How I Got Started

I started Butterfly gardening many years ago. My yard has been a progression over the years, and has made many transformations. Twenty years ago I experienced Hurricane Andrew. My yard and house were destroyed. We decided not to replace the pool screening and open up the backyard and put in some landscaping. That was the official beginning of my love for gardening in South Florida. I added a beautiful water garden years ago, and have been adding host and larvae plants for pollinators, mostly for the butterfly, for as many years as I can remember. I had my yard certified as a Natural Habitat, through the National Wildlife Foundation. To have a natural habitat you need to provide and meet certain requirements: 1. Provide a food source, 2. Provide a water source, 3. Cover, 4. A place to raise young. I try not to use any pesticides in my yard. I vermicompost and recycle as many of my food scraps as possible. If I had more land I would have a huge compost bin to recycle all my yard cuttings. Basically, I try to lessen my carbon footprint on this earth. In my own little world or backyard I try to provide an ecosystem in my water garden, provide birdbaths, birdfeeders, hummingbird nectar sources, feeders, puddling areas, host plants and nectar plants for butterflies and other pollinators. I am hoping to raise everyone’s awareness of the importance of saving our Butterflies, Blooms & Bees. Without them our world and food source will be in trouble. I hope you all enjoy my journey. I am not a Master Gardener, or Master Beekeeper, an Entomologist, or Journalists. I am simply a Backyard Gardener who is trying to lessen her Carbon Footprint of this Earth.

I hope you enjoy my blogs.

Saturday, October 15, 2011

Beekeeping Class Fairchild Botanical Gardens


 I am so excited because today is my first Beekeeping class.  This course is given by Fairchild Botanical Gardens.  I have been looking forward to this class for months.  I have been interested in beekeeping for a while, mostly as a natural progression in my quest to improve the pollination in my yard, and to help the pollinators who are in trouble.  It wasn’t until I started reading and studying that I started to realize the degree to which our honeybees were in trouble.  When I think about honey, I think about it being very pure.  Honey has to be one of the purest foods humans ingest; “food for the gods.”  I had no idea how many pesticides, antibiotics, fungicides; mitacides are being used to kill many of the parasites that are affecting our bees.  All of these chemicals are affecting our honey that we ingest and our pollinators that depend upon it as their food.  





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