I had a gut instinct the bee's getting sick are not only from GE crops contain systemic pesticides running through every part of the plant. If an insect , like the honey bee who has to collect pollen, feed from, return to the colony, etc., and not be harmed by this is kidding himself. It is fact that a human who consumes food with trace amounts of these toxins is linked to health problems. The bee not only eats and collects, it builds a colony of wax that houses the eggs! Now how long do you think it would take before we saw the epidemic? Not long because they are insects. Rather then discount this as a scare tactic article, respect the simple facts. GE crops are going to be designed to not require bee's, so who are they to care? To answer Wayne 5, you are correct. They do need the bee's, many almond orchards hire beekeeping services to bring their bee's to be released down the rows. The problem is if consumers continue to use systemic pesticides, sprays and the like, you will never see any beneficial insects like praying mantis or lady bug. And if you do use chemicals and they are in your garden, you probably have seen the last. If they really did work, then why on earth did the GE crop need to be designed? I know the answer if your interested. I have fought against GE crop foods which will now be allowed to be in baby food without being labeled as a GE product. If you do your homework, like is like saying hormones in poultry and dairy products is harmless. We have proof this is far from the truth. The goverments consumer stand on this is "BUYER BEWARE". So if the chicken gets bigger and matures faster by hormones, then we eat the chicken with the hormones what happens to us scary! NOVA Science team did a documentary about the human body it is shocking. Young girls development is documented at an alarming rate. I would like to believe Honey bee's are smart enough to stay away from suspect plants. But they learn by evolution. The bee can't avoid a species because the colony perished. They have no way of detecting right now. So what should we all do? We can watch the numbers disappear. By the way, the bee's are not just dying off from the reported bee keepers, they simply are disappearing. No sign of foul play, disease, not one bee body lying dead on the ground, nothing. Maybe the bee's knew their options to live were limited by the bee keeper and possible pestisides. They saw their colonies not up to par and searched for a location, became ferrel with an organic garden. That is exactly what happened one year ago in my backyard. They just thrived, and recently split up with a new queen and swarmed to hopefully, a safe envirorment. My have has either an new queen or the old one, either way, mother nature is in charge. I collect no honey. I wish I could, but my job is to provide the food in the garden for them. Thank you for letting me vent, sorry I got off track.

At this point, most crop producers have been able to secure enough bees to provide pollination for the 2007 season. There are no anticipated shortages of any crops for now. This may not be true if CCD affects bees again this fall. Crops pollinated by bees and commonly grown on the east coast include: (curcurbits) Cantaloupe, cucumber, watermelon, squash, pumpkin, etc. (Rosacea, Ericaceae, Umbellifera, Amaryllidaceae, Cruciferae and others) Apples, Pears, peaches, plums, almonds, Blueberries, blackberries, raspberries, strawberries, onions, turnips, radishes, cabbages, broccolis, etc. If it has the word "berry" in its name, most likely bees are involved in production. If it is an edible fruit growing on a tree, bees are likely part of production. Feed crops that are pollinated by honeybees include alfalfa, clover, vetches, etc. These crops are fed to cattle as hay. This group includes about 40 common legumes. Major honey plants are in this group! Crops relatively unaffected by honeybee pollination include most of the solanums such as potato, tomato, pepper, etc. Poacea which is most of the true grasses such as corn, triticums such as wheat, etc is in this group. If you would refer to it as a grass, it is unlikely to be affected by bees. Most of the plants we refer to as beans are in this group including green beans, limas, cowpeas, etc, not because they don't produce nectar, rather because the flower shape prevents honeybee pollination. Fusion (Who consulted his honey plants manual to get this information)

What you describe is precisely the scenario that is most likely to lead to a quick rot. A healthy plant with a healthy and extensive root system will quickly utilize the water in a pot. Poor soil means poor roots. Poor roots cannot handle water because they are not healthy enough to use the water, so the soil remains too wet with the unused water. Maybe the light in the last 1.5 months was adequate, but the leaves should be more compact than they are in the photo which leads me to believe there was not enough light. A few hours of windowsill sunshine is very misleading to the human eye. Once again, as I've said numerous times on this forum, these are basically not houseplants and the conditions indoors are generally not suitable for long-term health. Unfortunately most new hobbyists don't understand or realize this. That's why we are here, to educate. x

Wow - I'm really glad I found this forum. I've really enjoyed reading your posts, GW and Triangle! My husband and I have sold plants at a local Farmer's Market for 9 years. I can relate to so much of what you say. It's so true that there is no rhyme or reason to what people will buy. The plant that is our biggest seller one year may not be in demand at all the next. Also, if I try to sell what I see another vendor doing well with, it may not work for me. I keep good records from year to year and the only consistency I've found is that nothing is consistent. We do pretty well in the spring with lilacs, IF they look great and IF it isn't raining the week that they are in their prime and IF there aren't 5 other vendors selling lilacs the same week. One year we'll do great with ornamental grasses, the next year we can't give them away. We make almost all of our money in May. Our markets don't start until the first of May. Here in Oregon it might be sunny and warm in April, or rainy and cold. If it's warm, and the garden centers are all stocked early, that hurts our sales in May. If it's cold in April but warms up nicely in May, and doesn't rain on the weekends, we do great, if our crops look good. We do mostly shrubs and perennials. I tried annuals one year because it seemed like all the other vendors were doing so well with them, but for me that was more work than it was worth. I think it was too much competition. So we know we will never get rich growing plants and selling at markets. But it's a lot of fun. We have repeat customers who tell us how great the hydrangea they got from us last year is doing, and that just warms my heart. One guy who has bought from us for years even brought a photo of his honeysuckle that we sold him (no, it's not a noxious weed here in Oregon! Blackberries, that's another story....) We pay $35 a week for our space, set our plants either on the ground or on shelves (fenceboards sitting on upside down nursery pots). We only bring what we can fit in the back of our pickup. On a really good day in May we might make $500. On a typical day in June it's more like $100 and in July we're lucky to make space rent some days. But we keep going (except last Saturday, when the temp was 105!) because we like the atmosphere, and because there is always a possibility that even on a hot summer day, someone may come along and buy $75 worth of plants. You just never know. We did finally, last year, put up a 12' x 15' greenhouse and put in a mist system. (It was a tax write off! - Plus I've always wanted one) Now we do alot of our own propagation, although I still buy some liners/plugs from a wholesale nursery. I also buy unusual perennials or grasses at a local garden center or from other market vendors and divide them. For next year I'm growing a really colorful assortment of small ornamental grasses. (Hakonechloa, Black Mondo, Blue Oat Grass, Carex 'Cappuccino', Japanese Blood Grass...) I don't know if they will sell or not but I like them. On thing I have learned is that most sales at Farmer's Markets are impulse sales. Although there are a few customers who come to the market to find something specific, most will buy the plant that looks so amazingly great that they can't go home without it. It's hard for us to sell anything that doesn't have a flower on it. That makes it hard to sell summer blooming plants, because plants don't sell well in summer, and they aren't in bloom when people want to buy plants. So we have focused on growing mostly plants that will be in their prime in May. Probably about 50 - 70% of our plants are ones that look best in spring and early summer. We grow a smaller percentage of plants that bloom late just so that we will have something to fill the truck with in summer. I have also thought of selling on ebay. I know there are alot of restrictions on interstate shipping of plants, but I think the local Dept of Ag website would have all the necessary information. I've also considered selling seeds. I have some interesting plants which can be seed grown, and I think collecting and shipping seeds would be easy. Bottom line, our Farmer's Market business supports my gardening habit! Good luck with yours.