An Intervention for 100 in 1 Day: Seed Pollinator Bombs

A few weeks ago I volunteered to be a Citizen Activator with 100 in 1 Day 100in1day.ca/toronto/‎ which is happening on June 7 in Toronto. The project is headed by the indefatigable Aurelia Dalinda of Evergreen Cityworks. As a leader she is irrepressibly positive and enthusiastic and with a wealth of energy (all those 10 PM Sunday night emails!). The project has been wonderful to be a part of but it has challenged me as well. It has not been a great match for my strengths (grunt work and manual labour par excellence) and has highlighted my weak digital technology skills ( what is a Dashboard anyway??) But I have met wonderful people. As Andrew Simpson, another of our Citizen Activators noted at Tuesday's meeting, "We're a friendly bunch!"

So I was thrilled when Andrew invited me to join a local Intervention - Pollinator Seed Bombs to be distributed in the two parks, Riverdale Park East and Withrow Park, that border our neighbourhood. "Kids to make signs with pollinator fun facts to be placed in gardens and lawns.

Seed ball assembly (Farmer’s Market activity) and “distribution” in vacation lots and gardens." Finally something I can do! I volunteered to collect seeds from our farmhouse for the seed bombs.

We are lucky to have Dave Harvey of Park People as a neighbour. A few weeks ago he convened a meeting to see if there was interest in forming a group, Friends of Riverdale Park East. So this intervention fits in perfectly with our nascent Neighbourhood initiative.

Currently there is an initiative by the David Suzuki Foundation, Got Milkweed, to plant milkweed plants to expand habitat for the increasingly endangered monarch butterfly.  They have now sold out their plants. But at our farmhouse we have a whole milkweed meadow so I was happy to go out and collect seedpods.

Our milkweed meadow

At this time of the year many of the seedpods have burst and done their job of spreading seeds. But for the ones that are still intact there are many challenges to removing the seed. The milkweed seed is a perfect vehicle for distribution by wind with its helicopter-like fluff attached to each seed. Wearing a black turtleneck while separating the seeds from the floss highlights the aerodynamic success of the fluff.

A milkweed stalk with many seedpods still intact

A slightly less mature seedpod where the seeds can be easily rubbed off

A more mature seed with helicopter floss attached

In addition to milkweed I am collecting hollyhock, cardinal climber and garlic chive seeds.

Garlic Chive seeds

Cardinal Climber Seeds 

Hollyhock seeds

 I have always been interested in attracting birds and pollinators to the farmhouse. So we have many flowers and flowering shrubs to attract the maximum number of visitors possible. Pollinators are crucial to a vegetable garden, especially when using open pollinated seed. It is a win-win scenario;  the plants attract pollinators and the pollinators find the food they need. So bees, birds, butterflies are all welcome. The more the merrier. It is best to plant open-pollinated seeds rather than hybrids.

 Single hollyhocks with bee balm

Cardinal Climber

We have observed over the years that, contrary to the oft-quoted wisdom, hummingbirds really don't restrict their attention to red flowers, although they do love red bee balm and cardinal climbing flowers.

Big fat bumblebees positively bathe and cavort in many different flowers as the season progresses. Their buzz can be almost deafening.

Bumblebee at the bee balm (monarda) 

And then it moves to the hollyhocks

Bees, birds and butterflies all enjoy a variety of pollen and nectar and the best approach is to plant a diverse number of flowers and flowering shrubs so that they have food throughout the season. The buffet starts out with lupines and flowering shrubs moving on to hollyhocks, bee balm, sunflowers, milkweed, Joe Pye Weed and garlic chives as the season progresses.

Bumblebees at the Lupine in June

And at the Mock Orange in June

The Mock Orange also attracts butterflies - here a Yellow Swallowtail

A monarch butterfly at the Preston Lilac which blooms about three weeks after the common Syringa vulgaris

Butterflies at the Golden Ninebark

Butterflies need various plants for their caterpillar stage.

A butterfly caterpillar on the parsley - I think it's a Yellow Swallowtail

Wouldn't it be wonderful if Parks and Recreation could be persuaded and inspired to plant their flower  beds with flowers for pollinators and add flowering shrubs to their planting plans for our parks.

My pollinator friendly vegetable garden in August

Join a March Against Monsanto on Saturday May 24 at 11AM at Queen's Park.

Hwy 7 from Kaladar to Carleton Place

On Easter weekend I drove east from the farmhouse to Ottawa along Hwy 7. The road runs along the edge of the PreCambrian shield. While the boundary is not a clear edge, generally speaking south of the highway is rich fertile farmland and north an unforgiving topography of solid granite, valleys of swamp and muskeg and bush.

Solid granite along the north side of Hwy 7

Low lying valleys of muskeg and swamp 

There had been an incredibly successful effort to populate southwestern Ontario in the 1830's and 40's. A key to that success had been the building of colonization roads. The other ingredient was the rich and fertile glacial till. Hoping to to expand that colonization effort to the Ottawa valley and over to Georgian Bay, the Public Lands Act was passed in 1853. Pioneers were encouraged to move north to settle this area. There were conditions to receiving title; at least 12 acres had to be cleared within four years, within a year a house had to be built and settlers needed to live on the land for at least five years. For many it was a heart and back breaking effort. Unlike southwestern Ontario this area had little arable land and often it was just a thin layer over solid rock. By the turn of the century 60% of the settlers had abandoned their land.

A settler's log building still stands

A stone fence, the result of the back breaking work of clearing the land

One of the colonization roads built to facilitate settlement was the Frontenac Road.  Frontenac County was one of the original nineteen counties of Upper Canada. While some of the original colonization roads became the skeleton of our modern highway system Frontenac Road is not one of these. Today it is a winding gravel road running through bush dotted with farms.

Frontenac Road Historical Plaque

A settler who devoted his life to building the Frontenac Road

A pioneers' cemetery on the Frontenac Road

A simple but effective way of indicating a pothole on the Frontenac Road

South of Hwy 7 a tract of fertile farmland on the Frontenac Road

The highway is crossed by the Salmon and Mississippi Rivers and bordered by Silver and Sharbot Lake. There are provincial parks on both these lakes and a few cottages but no Hollywood movie stars will be buying property here.

Flooding of a rest stop on the Salmon River

Ya think?!

Silver Lake with its dotting of cottages along the shore

To this day the area remains sparsely populated. And for those who choose to live here life seems like a hard scrabble affair. In the summer the highway sports clusters of wooden sheds selling passersby wild blueberries. And in the winter heating with wood is common.

Blueberry shack

A beautifully stacked wood pile

While the area he describes is a little farther west the feeling of this area is captured beautifully and so poignantly by Al Purdy in his poem, The Country North of Belleville.

Spring at the farmhouse

Spring is lagging behind here at the farmhouse. There is still probably about 40% snow cover and between snow melt and the rain we're receiving there is flooding of the Moira River further south. Railway Creek, which runs along the southern boundary of our land, is one of the tributaries that is part of the Moira River watershed.

Railway Creek spreading into its flood plain below the house

Railway Creek further south creates a temporary waterfall

Wildlife is more varied here than in the city but, because of lower densities, much harder to spot. On my walk through the woods yesterday I startled a Ruffed Grouse, recognizable by the characteristic loud whirring of its wings as it springs into the air. Above there was a Cooper's Hawk making its surveillance rounds just above the tree canopy.

And so a photo essay of spring here in the country

The snow in retreat but not yet all gone

One of the moss gardens looking healthy after its winter on the deck

Species crocuses under the mulberry tree

Complete devastation and decimation by moles

A mole tunnel originally buried under the snow and now exposed

The garlic beds under their mulch of straw

Black currants budding out

Two kinds of visitors drop their calling card; deer on left, rabbit on the right. Interesting how two animals so different in stature would have scat virtually identical in size

Deer scat is pill shaped

Rabbit scat more circular

Last year's mustard, kale and beet bed with plant residue left on the bed for organic enrichment and soil cover

Sunflower husks left by the birds feasting on the seeds. In a few weeks there should be a number of self seeded plants

Not a single seed left on the flower by the birds, primarily chickadees and gold finches

After a hard winter rodent damage on the raspberry cane; the lower area early in the winter, the upper later when the snow cover had reached that high

Baby self seeded heirloom lettuces emerge after a winter protection of snow

Self seeded spinach from the fall