Monday, May 27, 2013

Red Clover

Almost every spring portions of our front yard are covered with red clover.  The clover blooms about the same time as the milkweed plants start growing, and until recent years large numbers of monarch butterflies on one of their migration routes up from Mexico, would descend on the yard to feast on the clover nectar and lay eggs on the milkweed.



This year, the red clover bloomed, the milkweed grew -- but I haven't seen a single monarch.  Every year over the past ten or so years they have been fewer and fewer.  The honey bees are fewer and fewer also.  Last year I had to hand pollinate most of my vegetable garden plants to get a fruit set.  When I see the lawn spray trucks all over the neighborhood I just want to scream!

Now the clover has all set seed, and I'm harvesting the seed for next year.


I cut whole seed heads and plunk them in a paper sack, that I will fold over and staple and label.  Some time between November and February, on a nice day where rain is expected later that day or the next, I strew them out all over the yard, walking over where they fall so they make some contact with the soil. And maybe next spring there will be monarchs.

4 comments:

My Garden Diaries said...

Gee...how discouraging! I wish they would have come to visit and hope that it is different next year but I really think that people have to wake up with their usage of chemicals. Makes me so mad! Do they not realize that the chemicals have to go somewhere and that somewhere is into the soil which is where their food comes from...I just don't get it! Keep up the good work! We need more folks like you!!!

Manuela@A Cultivated Nest said...

I have one neighbor that has their lawn sprayed and they've been doing that for at least 10 years. Their lawn doesn't look any better than the rest of us so I always wonder why they bother with it!

Hopefully it'll be different for you next year.

Skeeter said...

Rush over to "In the Garden" You are a winner!!!

Skeeter said...

Your package from "In the Garden" is in the mail Diana! 2-3 Day shipping so be expecting it sometime on or around Monday... Enjoy!!