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I'm for the fish bees! I just planted a bunch of wildflowers last week in the hope to attract them to my veggie garden! They just started sprouting yesterday!
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I like the name fish bees. I am sure the fish bees will come and pollinate your garden. You may need to grow some watercress and water lilies of course.
If it takes creative use of conservation laws to save the bees, it will be totally worth it.
Catherine
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I'll look into it! I know I need to get some marigolds! I've been looking into companion gardening to help prevent pests and I'm able to use fewer sprays. I do have Bee safe sprays but it's nice to not have to be as aggressive with remembering to use them.
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Marigolds repel insects. So would Rosemary. I am sure there are many natural ways of protecting your garden.
I never use any sprays. My local birds eat the aphids on my roses. You are so much further south, so I don't know what pests you have to deal with.
You should be able to grow just about anything.
Right now Zinnias are popular and all the garden centers have them. The big bright flowers attract all the local pollinators. They would make you garden look pretty.
We never sprayed our garden when I was growing up and we had an acre of land. That is a lot of vegetables. We probably did plant things in a way that was companion gardening. I do remember planting zinnias, so maybe they help protect a garden. I suspect we were a bit pest tolerant too. I don't worry about slugs eating a bit of stuff. I can share a bit. My local birds eat the slugs too. If you work with nature, nature works with you.
Catherine
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I try not to use sprays but I get a lot of spider mites and stink bugs mostly. We have a lot of birds around. Hawks and owls too. I have a big multi-family birdhouse that always has birds in it. The dogs keep the squirrels and rabbits away. This will be the first year I have a successful crop IF I don't kill the plants! I have acorn squash, spaghetti squash, butternut squash, zucchini, grape tomatoes, bell pepper, and jalapeno peppers. Stink bugs will be my downfall because they love all the squash!
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Also, all the squash was free seeds. I still have a ton! I kept the big ones from the produce we ate while my mom gave me the zucchini. I'm also keeping seeds from the plants I grow this year for next year to keep the cycle going. I think I'm going to start them inside around April next year. I may even experiment with starting a couple in January and April.
I do have neem oil I use in a mixture but I recently heard neem oil is showing signs of being bad for bees. It takes a few generations to show up. I need to do more research because it was one of those passing videos on Instagram. They suggest spraying in the evening after the bees are gone so that's what I've been doing. Between the bee safe and the neem oil/soap mixture. It has been doing fairly well.