It’s Pollinator Week and the people at PAN want to celebrate our pollinators with you by sharing something on that theme each day, from Monday through Friday. Today, I wanted to share Pollinator Paradises at three different farms in Iowa, including my own, the Genuine Faux Farm.

One of the commitments we make each year on our farm is to intercrop flowering plants with our annual vegetable and fruit crops. One of our goals is to attract pollinators that will visit the melons, squash and other pollinator-dependent plants. That’s why we appreciate annual flowers such as zinnias, borage, sunflowers, calendula and marigolds. It’s also the reason we grow some herbs in quantities that far exceed the demand we have for them.

There are other flowering plants we grow because we want diverse blooms on the farm. Some of them, like Amish Cockscomb, are not particularly noteworthy for how much pollinators appear to like them. So, imagine my surprise when I noticed significant activity on them last fall.

Multiple pollinators on one Amish Cockscomb – image by R. Faux

Pollinator Paradise at home

In addition to planting annual flowers with our vegetables, we do other things in an effort to work with nature and provide habitat for pollinators. We encourage patches of clover and daisies in our farm’s lawn areas. We mow less often and on higher settings, and we try to schedule mowing so it will promote new blooms. Sometimes we let crops that are past their peak production stage grow out their flower stems. For example, we will let our broccoli or mustard greens flower instead of removing them from the field. Visitors on the farm are often shocked to see the abundance of activity on and around those plants.

I have a long list of ideas for those who might like to create their own pollinator paradises. But, one thing is certain, I won’t pretend that my way is the best or only way to create a Pollinator Paradise. These are techniques that work for us, on our farm, with our tools, our available time, and our land.

Butterfly bush – image by R. Faux

Pollinator Paradise on the Road

Last July, we took a trip to see our friends at the Scattergood Friends School farm. While our farm features flat land, theirs has rolling hills. They also have more space to work with than we do, which allows them to integrate larger animals into their rotations.

Scattergood does use flowers in their vegetable plantings, but not usually to the extent that we do. For example, they will often use zinnias to mark the beginnings and ends of vegetable or variety types.

Their strength comes in the diversity of habitat types throughout the farm. There are pastures, wooded areas, orchard spaces and wild spaces. At Scattergood, you will find that they support a long and diverse bloom period and plenty of space for pollinators to nest and produce future generations.

In the past few years, they have worked with Xerces to establish a perennial prairie pollinator habitat. While I was there, I took out the camera and took a few pictures, focusing on some of the flowers that were blooming at the time. There were only a few of these Butterfly Milkweed plants near the edge of the planting, but I was able to get close enough without tromping through the plot.

I look forward to returning this year to see how this particular planting is progressing. While we may not have the space to do exactly the same thing, I am hopeful we might be able to adapt the idea to our farm.

Another Pollinator Paradise, similar, yet different

We visited Blue Gate Farm in September last year. Our friends there are part of a peer mentorship group that includes Scattergood and our farm. We share ideas, provide support when it is needed and are always learning from each other. So, of course, there will be some similarities as each of us adapts ideas shared by the others to fit our operations.

But because each farm has different soils, different landscapes, different resources and different people, the way we implement support for pollinators can look quite different.

While Tammy and I both work off the farm now, this is not true for our friends at Blue Gate. The farm produces their income, so they need to be more aware of money-making opportunities, even as they work to provide pollinator habitat.

What it looks like when a bumble bee flies in front of the camera on its way to a sunflower – image by R. Faux

Of course, our friends at Blue Gate recognize that a healthy pollinator population is a key for the production of many of the crops they hope to sell. But they also look to the beautiful flowers as a source of income, selecting a wide range of blooms that they can harvest and sell as flower arrangements. Their choices often value long-season production of popular cut flowers before their tendency to attract pollinators. But that doesn’t stop pollinators from arriving in droves.

While Blue Gate might not use borage or marigolds as much as we do (because neither provide excellent cut flowers for sales), they are successful at providing habitat. They’re just hoping that their efforts can be repaid both by flower sales and by pollinator services.

In all three examples, the Genuine Faux Farm, Blue Gate Farm, and Scattergood, diversity is a central theme. That diversity provides a longer bloom time and provides different flower types that appeal to a wider range of pollinators. Also, in all three cases, there is wild space, there are perennial and annual plantings, and a desire to avoid insecticides that will kill the pollinators.

Yet the biggest similarity might be the hearts of the farmers that want to build these Pollinator Paradises. In each case, they combine the intent to succeed in building pollinator-friendly farms with their experience, knowledge and labor.

It’s good for the farms and it’s good for the pollinators. Now we just need more places to commit to building their own Pollinator Paradise.

If you liked this article, maybe you would also like this article on our PAN website!