Friday, September 20, 2013

Another reason to plant lots of chaya and other flowering plants.  The bees need lots of flowers to stay healthy and we need bees if we want to continue to eat vegetables.

A wonderful talk by Marla Spivak:
http://www.ted.com/talks/marla_spivak_why_bees_are_disappearing.html



Marla Spivak researches bees’ behavior and biology in an effort to preserve this threatened, but ecologically essential, insect.

   

Saturday, September 14, 2013

Peackocs and other wildlife in the garden

When I started the garden, I made sure to put plants that were hosts to butterflies and that attracted birds. I never imagined that one day I would have all kinds of wildlife visiting us. There are butterflies, birds, the pair of doves that make their nest here year after year, raccoons, opossums, armadillos, cats and now there are 3 peacocks. These peacocks roam the neighborhood and they go from section to section and stay there for a few weeks.  They have been in our block for 3 weeks and they mostly hang around my garden because I have more plants (and weeds) than the rest of the neighbors. Unfortunately, the peacocks ate most of the Monarch caterpillars so we won't have many butterflies this month. We were able to rescue some and we are keeping them indoors until they hatch.