What To Grow If There Are No Bees
 

While I've heard that the hives are recovering from the CCD they were experiencing recently and that organically grown bees may have been less effected this has been a good learning opportunity. There are productive grains and vegetables that are either self-polinating or wind-polinated which will be largely uneffected by whatever may happen with or without bees. Below is a partial list I've put together to help disaster-proof my own efforts.

Wind Pollinated
* corn
* wheat
* rye
* aramanth
* spinach
* beets
* Swiss chard

Self Pollinated
* tomatoes
* peas
* beans
* lettuce
* peppers
* okra
* eggplant
* peanuts

Self pollinators, like tomato, can often be pollinated by insects and benefit from it by yielding a better harvest. Likewise wind can help knock loose the pollen but whatever the case you should still get something for your efforts with these. If you're willing to fertilize by hand you can grow pretty much anything but it makes good sense to maintain a core of these vegetables in your garden just in case. Fortunately many of them are nutritious and tasty.

Re: What To Grow If There Are No Bees
 

My cantelopes did lousy this year......tons of flowers, very little fruit. Lack of bees.

I guess I'm gonna get back into it and try the smaller comb.....I read where that smaller, natural comb seems to prevent some the problems. When I kept bees before, I really didn't like the meds and fumigants needed to keep them going.

Re: What To Grow If There Are No Bees
 

I've been wanting to get an apiary started but I don't know where to get the ape. :tongue_ma:

We've got wild bumblebees but I see very little of anything that could be a honey bee. Come to think of it the centers on most of my sunflowers never filled out well. I'd order a bumblebee hive but I can't find any that come with a queen. I should also look into raising honey bees without all the chemical additives.

Re: What To Grow If There Are No Bees
 

I'm no bee expert but, I have had a lot more bees around lately.

Dumping my used hops into my compost pile attracts a ton of bees. They love my yard. They are everywhere. They really go for the hops soaked in fresh wort.

But yeah, no bees would be a very bad thing.

Blorp

Re: What To Grow If There Are No Bees
 

My neighbor right across the road raises honey bees and they're all over the shade house. Nice to have around. I got one caught in my sandal one day and it stung me between the toes. WOW!
My sunflowers set seed, but got attacked by leaf footed bugs. I got a pretty good crop of tomato's but they got eaten prematurely by those red devil bugs. Cukes and pumpkin got decimated by powdery mildew.
Sweet potato's, beans, radishes, carrots, winter squash, peppers, various herbs, and collards all did well this summer, but my best crop still to come is actually Papaya. Out of about twenty plants, half of them are setting fruit. They seem to absolutely love this miserable wilting heat. They sprout like weeds. Also, sweet potato's love to grow under them.

I bought three varieties of tobacco and wasn't able to sprout a single seed.

Tomatilla, or ground cherry are currently being eaten by those same little red devils.

Developing healthy soil is my primary concern right now.


I figure I'm about two seasons away from having a subsistence garden since here in Florida it's almost a year round deal.

Thirty years and this place might be a paradise. Patience... :bull-buddy-icon:

Re: What To Grow If There Are No Bees
 

I've been trying to grow the papayas but haven't had any luck with germination. One sprouted then died. I've still got some seed, I might give it one more go this year. Any tips?

The carrots are actually doing well for me, which is funny because I've heard they prefer cooler weather. Lots of luck with peanuts, too.

I've had good luck with bugs, except mosquitos. Between my birds and my boot we keep them in check. If by red devils you mean little hemiptera type bugs I've found a few hatc outs, but stomped them into oblivion. The hemipteras are the most numerous insect pests I get but I've managed to stay on top of them. I inspect my plants every day because I enjoy watching them grow so that makes things easier. Likewise I do most of my weeding incidently, just pulling a few as I find them in the course of other activities.

Re: What To Grow If There Are No Bees
 

Here's the key to sprouting papaya seeds.

Don't buy dried seed.

Buy the fruit, the central american varieties at your grocer, not Hawaiian red, they are tampering with it (GMO).

I've been buying mine from a low end chain store called Save a Lot for around 79 cents a pound, but they can cost as much as $3.00 a pound at Publix. Each fruit weighs several pounds.

Cut the fruit in half, the long way, scrape the seeds out. Eat the fruit with a spoon and throw the remaining skin and those seeds in the compost bin with your other kitchen scraps, leaves, weeds, grass and chicken shit. Don't go for a hot compost. I believe they prefer a warmer environment than normal potting soil, though. I tried to start some the regular way as well and they came up insipid. Within four to six weeks those seeds will start to germinate right where they are and literally blanket the compost with little starts. It's almost too easy.

That's when you transplant by shoveling deep under the starts using as much of the compost as possible into the garden location of your choice.
They like full sun, but do well in partial shade as well. Thin them fairly mercilessly, singly or in couples, about four feet apart. mulch them in good.
They seem to like mounds for good drainage, damp but not wet feet.
Water routinely about the same as carrots or other veggies and top once or twice through the long season with more compost. Approximately nine months. They are perennial if it doesn't freeze, but can be grown as annuals as far north as central Geogia. These plants can become like small trees. Some of mine are over 7 ft. tall already this season. The trunk is as big around as my leg.
As perennials, they fruit for maybe five years and each tree can produce hundreds of pounds of fruit in their lifetime.

The leaves get to be a foot and a half wide and can be used to wrap meat in which acts as a tenderizer if you leave it wrapped in the fridge overnight.

There is a near constant shortage of papaya in Florida, due to the popularity of the fruit by hispanic people. They love it because they grew up with it. Also because it tastes great.
Most of my family and friends don't even know what it tastes like.

Just last fall I treated my brother to serving with lime squeezed over it and he was sold right away.

For our Florida climate it makes far more sense than cantaloupe.

It can even be used as a landscape plant.

There are two possible drawbacks. The latex in the leaves can cause allergic reactions in some people and if you cut open an over ripe fruit the seeds can have a somewhat pungent aroma if you get your nose right up to it.

Oh, and yeah, hemiptera bugs. I didn't stomp on them fast enough early on and they became the scourge of the season. They love tomato plants and squash plants, and a relative of theirs with leaf shaped hind legs love the sunflowers.

Re: What To Grow If There Are No Bees
 

Add potatoes and sweet potatoes (broken record) to the list, no flowers nor middlemen necessary. Sweet potatoes saved the Japanese from famine several times when rice crops failed, most recently during WWII.

Many herbs, such as basil and mint are easy to propogate by cuttings as well.

Bamboo is good for food, fences, toolmaking, and a billion other uses. Only flowers once a hundred years or so. Not a staple crop, but zero maintenance if you have the space and pick the right variety for your climate.

Re: What To Grow If There Are No Bees
 

Why not just raise a few hives of bees?

Re: What To Grow If There Are No Bees
 

RealJack, I tried your suggestion and now I have a whole mess of papaya seedlings. Thanks!

Re: What To Grow If There Are No Bees
 

I was going to add...

This is only my second summer at my place here but I have noticed something that might be relevant to your situation with bugs eating up your crops... seems around July that catepillars and grasshoppers start showing up in meaningful numbers. I've decided to adjust my rotation so I don't plant anything after June so the seedlings have a chance to get big enough to deal with the bugs. Seems they wind down around October. As this is the same time period the duckweed takes over the pond I decided this will be my fallow period for mostly working on composting and refreshing my soil. The Seminole pumpkins and watermelons seem to be resistant to the bugs.

Re: What To Grow If There Are No Bees
 

This is exactly the key right here. If your soil is healthy, pest and disease problems will be minimal. If you haven't read them already, pick up Steve Solomon's books:

Growing Vegetables West of the Cascades
http://tinyurl.com/2bq7ma

Gardening When It Counts: Growing Food in Hard Times
http://tinyurl.com/youdes

Although the first book deals primarily with growing in the maritime PNW, the info on soil health is valuable.

The second book has a broader scope (in terms of not being region specific), and very good.

Re: What To Grow If There Are No Bees
 

Do sweet potatoes have a fall growing season?

Re: What To Grow If There Are No Bees
 

August 31, 2007 - Wheat above 8 Dollars a Bushel

Aug. 31 (Bloomberg) -- Wheat futures in Chicago climbed to a record, heading for the biggest monthly gain in 34 years, as demand from importers including South Korea and India reduced global inventories.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?p...d=aHcDSwP5iCA4

Re: What To Grow If There Are No Bees
 

Down here (south fl) they are perrenial and grow all year. Up north, the vines will wither in winter, not sure about the tuber. In temperate climates I believe they are planted in spring and harvested in fall. Sweet potato vendors with wood-fired pushcarts can be found in the streets of Japan though fall and winter. Like tomatoes, sweet potatoes are tropical or sub-tropical perrenials that can be grown as annuals in temperate climates.

Re: What To Grow If There Are No Bees
 

Rev, I'm happy you're having success. I have several monster papaya trees loaded up with fruit already eight inches long. Many of the other plants are flowering, but haven't set fruit. They are a couple months younger than the monsters, but I'm a bit concerned they don't want to set fruit. The flowers are just dropping. It's probably the soil condition under each plant, but there may be something about the male female pollination aspect I should look into.

Thanks Eye, I'll check them out.
The garden is still young, not even a year old, from scratch on ground that was full of cement chunks and construction debris. Sand, grass and weeds.
I've been amending this with compost as fast as I can make the compost but I know it will just take time to really make the soil rich and fertile.
This past week I picked up a pickup truck load of horse manure from a local horse ranch. It will go in the ground after it cooks for awhile.
I'm trying different techniques in the mean time.

I'm not really worried about the bugs. I figure it's just part of the life process. Sooner or later some bugs are going to come along and want a snack. If I'm healthy enough I'll flick em off. Yep, me and the soil; we're a lot alike. :D

Re: What To Grow If There Are No Bees
 

Papayas are sexually differentiated.
There are males and females and hermaphrodites.
Somewhat similar to pot.

Re: What To Grow If There Are No Bees
 

Yes. Those are probably males with the flowers dropping off. The male flowers tend to stick out a little further from the stalk than the females, that's how you can tell the difference supposedly. A mexican friend told me that if you stuck a rusty nail through the stalk that the male would become a female... something about the iron, I figure. Then again, if you stuck a nail in me in the wrong place, I'd become a female, too, I guess. :shocked_ma:

Re: What To Grow If There Are No Bees
 

Here's a somewhat understandable article on growing papaya.

http://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/e...ya/papaya.html

The sexuality and methodology of the pollination of papaya is perplexing.

I think I'm supposed to be bagging the flowers or some such thing.

I haven't found any mention of bee pollination.

Color me confused.