Last year, I watched and marveled at how many pollinators came to visit the sunflower plants Tucker had growing in her bed. The other amazing thing was all the different species that came to visit.
To get to get a good yield in a vegetable garden or orchard you have to have pollinators to come pollinate the flowers on your plants. True, not all plants need insects since some plants are wind pollinated or self-pollinating but you still need pollinators to help.
When you think of a pollinator you tend to think of just the honeybee. While the honeybee is very important, the native bees, bumblebees, flies and wasps are equally as important for pollination and insect control.
The more I read and talked to experienced gardeners about vegetable gardening, the more I realized how important it was to have even more plants for the pollinators and especially for the beneficial insects (predators).
What is a beneficial insect? An insect (praying mantis, lady bugs, parasitic wasps, spiders, etc.) that eat or parasitize insect eggs and bad bugs (aphids, mites, white flies, hornworms, etc.) . Predators in the bug world are our best friends.
To make our best friends happy and more comfortable, we need more pollinator beds. Especially beds that have plants specifically for the predators ie, beneficial insects. The more beneficials we have, the less insect and disease problems we will have. Which means less spraying and higher yields. Definitely win win situations for us, the plants and our insect friends.
This week during the Saturday workday we will be tilling up the beds along the fence facing the orchard. Once they are tilled, if we have time on Saturday, we'll plant sunflower seeds as well as herb seeds and plants. If we don't get them planted, we'll just do it some night next week.
Sometimes when you buy herbs at the nurseries you end up with more than you can use. If you need to find a good home for them, feel free to put them in the new beds going in. If you need to divide any plants, we have a new home waiting for them. The following herbs are what we are interested in: Cilantro, Basil, Fennel, Garlic Chives, Parsley, Mints, Dill, Oregano, Thyme.
I love Citizen Science Projects so later in the year, we'll be doing citizen science surveys of what pollinators are using our pollinator borders. You'll be invited to participate when the time comes.
In the meantime, I hope you come out and help us put the in the sunflower and herb border during the upcoming Saturday workday.
Last year I planted Helianthus debilis ssp. cucumerifolius, Cucumber-leaf Sunflower at the far end of the sunflower/herb border. These annual sunflowers are a native of southwestern Georgia but have spread further north. Interestingly, they have only spread as far north as Macon in the interior of the state but they have spread all the way up the coast to New England.
