No pollinators? Are you diversifying your garden?

It’s often we hear our customers talk about not seeing any bees or pollinators in the garden. After a lot of time and many questions later, I’ve reached the conclusion this has a lot to do with a lack of diversification in the home vegetable garden. I want to present a personal example that happened to me yesterday that shows the importance of diversification and what that means.

I find that most gardeners are focused on planting the crops they want to harvest without the thought of supporting the rest of the garden eco-system. We just installed a new garden and during the design phase I wanted to ensure that I incorporated some flowering plants in with our vegetables and herbs. I knew the herbs were going to help attract natural predators and our African Blue Basil would later draw tons of bees, but I wanted more diversity. There are some pollinators out there that are drawn to a specific host plant (ex: Monarch butterfly feeds on the milkweed plant) but im not abundantly savvy on the subject.

So along the design phase of our garden, I decided I really wanted to grow a passion vine in the center of a bed on an obelisk trellis. It took off and is growing wonderful. While watering and tending the garden yesterday, I noticed a spiked caterpillar on the passion vine I had never seen before. I never jump to eradicating pests without understanding what their purpose is and why they are there, so I did some research and this is what I found:

Gulf Fritillary Caterpillar

The spiked creature was the caterpillar of the Gulf Fritillary Butterfly. It is a beautiful butterfly that provides some excellent pollination for the garden. What I didn’t know was that the passion vine was its only host plant, just like milkweed being the only host for the Monarch.

So this brings me to my point:

Diversification in the vegetable and herb garden provide host plants for pollinators and predators alike to find food, shelter, nectar, pollen, and more. Planting different shapes, sizes, and colors is an important factor in creating a diverse garden eco-system.

Currently my passion vine is providing food for the Gulf Fritillary caterpillar which will provide me with pollination later.

In my mint bed, army worms have been present which are being taken way by predator wasps as food. This is all part of the natures life cycle and is so cool to see happen.

These are just a few examples I have experienced myself this Eason and I hope this gives you some inspiration to diversify your plants!