I’m going to be super busy this week with a huge project at work–and then I have to move.
We finally did get an offer on our house, but it’s contingent on our being out of the house by July 30th. So, I am a bit frantic trying to manage both packing and work.
It is [...]
Homebuggarden commented earlier this week:
“Has anyone come across a good source of information on providing nest support for alternative pollinators such as bumblebees, digger bees, and the like?”
Indeed, I have! Xerces has an excellent PDF download, Nests for Native Bees. There are also additional detailed instructions in their publication Farming for Bees (starting on page [...]
In case you missed it, here’s a link to the NPR interview with Steve Buchmann, the international coordinator of the North American Pollinator Protection Campaign. You might remember Buchmann as one of the authors of the excellent book Forgotten Pollinators.
From the NPR blog:
“Mother Nature has lots of other pollinators — typically five to ten types [...]
Check out these Pollination Reources for teachers at the NBII! (National Biological Information Infrastructure) They currently have 78 lessons related to pollination and pollinators listed.
They also have some fun resources on pollination and food, like this one: Chocolate’s Sweet Little Secret (PDF)
“The cacao flower, while only about the diameter of a nickel, is complex in [...]
It’s National Pollinator Week, and here’s a neat site for you–a complete list, continuously updated, of crops of importance to humans that insects pollinate. Pollinating animals contribute to at least one out of every three bites we eat.
Some of the fruits and vegetables on this list are obviously recognizable. There are also crops that produce [...]
Celebrate National Pollinator Week, June 22-28, 2009!
There is a nifty collection of online resources–including document templates, fact sheets, and more–online here!
There are even stickers you can print on your printer. Cool!
So, I mentioned before that the First Family is putting in a garden (complete with bee hive!). And, in fact, they plant to make it an organic garden.
That choice has stirred up a whole pot of strange. The first signal was that the MidAmerica CropLife Association sent a letter to the White House that implied [...]
Since we talked about earthworms last week…how about a little research?
When I was a kid I was taught that earthworms were good. Lots of worms was a sign of a healthy soil.
As I got older, I discovered that isn’t entirely true–some midwest soils didn’t have earthworms until Europeans showed up. Some soils had a whole [...]
Since I had the photo from yesterday…
Frustrating. I waited until the 16th to plant out anything, and we got a hard frost last night.
GRRRR. Michigan, you vex me.
It’s freaking spring already! Get with the program!
I’m talking about the plant (Gypsophila paniculata), not actual babies, BTW.
I was recently reminded that a lot of folks don’t know that Baby’s Breath is a nasty, invasive plant in the US. Oddly enough, it was because I bought soap. They make this statement on their package:
“our hypo-allergenic bar soap …comes in 100% post consumer [...]
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