A World Without Chocolate

A garden without vegetables and melons is definitely like a world without chocolate- all work and no reward!!  I have worked in the garden every day for one month, and have had 5 hot peppers as my result.  Considering the size of the garden, that is seriously an issue.  The soil has been amended, rocks have been removed, and the pests have been deterred. 

It's time to consider the effectiveness of the pollination of the plants.  As I've spent a lot of time in the garden for the past month, I have not seen one bee.  It has been over 110* in the past week, which may affect the bees' activity during the day (my speculation), but most of June was not extremely hot.  So there should be bees around!!  But as this is an urban garden, surrounded by asphalt, buildings, and grass fields, there isn't a whole lot to attract bees. 

So I've been researching bees and how to attract them to our garden.  Some fun facts to "buzz" about:

• About 1/3 of our vegetables, fruits, nuts, and flowers are pollinated by bees
• Only social bees live in hives, but many species of bees are solitary and live in single nests
• Bees never know their mothers
• 4,000 species of bees live in the United States
• Bees come in all shapes, sizes, and colors
• Only female bees sting, and they do not always die afterwards
• Bees are very shy
• Bees cannot see red but can see ultraviolet

My plan is to plant some flowers (obviously not red) around the perimeter of the garden to attract our pollinators.  We will include lantana and bougainvillea during the summer months, as they are heat-resistant, grow quickly, and attract bees.

In the meantime, I will be pollinating the squash, zucchini and melons by hand!  I will be using a paintbrush to dust the pollen from the male flower onto the female flower.  Hopefully that works as well. 

Interesting websites about bees:
http://multimedia.journalism.berkeley.edu/workshops/projects/72/show/
http://nature.berkeley.edu/urbanbeegardens/general_guidelines.html
http://ag.arizona.edu/pubs/insects/ahb/inf21.html
http://www.ehow.com/list_6381948_flowers-do-well-arizona-heat.html
http://pelotes.jea.com/honeybee.htm
http://www.westmtnapiary.com/Bees_and_color.html