This year planting a diverse range of flowers has never been so important for pollination. The choice of flowers in our gardens is just as important as our choice of vegetables. We noticed increased pollination yearly as more butterflies, dragonflies, bees and long beaked birds take to the garden. The presence of moths and mantis insects have increased also. The more pollinators that visit the front garden, the more vegetables have thrived around our edible block.
Whatever it is, the summer vegetables have been struggling and the pests have been thriving. If “one must maintain a little bit of summer, even in the middle of winter,” as Henry David Thoreau puts it, then we might be out of luck (...)
When we made it into the greenhouse (ah) to get going on the winter vegetables, we decided to plant foods that would help us stay at home longer and enable us to distance ourselves, while remaining healthy, choosing many “cut and come again” staples that compliment many a meal.