CSA Week 12; CSA for the bees

The pollinators are out in full force this time of year, and we are loving our mutually beneficial relationship. With squash, tomato, eggplant, cucumber, melon, and cut flower blossoms nodding their heads all over the farm, there’s something for everyone to snack on! We’ve been seeing many of the familiar honey and bumble bees, as well as many unidentified moths and butterflies flitting about.

I love knowing that our polyculture CSA farming model provides a variety of food for pollinators all through the growing season. Around the vast monoculture farms of the West it’s feast or famine for a pollinator, where the bloom happens in a concentrated time period and then is done for the year (think almonds), or consists of just one crop for miles (imagine eating only tomatoes every single day of your life!) Sweetland’s pollinators have it made in the shade, with season-long access to a “pollen CSA” of sorts. Because we grow so many different crops there is a smorgasbord of pollen and nectar to choose from. Today we are even seeding a special “cover crop” on part of the field that is done growing for the season, with a mixture of buckwheat, sunhemp, and sunflowers that the bees will love.

On the flip side, we benefit from this diverse group of insects by getting increased pollination and yield. We had a tremendous fruit set in our fruit orchard this year, and had to actually THIN the crop so the trees wouldn’t break under the weight of the swelling fruit. While many growers purchase “disposable” bumblebee colonies to work in their tomato houses, we’ve got trusses loaded with fruits just from leaving the sides rolled up. And if we harvest squash and cucumbers too early in the morning we have to be careful of the sleepy bees still dozing in the trumpet shaped flowers.

All this is to say, we’re pretty happy that the bees and other pollinators signed up for our CSA this spring! We’ll keep growing the flowers for them, and harvesting the veggies in return.