Tiny Golden Britches!

  The other day as I watered the garden patch, I pondered why squash plants were not considered to be some elaborate, sought after plant for flower gardens.  The leaves are attractive, the blooms are exquisite and the plants are relatively easy to grow.  Then as an added benefit, you get squash to eat!  It seems to me that everyone should plant squash!  In fact, even though I have two rows in the vegetable plot, I opted to plant a dozen more plants in front of the moonflower fence!  I figured the bright yellow blooms would look right nice with the backdrop of large, white moonflower blooms!

  Then a day later, the blooms caught my eye again.  This time, it was because a bee was busying itself inside the blossom.  The fat, little bee was collecting so much pollen that it appeared to be covered with gold dust!  The once solid black bee had on pollen pants!  Seeing this gave me another reason to love squash.  

  Our pollen-collecting bees (of all types) are being put in danger on a daily basis and I am not referring to the so-called "murder hornet" (don't even get me started on the media hype about that!).  People are putting the bees in danger by using so many insecticides.  Yep, I am in a tizzy about the caterpillars on my four o'clock leaves but I am sure not going to douse everything with insecticides.  The sprays are not discriminate to the point that they kill only certain "pests" and not the beneficial insects.  I figure if the caterpillars stay on the four o'clock leaves perhaps they will forgo the tomato plants.  Also, I am depending on the lizards, wrens and ground wasps to do their jobs!   That way, I can enjoy watching the bees pollinate my lovely squash and the bees will not be in peril.