Do you like to garden ?

[Don Alaska]

I tried mason bees last year. They are much more efficient pollinators than honeybees but they yield no honey or beeswax. They do, however, use mud to build small nests in small openings. These bees seemed to improve pollination in my apple and cherry trees, but they only travel a few hundred feet from the nest, so they need to be near the trees and flowers. Mason bees also do not sting.

 

[Yvonne Smith]

We have some of those, and Bobby calls them “mud daubers”, so I think that is probably the same thing. We also have the carpenter bees, which like to make little nests in the wood here and there.
They are huge bees, like a large bumble bee, and wil fly right up in your face and look at you, but they seem pretty friendly, and they are supposed to be excellent pollinators as well.

 

[Don Alaska]

We have some of those, and Bobby calls them “mud daubers”, so I think that is probably the same thing. We also have the carpenter bees, which like to make little nests in the wood here and there.
They are huge bees, like a large bumble bee, and wil fly right up in your face and look at you, but they seem pretty friendly, and they are supposed to be excellent pollinators as well.

I think mud daubers are wasps. I don't know if they live as far south as Alabama, but you undoubtedly had them in Idaho and Washington. These look a little like small honey bees with somewhat rounded abdomens. They hibernate during the winter and reemerge in the spring. The instructions I have for them is to bring the nests into the house before the first freeze and keep them in the refrigerator over winter. The guy I got them from in Oregon says they are native up here as well, but I don't know where they overwinter here since they have such a short flight radius. Maybe they do dig into the ground.

 

[Mary Stetler]

Hubby bought a colony of mason bees one year but they left. I remember one year some small ground bees set up a colony under my clothes line. I can tell you when I went to put on a pair of jeans, I found out they DO sting.

 

[Don Alaska]

Hubby bought a colony of mason bees one year but they left. I remember one year some small ground bees set up a colony under my clothes line. I can tell you when I went to put on a pair of jeans, I found out they DO sting.

I am told that mason bees do not sting, but I have to rely on that information as I don't know personally.

 

[Mary Stetler]

I am told that mason bees do not sting, but I have to rely on that information as I don't know personally.

Well that sting was not the worst I ever had. Maybe it was just a love bite.

 

[Marie Mallory]

I tried mason bees last year. They are much more efficient pollinators than honeybees but they yield no honey or beeswax. They do, however, use mud to build small nests in small openings. These bees seemed to improve pollination in my apple and cherry trees, but they only travel a few hundred feet from the nest, so they need to be near the trees and flowers. Mason bees also do not sting.

I didn't know Alaska had bees.

 

[Don Alaska]

I didn't know Alaska had bees.

We have native bees that I assume overwinter in the ground like the yellow jackets do. I think only the fertile queen overwinters, but there may be a few workers as well. Mosquitoes dehydrate themselves and hide in leaf litter to emerge when things thaw as giant slow breeder mosquitoes. We also have ants of some kinds, but ticks, chiggers and the like don't overwinter.

 

[Marie Mallory]

We have native bees that I assume overwinter in the ground like the yellow jackets do. I think only the fertile queen overwinters, but there may be a few workers as well. Mosquitoes dehydrate themselves and hide in leaf litter to emerge when things thaw as giant slow breeder mosquitoes. We also have ants of some kinds, but ticks, chiggers and the like don't overwinter.

I remember a friend years ago said the mosquitos there are huge. Of course I don't know how far north he was in Alaska.

 

[Mary Stetler]

I remember a friend years ago said the mosquitos there are huge. Of course I don't know how far north he was in Alaska.

Some years even here in Wisconsin we have 747 mosquitoes. And some years they are tiny but super fast.
I don't like either.

 

[Marie Mallory]

Some years even here in Wisconsin we have 747 mosquitoes. And some years they are tiny but super fast.
I don't like either.

Mary, I think they spray here in Florida for them, but not for the tics and chigars. I wear my 'hazmet' suit for the little buggers, I spray peppermint, thyme, on my socks over my shoes, socks and pants. Of course that doesn't work for the spiders and webs I get across the face sometimes ,they build webs at face level. My oldest daughter would faint if she ever walked into one, she has a bad spider fobia..

 

[Mary Stetler]

Mary, I think they spray here in Florida for them, but not for the tics and chigars. I wear my 'hazmet' suit for the little buggers, I spray peppermint, thyme, on my socks over my shoes, socks and pants. Of course that doesn't work for the spiders and webs I get across the face sometimes ,they build webs at face level. My oldest daughter would faint if she ever walked into one, she has a bad spider fobia..

lol so does my husband.

 

[Don Alaska]

Some years even here in Wisconsin we have 747 mosquitoes. And some years they are tiny but super fast.
I don't like either.

Ours are large at the beginning of the summer and are smaller when the new ones hatch. When we left Georgia people told us that at least we wouldn't have to worry about mosquitoes as it was too cold for them here. Mosquitoes in rural Alaska are much, much worse than in Georgia, but they only last for a few months and there are no disease-carrying types here because THEY are the ones who can't overwinter.

 

[Yvonne Smith]

I just watched a video about growing tomatoes and potatoes on the same plant, and it looks really interesting and intriguing to try. Basically, he just started several tomato plants and planted 2 potatoes, and then grafted tomato cuttings onto the potato starts.
He did not get a lot of potatoes, but they were actually a bonus crop, since he got a lot of tomatoes from the grafted vines. Both plants are in the nightshade family, so they took to the grafting just fine.

 

[Don Alaska]

I just watched a video about growing tomatoes and potatoes on the same plant, and it looks really interesting and intriguing to try. Basically, he just started several tomato plants and planted 2 potatoes, and then grafted tomato cuttings onto the potato starts.
He did not get a lot of potatoes, but they were actually a bonus crop, since he got a lot of tomatoes from the grafted vines. Both plants are in the nightshade family, so they took to the grafting just fine.

I think that would just be a novelty, and I have fiddled with grafting tomatoes, but now I am thinking about cucumbers and melons onto squash rootstocks. Others have done it, and winter squash grow much more rapidly here than melons particularly. Melons are hit and miss here, so I am pondering grafting various melons onto squash--Tetsukabuto is recommended--to see if I can get reliable melons.

 

[Mary Stetler]

I think that would just be a novelty, and I have fiddled with grafting tomatoes, but now I am thinking about cucumbers and melons onto squash rootstocks. Others have done it, and winter squash grow much more rapidly here than melons particularly. Melons are hit and miss here, so I am pondering grafting various melons onto squash--Tetsukabuto is recommended--to see if I can get reliable melons.

When I get beautiful musk mellons, I pick them up and a hole has been chewed into the undersides . Voles! too small to trap and the cat does not like them.

 

[Marie Mallory]

I just watched a video about growing tomatoes and potatoes on the same plant, and it looks really interesting and intriguing to try. Basically, he just started several tomato plants and planted 2 potatoes, and then grafted tomato cuttings onto the potato starts.
He did not get a lot of potatoes, but they were actually a bonus crop, since he got a lot of tomatoes from the grafted vines. Both plants are in the nightshade family, so they took to the grafting just fine.

Thanks Yvonne, I may come back to this later.

 

[Don Alaska]

When I get beautiful musk mellons, I pick them up and a hole has been chewed into the undersides . Voles! too small to trap and the cat does not like them.

We do catch them in mouse traps, but the only real way to control them is via poison which you may not want to use. They are a big threat to fruit tress and can kill an entire orchard by girdling the trees in a snowy winter. I think our old barn cat kept them under control. I don't know if she ate them or just killed them, but the voles were not a problem until after she died.

 

[Marie Mallory]

Leaves are falling and I have lots to rake up for compost and plant beds mulch. Also have the chicken manure to mix in, some kitchen scraps.

 

[Marie Mallory]

I woke up with chigars itching like crazy on my ankles a couple nights ago, but I need these leaves so they better 'bug off'.