The buzz

My garden is growing beautifully! Well, most of it. I have some beans that have drowned in the ground (we have been having an abundance of rain this summer) and my lettuce and turnips have fought and mostly list a serious bug battle... But a still have a little of both that survived. For my first year, I'll take that ass a success. The problem is with the bees.

My squash, cucumbers, and melons are growing big and healthy, flowers galore every day. Have been for weeks. I should have produce falling out of our patoots! Instead I have had 2 tomatoes, and one of those is still ripening. That's it. No baby growing succubus, no mini cukes, nothing. The flowers bloom and them promptly fall off as though they have been plucked. I tried fertilizer, compost, putting taps I've then in the rain to reduce the amount of water they get, even extra watering. The exact same thing keeps happening. What the hay?! Bees. That's what's wrong.

We are usually over run by pollinators here. Butterflies swirling around us as we walk through the yard, need buzzing and flitting about the clover crowns, even wasps claiming their territory about the eaves. This year we're lucky to to see one a week... Of any of them. Big ag has taken over the farm next door and its impact is very notable. They use GMO seeds and exorbitant amount of pesticides and herbicides. Its bad enough that I'm not even going to save corn seeds. I don't want GMO contaminated seeds.

Turns out that when your flowers aren't pollinated they will just fall off. Right now I'm looking into getting a loaner hive. There are bee keepers who will place a hive on your land to pollinate your crops and then come pick it up when your done with it. In my book, these folds are Heroes! In the mean time the girls and I are going to take some advice from a dear friend and paint our crop blossoms. You go out at like 7:00 am and use a paint brush to pollinate your crops yourself. You brush the centers of each flower in succession a few times then move to the next flower. Hopefully it will help. All this work, stress, and money for naught would be very aggravating.

This has helped me to know, in my heart of hearts, that we will definitely have our own hives in Washington. For our food and the world's. Without bees we are all screwed. Bees are a fantastic indicator of the environment and from what I see right now, we are all in trouble!

Even though we are leaving at the beginning of the summer next year, I am planting a butterfly garden on our land here. Lots of flowers. I may even guerilla garden the road sides as a go. It is my personal fight for the bees.

My baby step for today... Plant flowers and vegetables that allow bees to feed all year. That will draw them to your land and keep them in the world. Use no chemical based pesticides at all. We are killing our bees and by so, killing ourselves. We are growing our own food, collecting rain water, saving and reusing heirloom seeds, clustering our errands for less gas usage, put bricks in our toilet tanks, time our showers, and brush our teeth with a Dixie cup of water. We trip breakers when a leave the house, shut of lights all day and spend as much time as possible in the same room together at night to save power. We boycott GMO foods as best we can, use very little processed foods, buy locally grown produce and consume less so a can afford the organic versions of our favorite foods, make our own detergents and cleaning supplies, and use no AC at home or in the car. Wee even buy chloride free water. But none of this will matter with out bees.

Today I hope you find drive. The drive to do and be more than you are.