Butterfly Bushes were doing their job last Saturday and attracting these butterflies to the market. It was a happy sight. The vendors say they show up by themselves and are not there because they tagged along for the ride from the farm. Somewhere these butterfles made themselves a home in our city.
In contrast to the visiting butterflies, however, the vendors comment on the lack of bees.
The owners of Fantastic Gardens of Long Island claim they used to almost have trouble selling some plants because of the amount of bees that would be attracted to them at the market. But over the past few years they see have seen fewer and fewer bees.
The relationship between the natural world and our existance in the city is staggeringly complex. A bee may be tiny, but its disappearance is huge. By all acounts in the news we are still not exactly sure why they are disappearing. Some think GMO crops may be to blame, and Senator Clinton is backing legislation to address Colony Collapse Disorder.
In April Maxwell pondered a connection between bees and bankers. It may be that bees will begin to return this unfavorable ripple back to us. There are many plants at the very least that depend on them for survival and will disappear when they do.
matt at apartment therapy dot com
© 2009 Apartment Therapy
My boyfriend and I are growing brandywine tomatoes on our patio. They've had tons of flowers but are producing very little fruit (One/two tomato per plant!). We suspect its because there are no bees around to pollinate them. :(
view jennyfromtheblock's profile
This is sad, poor bees! I have lavender, lemon thyme and jasmine in my back yard and the bees which are around seem to be(!) very happy there, which is nice. I was talking to a customer about bees the other day (1 of my jobs involves gardening) and he said lots of bee species can't live in the wild at all anymore :( Shame bee-keeping is so expensive!
view tin_angel's profile
We used to have a little orange tree inside when I was a kid. We had to pollinate it ourselves with a very small paintbrush. I suspect you should be able to do the same with your tomato plants, and maybe get more fruit.
view gttim's profile