these techniques work with the plants, against specific pests, for a shorter time. Rodale’s Organic Gardening lists them by Types of Products HERE.

#2 Plant more pollinator friendly plants!

Bumble attacking some Hyssop

Think season extenders like early blooming (dandelions and creeping Charlie are good early season flowers) and long lasting bloomers like Hyssop (agastahce), and fall flowering Asters etc. Bonus: They’re Beautiful!! The U of MN’s Bee Lab’s list of beneficial plants for bees is specifically for MN, letting you know if the plant is native to our area.

You have so much power in how you spend your dollars! There are many plant suppliers that have taken major measures to grow their plants without any Neonicotinoids. Choose to buy from THESE SUPPLIERS . Or ask how they grow their plants. Remember, just because the species attracts pollinators, it can still come from a nursery that used pesticides and end up hurting the pollinators they were meant to help!

Even the Minneosta Zoo has gotten on board with their “Plant for Pollinators”  initiative, tied to breeding the endangered Prairie Butterfly.

#3 Buy Local Food

Buy direct from farmers using sustainable farming techniques. For the bees, organic or near organic practices, diverse crops, reduced pesticide applications are all important. Get to know a farmer or three, it is so worth your time, and it tastes good too. *See ALL my other blog posts for more information on this

#4 Buy Local Honey

Local Bee keepers, who run Apiaries are on the front lines, and most don’t make much money from keeping bees and selling honey. What they do make is more pollinators, even though lately, beekeepers have had to regularly buy more bees to replace those that have died because of Colony COllapse Disorder (CCD), varroa mite infestation and pesticide kills.

Also, please buy REAL Honey. Basically this means buy honey direct from local bee keepers. They can tell you what kind of nectar the honey was made from, and after a few samples (oh twist my arm) of different honeys from different parts of the state, you’ll be able to taste the difference too! MN Grown has a mapped listing HERE.

If you’re looking for the Ultimate Hipster version of Honey production, look no further than the Beez Kneez, who harvest and deliver with pedal power.

There is a debate as to exactly what raw honey means, but if you buy your honey from the keeper, you can ask if they’ve pasteurized it or not. High heat kills off much of the good stuff in honey. And many additives have been found in honey that sits on the big box store shelves. You can test to see if your honey is ‘real’ in a few different ways. I tried the water test, luckily my honey from the local honey bee experts at Honey Pine Apiary  withstood the test!

#5 Support Habitat restoration projects!

As Representative Hansen explains, “there are four main areas of pollinator issues: Habitat, Nutrition, Parasites and Pesticides.” It seems like we can all agree on the first three, but changing legislation on the 4^th has trouble sticking around.

Minnesota is an agricultural state and our farm unions have deep roots. It seems that the lobbyists (not necessarily the farmers themselves) for these special interest groups hold a lot of sway in our state government and have pitted the ‘remove harmful pesticides’ bills against ‘farming families’; which is not only untrue, but also undermines the very farming communities they say they are working for. If we keep killing bees, the farmers will be the first to lose.

#6 Get your own Hive!

Become a beekeeper yourself! Add to pollinator numbers in your area by hosting them yourself. I am so close to doing this, but then again, I’m already in over my head. If you are on the fence about keeping bees, check out Nature’s Nectar, a long time, trusted and  local resource for bee keepers and their bees.

Or maybe you want to leave the bee keeping duties to the professionals, but still increase pollination in your area (a 2 mile radius) by having a hive on your property? The U of MN Bee Lab has you covered, with their “Hive to Bottle” program. You buy the equipment and bees, then they do ALL the work, literally from setting the hive to bottling the extra honey. It’s not cheap, at $875 for one colony, but you’ll probably see a huge increase in your pollination rates, from flowers to veggies, and get quite a bit of honey- and the knowledge that you helped spread the pollinator love. This might be a good option for a neighborhood split?

And, Drum Roll Please…

#7 Go to the Polli*Nation Festival and party with a purpose!

**GIVEAWAY:  WIN 4 Passes to the Polli*Nation Festival**
Contest Ends Tuesday Sept 5 at 7pm
Like us on Facebook to enter: www.facebook.com/forksinthedirt/

The Pollinator Friendly Alliance organizes this outdoor festival to raise awareness of pollinators. What a celebration it is: with Live music, Food Trucks, Art installations, Bee Science, awards given out and of course HONEY!! But seriously, the food trucks: Red Table Meat Company, Bakers Field Organic Flour & Bread, Finnegans Brew, Sociable Cider, Saint Pops, Foxy Falafel, and Kowalskis!!! More Details HERE

So, that was a lot of info. But I’ve still got questions about pollinators and bees. I want to spend some time with a beekeeper at their hives, and I wonder what a honey house is like when their ‘spinning’ the honey? Do you have any specific questions about honey bees, or pollinators in general that I didn’t answer? Let me know so I can ask for the next time around!

For now, take time to stop and thank the pollinators.

I’m ready to DIG IN and plant a few more fall flowering asters, and then enjoy some honey in my tea!

Michelle

The post Hive Mind.ed appeared first on Forks in the Dirt.