10 Weeks of Vegetable Gardening: Week 5

Each Friday I am posting a weekly guide for prepping your home vegetable garden. In Raleigh, the last killing frost date is April 11 (on average, give or take a week), so my first weekend for planting (summer crops) outdoors is April 9.

This week we remember our pollinators. I would write out a beautiful article for you on bees, but alas, that has been done here. Please check it out.

To summarize:
Don’t use pesticides
Use local native plants (avoid hybrids)
Chose several colors of flowers
Plant flowers in clumps
Include flowers of different shapes
Have a diversity of plants flowering all season
Plant where bees will visit

From Beegreen Gardens, here is a list of native bee plants for North Carolina:
Asclepias tuberosa – Butterfly Weed
Baptisia australis – False Indigo
Bignonia capreolata – Crossvine
Callirhoe involucrata – Poppy Mallow
Campsis radicans – Trumpet Vine
Chasmanthium latifolium – River Oats
Chrysoganum virginianum – Green and Gold
Echinaceae purpurea – Purple Coneflower
Iris cristata – Crested Iris
Lobelia cardinalis – Cardinal flower
Lobelia siphilitica – Great Blue Lobelia
Lonicera sempervirens – Coral Honeysuckle
Penstemon digitalis – Beardtongue
Physostegia virginiana – Obedient Plant
Rudbeckia fulgida – Black-eyed Susan
Salvia lyrata – Lyre-Leaved Sage
Solidago canadensis – Goldenrod
Tiarella cordifolia – Foamflower

This weekend I am planting a butterfly garden mix that I found at Costco, which only has one from the list above, but does meet the suggestions of various shapes, sizes and colors. I guess that gives me an excuse to hit up the plant nurseries!