Gardening With Bees

As you all probably know, my gardens are at rest at the moment. The squirrels have decimated almost all of my gardens and I still can't seem to get the victory over them. But I do have some ideas.

Someone mentioned how squirrels hate human hair, so all the hair out of my hair brushes and combs will go into the gardens. I also need to fix the motion sprinklers that go off when they sense something in the range. Another idea that I incorporated a long time ago, but later abandoned, was to fill the squirrels up with food (popcorn). It could help them to have less desire to dig in the gardens for food. Plus, they become more visible to the hawks and become a tasty meal for them.

When I get all this fixed, I am going to plant some plants that will draw honey bees to the garden. Some of these plants are herbs, which I can use. A friend mentioned that she has a wild basil plant and gets a lot of bees on that plant.

Some of the plants will be flowers. They also attract bees and some of them will also attract hummingbirds. What a pretty garden it will be with colorful flowers, bees, and hummingbirds around it.

There are a lot of bee plants available. Some of the plants that I will order the seeds for are; borage, bee balm, and Korean Hyssop.

Baker's Creek puts out a big catalog/magazine with a lot of information on plants, and there were some pages on plants that attract bees. One of those plants is California Poppy.

Here are a couple of links to articles on bees in the garden:

http://www.veggiegardener.com/attracting-bees-vegetable-garden/

http://thehoneybeeconservancy.org/plant-a-bee-garden/

The honeybee population is disappearing and the thought is that the reason could be due to a chemical substance called 'neonicotinoids' which are used on plants to protect the plants from pests. Almost everything we eat depends on pollination, and if we don't have bees to pollinate our crops, eventually we will not have food to eat. Food that is made in a lab is not genuine food and can never replace what grows in nature. 

Can we ever bring the bees back? I don't know, but I know we can try. If we could create an environment that is bee friendly, maybe we could watch the bee population come back.

http://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2015/11/13/honeybees-are-dying-and-our-food-supply-will-go-with-them

Baker's Creek Seeds - www.rareseeds.com 

Produce For Today

This is what came out from the garden recently. Pretty good for going through a freeze last week and the cold weather we are experiencing this week.

Between the hot and cold weather, and the damage done by the squirrels, it is amazing that anything grew in the garden. I notice that the squirrels have not damaged many pepper plants. Only the tomato plants and some trees were affected by the squirrel damage. 

Our Honeybees Are Dying - One Possible Reason Why

This morning I was reading in Mother Earth Living magazine about bees*. There was a url that led to using bees in the garden. I would love to have some honey bees someday!

But here is something interesting about bees; If you haven't heard already, the bee population is dying out and no one seems to be able to figure out why. That is, until recently.

There is some thought that a chemical used on seeds is now the leading belief that the bees are dying off. If we continue to use this chemical, will honey bees become extinct?

Here is an excerpt from the article that you might find interesting. It explains why this chemical is bad for bees and how it works. If it is bad for bees, is it good for us?

"The class of pesticides known as neonicotinoids is suspected to be one of the major causes of bee die-offs. The pesticides, nicknamed “neonics,” were introduced in the 1990s and have become the most widely used insecticide in the world—so ubiquitous that they are now found in 80 percent of the world’s crops. They come coated on virtually every seed planted in every major crop across the country—sunflowers, canola, cotton, soybeans and corn, for example. Neonics are systemic; they are taken up and move freely through the entire plant making every part of it toxic. When ingested, the compounds can cripple a bee’s navigational skills and its ability to find its way home after foraging. They may also interfere with a honeybee’s intricate “waggle dance” that tells other bees where to find flowers. Neonics can also undermine bees’ immune systems."
I wonder why this chemical is just now under investigation. How long have we been eating food from plants that are affected by neonicotinoids? 

There are garden seed companies such as Baker's Creek and Pinetree Seeds should be safe to use. 

The other end of this spectrum is to get good, pure seeds and use those which will attract bees. I think this could be fun. Maybe it is possible to build our own bee habitat and make our gardens bee friendly. 

More on this later.

http://www.motherearthliving.com/gardening/gardening-for-bees-zmgz15mazhou.aspx

Niteangel Natural Insect Bee Hotel

"If you want to create a one-stop shop for many creatures, this little house gives them all a place to rest their wings. This houses butterflies, bugs, and bees all in one place. Plus it is made (mostly) of natural materials - think I might have to try this one on for size." Customer review
(This is an affiliate link. Thanks for supporting).

Back to Eden Youtube is Up - Watch It For Free

Here is the video for Back To Eden gardening. It is one of the best. The embed feature is disabled, so I will just post the url here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OiGof48XVCQ

Answer To The Squirrel Dilemma?

I got it! I got it! I got it! Finally, I got it!  This one had the best reviews. I will set it up as soon as possible and hook it up to the hose. If this works in my back yard, chances are good it will work for others.



I have tried adding mulch to the pots, and that did help, but did not solve the problem completely. I made a Vapor Rub mixture using a lot of peppermint oil and Eucalyptus oil, and smeared it along the fence by the plants, and that may have helped as well. But the critters are still out there and the garden pots are a strong temptation for them still.

I have been turning on the sprinkler whenever our day is for watering our yard. One thing that is fun to use, but you have to be out there all the time, is a BB gun. I'm learning how to shoot now, and have aimed the gun close to where the desired targets are!

The sprinkler scarecrow repellent should do the trick. In the future, I will get another one to do the other side of the yard, where the squirrels get into as well. I have 8 beds in there and 3 of them are totally destroyed by the squirrels. I can't plant anything in them because they will get turned upside down.

Say Bye-Bye to the squirrels, and the raccoons, and all the other little evil guys out there! Hopefully, this will work well.

 Will update.

New Advances In Squirrel Warfare

I will keep all of my readers updated on the latest tactics I am using against the squirrels. One day, I will find a cure. In the meantime, I will explore different ideas and concepts to help with either getting rid of squirrels, or giving them an alternative to my gardens (or both)!

A few days ago, I put a layer of mulch in about 1/2 the pots that are outside and line the fence. I don't know why, but only certain ones seem to be the favorites of the squirrels. The mulch seems to help! I can see where they are digging, but instead of digging a deep hole in one or two pots, there are dig marks in several of the pots, but none is very deep. It looks like they are being discouraged because the mulch is too thick to work through to get to the dirt.

Peppermint oil does seem to help, but you have to reapply it after it rains. The scent doesn't last very long either. At $14 a bottle, unless I can make a peppermint spray using a few drops in water, it is too expensive to use. You are to soak cotton balls in peppermint oil, then place them in the area that is affected by the activity of the squirrels. Supposedly, squirrels hate the smell of peppermint, and it is supposed to repel them. I do love the smell of my backyard though, when the peppermint smell is strong. It smells like a candy cane factory!

I have some peppermint seeds now, and I am planting them, hoping for nice, big peppermint plants to come out of them.

Now, I have a cool idea, if I could make it work. If you have ever had hamsters, you know how entertaining a wheel in their cage is. What if I could make a squirrel wheel and attach it to a tree in the back? Wouldn't that be cool?

An actual picture of
an exercise wheel that
can be used by squirrels!

I do have a more practical idea though. Squirrels like to dig. I am thinking about making one or two sandboxes in my back yard for the squirrels. I would put a lot of sand, or dirt, in them, and put some corn and/or sunflower seeds in them. The squirrels could spend their time digging for corn and seeds, and it would keep them entertained.

We live on the other side of a wildlife conservation reserve, and we do have a lot of interesting animals out there. You can hear the activity at when, when you go outside. Occasionally, I hear an animal that just bit the dust. Some other larger, stronger animal came along its path, and that was the end of that animal. Sad, but true.

About two years ago, I began feeding the squirrels popcorn. There was a small handful of squirrels then, and their number went up to a dozen. An interesting thing happened though. I fed them popcorn almost every day. They came out more readily as time went on. But the number of squirrels went down. After a while, we had only two squirrels that would come out. Around here, there are hawks that are always looking for something to eat. We fattened up the squirrels, and they became a tasty snack for the hawks. At least, that is my theory.

The squirrels, of course, are back up in number. I got my air pellet gun out and am learning how to aim it. I came really close to hitting a squirrel, although I think all I would have to do is to hit the fence, and that will scare them away.

Next big item to get, is a sprinkler, sensored scarecrow. It is solar powered, and as soon as it senses something in its path, the sprinkler goes off.

We will see how the sandbox works. If the squirrels destroy 1/10th of the garden, that still is a lot, because my garden is not that big yet. But, I will find ways to make the garden bigger, and grow more plants. That way, when part of it gets destroyed, that part won't be missed as much.

Until next time..

Happy Gardening!

Bye Bye Squirrels. I'll fix
your fuzzy little tails, yet!

Specific Problems That I Have Faced In My Gardening Experiences

I have been gardening for 35 years now, and still don't have a green thumb. Should I give up, like everyone else who has these problems does? Should I keep going and try to resolve each issue?

I am writing this with the hopes of helping others who struggle with gardening, especially organic gardening in Central Florida, or other zones that include similar problems as I have had.

I will list the problems and try to tackle them one by one, with educated answers. Please feel free to chime in if you have had tried and proven methods that have worked for you.

1. Lack of water - This wasn't such a problem until we had a serious drought about 16 or so years ago. I watered every day up to that point, but we were put on water restrictions since that time. We can now only use a sprinkler system once a week, and only during certain hours.

Answer: Pray for rain. I'm serious. We had months of no rain, and fires were starting. People were being evacuated from their homes. A lady called from Arizona, and at the end of our conversation, she asked if I had anything she could pray for. I told her to pray for rain. She did. Rain came back to our land, thank God.

Also, I have to do a lot of watering by hand. This gives me good exercise though, so I am killing two birds with one stone (killing birds is not my thing!). You get the point though. Collecting rain with a rain barrel is good and may be necessary for the future (watch out for children getting into rain barrels though. I have heard of children drowning in them). Also, taking a hose and turning the water on low so it seeps out is a really good thing to do to conserve water and, at the same time, water plants.

2. Caterpillars eating my plants. I have had healthy plants just about die overnight because some caterpillar got into the plant and devoured it. Usually it is a tomato or pepper plant that gets devoured by these caterpillars.

Answer: BT is something that can be used to kill the caterpillar. If it is sprayed on the plant, the caterpillar will eat it as it eats the plant and it will kill the caterpillar. Another effective item to use is Diatomaceous Earth, or DE. It works the same way although it is a different product.

Fossil Power Diatomaceous Earth, Food-grade, Safe for Animals and Humans, for Dusters, Getting Rid of Bed Bugs, Fleas, Ticks and More, Used As a Health Remedy Due to High Amount of Silica (89%)

This garden dust with BT. utilizes bacillus thuringiensis (var. kurstaki) which, once ingested by the pest, kills them within a few days. 

3. Wildlife Destruction - This is a big one. I have all kind of repellents and scare tactics around, but each one only works on certain animals. The biggest problem I seem to have is with squirrels. They come into the garden and dig holes, and by doing that they uproot plants. It's like they are enjoying looking for some kind of treasure, but in doing so, the plants get pulled out and die, many times. 

Answer: Perhaps a BB gun will work, but you have to be there all the time to catch the squirrels in the act. I tried fencing them out. I am now using peppermint oil to repel them and it seems to work. Because you have to use a lot of this, it can end up being expensive. You are to soak cotton balls in peppermint oil because squirrels hate the smell of peppermint. If it rains, you have to replace the cotton balls because the scent will disappear. 

Another idea I have is to distract and entertain the squirrels. I haven't done this yet, but you can buy squirrel baffles and they will spend hours trying to figure them out. I was thinking about making my own by taking a corn cob and attaching it to a flexible pole and attaching that to a tree. Squirrels love bird food, so I make popcorn for them. Eventually, we had 12 squirrels in our back yard looking for popcorn everyday, but for some reason, the number of squirrels went down to 2. I have a feeling they became a tasty morsel for the birds of prey that live around here. You could use an electric fence, but it would probably fry the squirrels. For now, I am just sticking with peppermint oil and popcorn. Perhaps I could buy a bag of sand so they could have their own place to dig. 

                              

4. Twigs, branches, and sticks dropping in the garden on top of plants - This is the most recent struggle I have with my plants being killed. I am working on an answer right now and I think the only thing I can do is to make a cover to go over the top of the plant, but a few feet higher than the plant is. 

Answer: Tomato stakes planted around the pot and a top made of sheer fabric attached to the tops of the poles. Twigs and branches should land on the top of the fabric which will prevent the sticks from falling on top of the plants. Also, you don't want to shield the plant from getting sunlight or water because of the fabric. If it is high enough, it should give protection plus allow sunlight and water to be available to the plant. You could use netting instead of fabric. Just cut it into a circle that will match the size of the pot, put string or twisties through the fabric or netting, then attach the fabric or netting piece to the poles. I would use four poles but six might even be better. 

I use 6' poles but these are 4' ones and they
will work. Walmart has them for around $2
a pole, but amazon has a package of 25 that
cost around $28 and free shipping.

One more thing; make sure you give your plants food! I skipped this for many years and it was no wonder my garden didn't grow. There are several organic plant foods available out there, plus there are other organic fertilizers that can be used as well. 

Always follow directions with using organic fertilizers. You don't want to burn your plants. Been there. Done that. 

Until next time...

Happy Gardening!