Mr. Hank's Corner

As you walk onto the campus through the pedestrian gate you will see some new additions to our Habitat and Pollinator Garden. This past year there was a population decline of nearly 27% of the Monarch butterfly. From November to March these beautiful pollinators make a very long trek down to Mexico to spend the winter.

Another pollinator in the decline are the ever hard working bees. The U.S. National Agricultural Statistics show a honey bee decline from 6 million hives in 1947 to 2.4 million in 2008. This is a whopping 60 percent decline. Bees are responsible for helping to pollinate 70 out of 100 crop species that feeds nearly 90% of the world’s population. So we are not only have a problem of how are we going to feed nearly 10 billion people in the near future, but how are we gonna do it without those busy, hard working bees? Did you know that a bee only lives for about 40 days and it has only 1 purpose and that is too work. Wow!

So this is one of the many reasons we at BMMA had to do something. Imagine if everyone planted more Native plants? But that is not the only way to solve this problem of declining bees and Monarchs. Big agriculture has caused major problems for real food production. From all the pesticides, herbicides, mono crops, lack of crop rotation, depleting nutrients in our soil and of course the food miles all contribute to issues we are facing in producing healthy and affordable foods.

Wait should fresh healthy food be cheap? Well, inexpensive is different than cheap. A great article can be found in the latest issue of Edible San Diego about the true cost of local and organic foods. San Diego has one of the highest cost for land and water and now with the rise in the gas tax just add to the true cost of food.

So back to the Habitat/Pollinator Garden.....I could go on forever because all of this goes hand and hand. Some of the things planted this weekend were Salvia clevelandii or know as Cleveland Sage. Other great plants include Hummingbird Sage, Hearst Ceanothus, Mexican Lobelia, Yellow Monkey Flowers, and of course the state flower California Poppies. Here is a sneak peak at the garden. Enjoy.

#NewsLetter #Health #BellaGardenProject