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| honeybee on tomatillo flower |
Tom and I have both noticed an absence of pollinators in our garden this year, so I've been keeping a sharp eye out for bees and butterflies. Today I saw a gulf fritillary on some of my zinnias, but when I went for a closer look, it flew away. We noticed a number of bees today, maybe five or six, steadily gathering pollen from the corn tassels, the blue-black salvia, the tomatillo flowers, and orange California poppies. However, I am still surprised (worried?) that our garden is attracting so few pollinators. The mountain mint continues to be free of bees. That's one of my biggest disappointments, as I had hoped that the mint would attract the diversity of pollinators we had encountered ten years ago when we planted mountain mint in our yard in Harris County, Georgia.
Tom noticed that our tomatoes are beginning to set more fruit. Perhaps our tapping the tomato stakes to loosen the pollen from the flowers is working.
I pulled out of one of my 8'X8' beds lettuce that was going to seed and red poppies that were past their bloom. Then I added composted horse manure to the bed, being careful not to disturb the plants remaining--bird-eye pepper plants (chili pequins), serrano pepper plants, and a zinnia plant or two. After I had worked the compost into the soil, I planted a package of Genovese basil and lettuce leaf basil. Since I usually plant all my basil seeds earlier in the season, I will be especially interested to see these seeds germinate and grow.
The garden plants and flowers along the perimeter of our property (gardenias) are blooming, but few pollinators are visiting. I will continue to monitor the presence of pollinators in our garden.
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| First red salvia blooms |
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| Green spider on mountain mint leaf |
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| spider and egg sac on blue-black salvia blooms |
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| probably a shield bug (stink bug) |
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| Tom among the tomatoes |
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| green tomato |
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