Growing for Skan

"The most likely threat to native bees is habitat loss, and the associated loss of key floral and nesting resources. Faced with this discouraging news, what can a homeowner, backyard naturalist, or Master Gardener do?"

"Many solutions exist for supporting pollinators. Enhancing nesting sites, improving foraging resources (flowers), and reducing pesticide use are all good, general recommendations. But one of the best solutions that individual homeowners can adopt is to develop a pollinator garden in your back yard."

Bee a part of the solution: create your own pollinator and habitat garden in September with our pilot pollinator farm share. Shop here: https://growingforskan.luluslocalfood.com/Shopping/Search?CategoryId=&ProducerId=20425&SearchTerm=#pop

See this guide:
https://www.publicgardens.org/file/50602/download?token=cmhCWtGR
written to help homeowners with an interest in bee conservation develop a pollinator garden to support those native bee species most in need of assistance.


(Ref: Creating a pollinator garden for native specialist bees of New York and the Northeast) read more...

Gardening for Life

(Source: Wild Ones / Habitat Gardening in Central New York handout:
https://www.hgcny.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Tallamy-Gardening-for-Life.pdf)

By Douglas Tallamy

Chances are, you have never thought of your garden – indeed, of all of the space on your land – as a wildlife preserve that represents the last chance we have for sustaining plants and animals that were once common throughout the United States. That is exactly the role our suburban landscapes are now playing, and will play even more critically in the near future. If this is news to you, it’s not your fault.


We were taught from childhood that gardens are for beauty; they are a chance to express our artistic talents, to have fun with, and relax in. And, whether we like it or not, the way we landscape our properties is taken by our neighbors as a statement of our wealth and social status.

No one has taught us that we have forced the plants and animals that evolved in North America (our nation’s biodiversity) to depend more and more on human-dominated landscapes for their continued existence. We have always thought that biodiversity was happy somewhere out there – “in nature” – in our local woodlot, or perhaps our national parks, or best of all “in the rain forest.”

We have heard nothing about the rate at which species are disappearing from our neighborhoods, towns, counties, and states. We have never been taught how vital biodiversity is for our own well-being. Read entire handout here: https://www.hgcny.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Tallamy-Gardening-for-Life.pdf read more...

Check out these interesting studies.

The Power of the Plate from Rodale Institute, covering the intertwined roles of agriculture and healthcare

https://rodaleinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/Rodale-Institute-The-Power-of-the-Plate-The-Case-for-Regenerative-Organic-Agriculture-in-Improving-Human-Health.pdf

Follow this link to Rodale Institute's site to learn out more about the relationship between recovering from Covid-19 and reforming our food system:

https://rodaleinstitute.org/blog/to-recover-from-covid-19-we-must-change-our-food-system/ read more...

According to this research study native trees, especially oaks, host the bulk of the Carolina Chickadee’s insect-intensive diet.

"It's a basic idea, but it makes a whole lot of sense: Native plants are better for native birds than introduced flora. More specifically, because these trees and shrubs have evolved with the local wildlife, they harbor more insects or yield more berries and fruit than non-native plants, providing greater amounts of food for certain critters. This seemingly obvious idea has been buttressed by years of research by Doug Tallamy, whose published work has shown that these plants host many more caterpillars, and that yards with more native vegetation host more native-bird species." Read the entire article on the Audubon website: https://www.audubon.org/news/new-research-further-proves-native-plants-offer-more-bugs-birds

Find your bird friendly plants here:https://www.audubon.org/native-plants read more...

Read Amara Dunn's blogpost here:

https://blogs.cornell.edu/biocontrolbytes/2021/02/09/finding-plants-that-feed-friendly-insects/

"... if one of your goals for your 2021 garden is to provide good habitat for beneficial insects that eat pest insects (natural enemies of pests), here’s some advice…

Look for pollen and nectar producers
Flowers that provide plenty of pollen and nectar make great habitat for natural enemies. This is because some natural enemies also eat pollen or nectar (or both). For example, this adult hover fly feeds on the pollen and nectar produced by this bachelor’s button..." read more...