mayBEE you just need some pollen in your garden

It is vital for your garden to have some sort of pollinator!

It's simple, some plants need the transfer of pollen from one plant to another to produce seeds and or crops. Pollinators come in all different forms in the wild ; bees, ants to moths, wasps, and even a small mammals can be pollinators. Although some plants can pollinate on their own, pollinators help produce large, healthy fruits with viable seeds for you next harvest.

Sometimes we pay little attention to the bugs and bees that pollinate our plant. Without the help of the pollinators we wouldn't really have this many crops today, a round of applause to our hard workers that really make our gardens happen!

If we look at bees, they get more drawn to herbs like lavender, thyme, basil, and chives. Creating diverse plantings and planting native species help attract not only wild bees but other insects. We can definitely come to a general consensus that we should avoid pesticides! I personally found that ants really enjoyed the carrot flowers that we grew this season. When harvesting the seeds, I definitely got a good few hundred seeds. Definitely can't wait to plant some carrots!

Keep a eye out for a upcoming bee keeping blog with Ms. Niemo from our Science Deparment!

Some cool resources:

• https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-19565-4

• https://xerces.org/pollinator-resource-center/mid-atlantic - we are in the mid-atlantic region!

• https://extension.umn.edu/lawns-and-landscapes/flowers-pollinators