IT’S NOT TOO EARLY TO BEE A GOOD GARDENER
Warmer weather and spring will arrive soon enough, right as rain. As a sure sign, most retailers are stocking shelves and readying store displays with spring and summer items already. One local store has been displaying lawn chairs and gardening supplies since January, while another has had premix flower and garden seed packs on display near the checkout for a month. Meanwhile, many winter-weary and anxious home gardeners are preparing well in advance for a planting season that can’t come soon enough. Perhaps you are nurturing tiny seedlings indoors as we speak or are mapping out your plots and beds in anticipation? For some garden enthusiasts, it may be about the future prospect of enjoying home-grown vegetables and or fruits, while for others, it may be about producing a variety of colourful and wildly scented flowers, be they annual or perennial. Either way, gardeners from all walks of life, including those in the Off-Island area will be putting on gloves and boots and getting knees and hands dirty and working beloved soil very soon. Which got me to thinking; With the province of Quebec set to introduce new restrictions and regulations that will ban the use of pesticides that are harmful to honey bees, perhaps Off-Islanders can go a step further and make concerted efforts at home to help our bee populations locally this year, too. What’s the buzz about, specifically? Certain pesticides, namely neonics, or nicotine-based pesticides are commonly used by farmers to combat a variety of pests that can, and do, damage crops regularly. Sadly, as a growing body of evidence reveals, what may be useful in controlling a variety of unwanted pests that harm food supplies, neonics may now be linked to a declining bee population. Studies suggest that honey bees pollinate roughly one-third of the words crops and wild plants. So, what if Vaudreuil- Soulanges gardeners were to plant more flowers and plants that are specifically known to attract more bees? Could this help offset a current decline in bee populations on a local level? Would or will you plant more bee-friendly plants in your yard or garden and flower beds this coming spring and summer? While governments at provincial and the federal levels propose tighter restrictions on the use of insecticides that are harmful to bees, an outright ban on their use is not in place, at least not yet. Could OffIsland municipalities themselves ban them outright? Montreal banned neonics in 2015. Quebec’s move to imposing tighter restrictions on pesticide use is a good thing. With spring and summer coming, Off-Islanders can contribute to saving and growing bee populations at home by adopting a bee- friendly planting strategy on a local level. A list of bee-friendly plants and flower and ideas for rethinking your garden to include bees can be found here: thehoneybeeconservancy.org /plant-a-bee-garden.