Gardening

Bee Counting

A very interesting web site came across my path while checking my email the other day.  www.yourgardenshow.com
is calling all gardeners to participate in an attempt to count bees!  The idea of the count is to shed some light on our current bee crisis and find out why our nation’s most important pollinator is disappearing.  If you go to the web site, sign up for the Great Sunflower Project.  There are already 100,000 members who are helping to create bee conservation efforts by planting bee-friendly plants and counting the bees that visit that flower for 15 minutes each week this summer and beyond.  Most of us are familiar with  Facebook.com, a web site for social interaction.  Your  Garden Show .com  is a social network for gardeners!  Since WNF&GA has had an ongoing interest in bees, I thought that our membership would be interested in counting bees!
Don’t get stung!

Louise Shoksnyder, Garden Focus Coordinator

Book Recomendation

Attracting Beneficial Bugs to Your Garden – A Natural Approach to Pest Control by Jessica Walliser
I recently saw this book in the “new books” nonfiction section of a local library.  I like to check out this section in the library and then decide whether or not I want to purchase it for myself.  This one is a keeper in that it’s not only interesting reading but will be a continued valuable reference book.  It’s also not a book to read before mealtime as some of the pictures are quite graphic (and so interesting!)  The contents include information about beneficial insects in general and then proceed to go in more depth into the predators and the parasitoids.  Recommendations are made to bring the most highly attractive plants and the beneficials together.  Plant partnerships or companion planting suggestions include pole beans growing up corn plants, pepper plants with dill, and alyssum and lettuce to form a living mulch beneath tomatoes.  A wonderful chapter details plant profiles in “the importance of landscape diversity and complexity for good bugs”.  There’s an excellent graphic-concluding chapter reflecting the beneficial insects, some of the pests they consume and plants that support them.  Whether we just enjoy reading this book or choose to get more actively involved in the gardening aspects, it is a good go-to for anyone interested in nature and our potential interactions with it.
Debbie Czarnopys-White