Posted on 05/07/2008 7:50:50 AM PDT by Gabz
Wow! What an arctic blast! Can you remember a colder Good Friday and Easter? It wouldn’t be so bad if it had been cold all along, but to be in the high eighties and then wham! Frostbite! And then, to add insult to injury, it stayed miserably cold with repeated heavy frosts until at least the tenth of April! Condolences to all of you who had your warm season gardens planted.
The weather will swing in the opposite direction like a demented weathervane soon enough and we will be miserable with the high temperatures. Sure doesn’t look like we’re going to have much of a spring this year. Looks like it’s setting up to be a dry season, too. On the other hand, the spring flowers and greening up lasted a bit longer than usual this year because of the cool weather. Some years, it seems the azaleas and other pretties are here and gone overnight. This year, with the cool spell, they’re sort of in slow motion—blooming and lasting for a bit. The trees, all russets and golds and bronzes, have kept their early spring raiment on for us to enjoy, instead of turning green right away.
Speaking of remembering—many of you are old enough to remember when summer time meant going barefoot. Except for trips to town or church, shoes were abandoned the day school let out and forgotten until school started back in the fall.
Remember how you had zigzagging paths through the yard so you could avoid the big patches of clover? Remember why you avoided those patches of clover? You went out of your way because the clover was alive and working with honey bees and you didn‘t want to get stung. First, because bee stings hurt, and second, because you knew if a bee stung you it would die. Now, can you remember the last time you saw a honey bee?
Clover is becoming scarce in our over-manicured yards, but honey bees are practically non-existent. Bees are critically important for pollination. There are bumbles, and wood bees, and other lesser bees. They all do a fine job of pollinating—but none of them have the added benefit of giving us honey.
Here’s a scary fact: something approaching 80% of the honey bees in the U. S. have disappeared this winter. Not died outright, because there are no carcasses. Disappeared. The hives are mostly empty, the honey left behind. And not just here—all over the world devastating losses of honey bees are being reported. The correct term for this disappearance of bees is Colony Collapse Disorder—a fancy name for no one knows.
Theories abound. For one, something similar happened in the forties. Some scientists think it has something to do with cyclic sun spots affecting the earth‘s magnetic field—sunspots were worse in the forties, as they are now. Bees use the earth’s magnetic field to guide them as they travel to flowers and then back to the hive. So they all got lost—at once? That’s about as plausible as all of them being abducted by aliens.
Several types of mites and various diseases also plague honey bees—but both mites and diseases leave bodies behind.
Pesticides have also been blamed, but which ones, and why aren’t all hives, especially if they’re in the same place, affected?
So, what happened to the honey bees?
A simple explanation for pollination is this: the bees move from flower to flower, picking up a little pollen here, dropping off a little there, and presto! The plants are happy, the bees are happy, and we’re happy. The plants get pollinated, the bees collect pollen to make honey with, and we get our veggies and stuff. If there aren’t any honey bees to pollinate things, several things happen. We don’t get any honey, and crop yields go down—way down. Some of this can be counter-acted by shaking the blossoms of your crops together, mimicking the action of the bees. This can be done on a small scale, such as in your garden. What happens to thousands of acres of crops?
Of course, with the early warm spell, and then the week long freeze, we may not have to worry over much about not having any bees to pollinate anything this year. The cold weather damaged the fruit crops—grapes, fruit trees, blueberries, and pecans to name a few, and all suffered in varying degrees. The extent of the damage remains to be seen, but it’s a pretty sure bet that fruit prices are going to go out of sight this summer.
Reminders for this month:
May is usually warm enough to plant the things that really crave heat—okra, lima beans, field peas. Sweet potato slips are usually available mid to end of the month.
End of May is time to spray your azaleas to head off lace bugs, and your junipers and arborvitaes and Leland’s to head off spider mites and bagworms. Spider mites are tiny, nearly invisible insects that suck the life out of plants. When they attack junipers and such, usually what you notice first is a branch or one side of your shrub turning brown. Left untreated, spider mites can eventually kill their host.
Bagworms aren’t the ones that build huge webs full of disgusting yellow striped caterpillars, the ones that began in April and are crawling all over everything right now. Technically, those are tent caterpillars, and there seems to be an overabundance of them this year. Yucky they may be, but usually the birds will take care of them. Most of the time, they’re too high for us to reach in order to spray anyway. Bagworms are caterpillars that make a nest of juniper needles and hang from the shrubs and trees like forgotten Christmas ornaments. Of course, with all the chemicals that have been banned, picking the bagworms off may be your only solution.
Big reminder: Don’t forget that Mother’s Day is this month. Flowers are always a great gift!
Somebody please tell me how to keep earwigs off my artichoke plants, or at the very least how to remove them and their droppings from deep inside the chokes.
We did have a late cold snap, as did most of the country (29 degrees in April) but other trees bloomed around me, just not mine.
Gabz, As I read this I didn’t realize it was from last year. I’d be interested in how the bees are doing now? we have 0 sunspots now, which is highly unusual.
I also was wondering about the no spring comment. We’ve had a wonderful spring this year. One of the best in a long time.
While my wife won’t let me build a garden this year (long story) I’ve taken to stealth gardening. Which has been entertaining to say the least.
Anyway thanks for posting this and continuing on with this set of threads. Love it!
I don’t know anything about artichokes, let alone earwigs, but according to my Jerry Baker bible, he suggests “setting out sections of dampened, roled-up newspaper in your garden at night. The next morning, they’ll be filled with earwigs. Drown ‘em or crush’em - your choice!”
I’ve used tons of his ideas on just about everything and they’ve never failed me, even when the solution isn’t exactly what I was looking for..........such as this example, in the book this is for ridding your corn of the earwigs.
I love your term “stealth gardening”. Much like the husband of my best buddy. His passion is trees, and each time he shows up with new trees, she rolls her eyes. This year’s acquisitions were fringe trees.
Ours, too, was a perfect spring. I have small tomatoes already.
Also, I’m propagating dozens of sedums and euphorbias for next season’s planting. I’ve never lost a cutting of those two.
Anyone know other perennials that propagate well by cuttings?
I also have cuttings from some rare Japanese maples. Only three have died so far. I’ve got my fingers crossed. Last year two survived out of four, but winter got one of those. The last is about a foot tall and healthy- a Bloodgood, common but pretty.
I haven’t read too much of late on the bee situation so far this year.
As to this being from last year, sorry about the confusion. Garden Girl has been kind enough to be emailing me her columns from past year. She writes one monthly for her local newspaper. Last week’s article was from 2006!!!
Spring has finally arrived here, but I remember last year it was spring like at Christmas 06) but snowing Easter weekend and then we went almost straight into summer.
Your stealth gardening sounds intriguing :)
I have a gardening question.
I’ve never grown potatoes before. I didn’t know about mounding the dirt up on them as they grow.
My potatoes are almost two feet tall now. How do I go about building up the dirt at this point? Do I just bury the darn things?
They are in kind of a small space, so I may have to put some kind of containing element around them.
The cold weather stunted growth in my garden big time! GRR!
This is my first year trying potatoes as well and I haven’t run into any of the local potato farmers yet to pepper one with questions!
I received wonderful news --> I'm going to be a grandmother (December).
Americorps Sets Attack on Invader Plants (Garlic Mustard, Buckthorn & Honeysuckle)
We have gotten so far behind due to weather and old age. It takes forever to get motivated and before you know it's Happy Hour and then there is lousy weather like today. We have a high fog and cold wind and I must go over to our Church to install drip irrigation on a new flower bed that is going to take a lot of water because it surrounds some Redwood trees.
Our new front door landscaping is done and it also requires the installation of drip and of course my order did not arrive yesterday. I'm using tubing with built in emitters spaced 18” apart plus some plug in emitters here and there as needed. I'm using 12” spacing at the Church and I have 200’ of that.
I start my corn seed in the greenhouse and then transplant for 100% row fill and it is ready to go in the ground. I have to do that because our soil is too cold to plant directly. All my wife's seedlings are out of the greenhouse sitting on the cold-frame and the deck and they all look great.
Congratulations! That’s wonderful news!
Chashmere and Aladden were so excited, jumping around like baby lambs, they thought that I was going to give the zucchini to them! They were used to getting zucchini snacks from the garden last year. But these two zuks are for my supper tonight! They settled for store bought carrots.
Lucky devil!!!! I don’t even have zukes planted yet.
I’m using Surround this year. I haven’t had anything from the cucurbit family for about 4 years because of beetle infestation.
So far, the plants sprayed with Surround are very healthy and beginning to bloom.
It isn’t a pesticide, but a barrier spray that keeps the bad bugs off and does allow for the pollinators. I ordered it from Gardensalive online. I’ve used their organic products with good results since I started ordering a few years ago.
Not even Seven works well anymore.
My garden got started early this season and the shrubs along my fence line, next to the garden, have not bloomed yet. Those fence line shrubs blooming brought in the Bumble Bees big time last year.
Maybe someone will be along directly...
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