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bee friends


>
>Don,
>I have a fear of bees, so I am hoping this garden will allow me to
>appreciate what they do best.  I figure after a few months of observing
>their behaivior, I should come to like them very well.  I  love snakes and
>spiders, so they are welcome in my garden! :-)  I have 9 Marigold sprouts
>today (just planted them indoors 4 days ago!) so looks like the bees will
>have plenty to feast on in my garden!  Thanks for the encouragement!
>Jessica
>Zone 4/5
>N.W. Montana
>**May The Garden Gods Smile On You**

Jessica,  Like you I couldn't imagine a garden, a vegetable garden, without
marigolds.  If you want those bees to love you, and be too busy to pay much
attention to you, put in a few borage plants - you only have to do it once,
it's an annual and will reseed itself in abundance (I pulled a couple of
hundred out today).  If you're not familiar with borage, it grows quite
bushy, about three feet high, covered with small violet flowers, and, like
your marigolds, it blooms until the frost kills it.

Someone asked why I called the bumblebee, the champion pollinator.  Their
weight and extended proboscis mean they can get at almost any flower's
nectar and in doing so are sure to disturb the flower parts enough to
insure pollination.  They are the only pollinators who can do the job on
tomato flowers - commercial greenhouses growing tomatoes have found that
bumblebees do a much better job than humans, even when equipped with
electric toothbrushes.

Don Maroc
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