No peas without bees!

This should be the gardener's new chant. No peas without bees! The bee crisis is indeed something we all should monitor.

I was listening to KUOW's Greendays program last week, and it was interesting to hear a bee keeper's perspective on the bee crisis. Many of you have probably heard of Colony Collapse Disorder -- a condition by which a healthy beehive seemingly collapses overnight. Worker bees from a beehive suddenly disappear. Without the workers, the colony cannot survive.

I have heard many theories behind CCD -- cell phone radiation, genetically modified crops, or the use of pesticides could be possible culprits. The beekeeper on the program posited another theory -- monocultures. When we lived on small family farms, we practiced crop rotation, and grew multiple varieties of vegetables. But with the advent of Big Agriculture, many fields are planted with just one variety of one crop. Bees used to be exposed to crop diversity and with it likely developed resistance to many diseases. Monocultures (and pesticides) harm bees.

So, why should you care about CCD? Honey bees are responsible for pollinating about 1/3 of the United States' species -- including pears, apples, cherries, berries, and peaches. Without honey bees, those crops don't get pollinated. Without pollination, we will not have as much fruit. Since Washington state is a key supplier of all of these crops, our state could see a significant economic effect from this.

And besides, honey bees are super cute. I love it when they get themselves drunk on pollen and have to digest some before they fly away. They look like fat black bees all covered in yellow pollen. It's adorable.

I'm a little worried about my peas and beans, if you haven't guessed by the title of this post. They are flowering up a storm -- yet I have not seen a big black bumblebee in my garden yet. Granted, my sample size is pretty small. It's not like I sit outside all day and watch my garden for bees. And I did see a bumblebee in the clover in my yard this afternoon. They're probably around -- my pear tree is forming little baby pears, and that could not have happened without bumblebees.

You may be wondering -- how do I help honey bees? One of the easiest things you can do is plant a garden! Consider planting some things bees like -- blue, purple or yellow flowers, clover, sage, oregano, and English thyme. Host a bee shelter -- set out a bee block for wood-burrowing bees. Don't use pesticides in your garden. And let your leafy veggies go to seed after harvest in the colder months. This allows honey bees to stock up on food for the winter.

As you can see from the pictures, my garden is really growing! The green things are walls-o-water -- little jackets for heat-loving plants. They work quite well -- I find that inside the wall-o-water, the temperature is several degrees warmer than outside. Good, as it's gotten rather chilly again in Seattle.

I did plant a couple more new things. I decided to take a chance and plant some bush beans. We'll see if I like them or not. I also put a new lettuce variety -- red deer tongue -- in the back of my garden. This variety grows well in summer, when the current varieties I have planted go to seed.

So far, I've only lost one tomato plant to the hardening off process. But I figured that plant was going to die anyway. Right now, they're out for about 14 hours. I've been trying to harden them off slowly, increasing their time outside by 2 hour increments. But a girl's gotta sleep sometime. They're doing well outside all day and into the evening. Maybe I will try leaving them out all night tomorrow night. Hopefully I won't lose any more.

Life is good. I'll find out about UW Bothell sometime this week. I think my interview went pretty well, although I was slightly stymied by the last question. Y'all know how much I hate waiting, and it's frustrating that I am forced to wait right now. They've made the decisions already...I'm just waiting for the bureaucratic process to play out and for me to actually get the decision. Sigh.

Had a wonderful weekend with friends. Things are good. And I have some of the best sausage ever in my fridge -- locally raised stuff. Time to go make potatoes with sausage and asparagus for dinner! Yum.