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What Edible Plants do Pollinators Love?

Anne Miller

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This year I feel everyone is focusing on planting plants that that are good to eat. The pollinators like to eat too! So what can we plant that we like that they like?

One thing I plant every year is squash. The pollinators love the squash blossoms and so do I.

Let's share what we plant that pollinators really love and that you love, too. How you like to fix them?

These are Ricotta Stuffed Squash Blossoms and the recipes is at the "Source"

Source

This is borage. Borage has star-like edible flowers. These can be preserved in sugar for cakes, or tossed into salads. The leaves can be used for tea. I have this growing where I live but have not tried it.

Another suggestion is plant one plant just for the pollinators. Like lettuce, then let it go to seed, just for the pollinators.

Invasive plants are Earth's way of insisting we notice her medicines. Stephen Herrod Buhner
Everyone learns what works by learning what doesn't work. Stephen Herrod Buhner

Douglas Alpenstock

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posted 4 years ago

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Our native bees love these:
- Scarlet runner beans (heritage pole beans).
- Black oil sunflowers (sold for bird seed; field sunflowers with multiple heads).
- Cat mint (can be used for tea, though I don't find it very palatable frankly).
- Indeterminate tomato plants.

Anita Martin

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I can confirm both borage and squash, furthermore all the other cucurbitae are a hit: cucumbers, caigua (lady's slippers), kiwano...

Beans, peas

Different herbs when they flower: thyme, rosemary, rucola, basil, mints, salvia, hyssop, chives

All berries, especially raspberries and blackberries, but earlier in the year siberian honeyberries, gooseberries, currants.

And of course the fruit trees!

I am only one, but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something; and because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do something that I can do. (E.E.Hale)

James Landreth

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Location: Western Washington

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These are all great choices. I find that chestnuts and linden (but not silver linden, which is toxic to bumblebees) are both great for bees. Linden leaves and flowers are used as a vegetable. We also use bigleaf maple blossoms in stir fries and potsticker filling. Buckwheat and sunflowers are good choices, though most won't go to the trouble of harvesting the seeds for human food. I like medlar, quince, and persimmon for pollinators, because they all bloom late here (May-June) and the weather is nice for a lot of pollinators to be flying.

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Joseph hackett

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Perennial basil is my number one plant for pollinators, it never stops pumping out flowers and the bees go crazy for it. I've also seen praying mantises setting up camp in them, so that's a bonus :)

20180304_143137.jpg

Nikki Roche

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Location: South Carolina

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For me, luffa is always surrounded by bees and other flying things. They have open flowers that seem easy to get to, and the fruits are edible when young. This year, I plan to grow ridged luffa, since it's supposed to be better for eating.

I let broccoli go to seed for the pollinators. They seemed to love having those early spring flowers, and I could still eat the flowers and leaves.

Basil, lemon balm, oregano, bee balm...most of the mint family are pollinator buffets.

Not really pollinators, but very beneficial -- I keep reading that the carrot family flowers are attractive to parasitic wasps. I'm trying to incorporate more of those this year and will let some flower. Anise, fennel, caraway, dill, parsley, celery, etc.

(Reminder to myself) God didn't say, "well said, well planned, and well thought out." He said, "well done."
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C. West

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red clover is a cold hardy perennial, good fodder, nitrogen fixing and pollinators love it.

and its high in protein and makes nice fritters

Angela Maas

Posts: 12

Location: Minnesota zone 4a

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I have found the herbs and mints to get the most traffic from pollinators on our farm. Also the flowering trees like fruit trees, linden, sumacs, dogwoods, maples. Lemon balm is a hit and it has a bunch of side benefits Lemon Balm for Weight Loss and Skin Aging

Rare edibles, honey bees, and wildlife habitat
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Karl Treen

pollinator

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Location: Providence, RI, USA

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If you want to see the bees go crazy, plant a linden tree. What else is awesome about this tree? Well, the leaf buds, leaves, and flowers are 100% edible - not choice edible, mind you, but definitely useful in times like these! The flowers also make a great herbal tea. ;)

Bees also love sea kale flowers - but you have to have the willpower not to eat all the delicious florets first!

If you're into unusual plants for your edible landscape, look me up on Instagram and YouTube:
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Melody Pleasant

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Medicinal herbs- Yarrow, Boneset, Holy Basil (Tulsi), Wooly Mint, Goldenrod, Echinacea, wild/native asters

Rob Clinch

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Location: Zone 5B, NB, Canada

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I always see the most pollinators/ beneficials around parsnip flowers, they are always buzzing with activity. I have a corner in my backyard that I planted parsnip in and never harvested and now they reseed themselves, I usually leave most of that area to the wild things.

stephanie gelfan

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Over the years, I have both saved some squash and melon seeds, and this year saved a couple of squash and cukes that remained just fine all winter. One patty pan squash just dried up and turned into a rattle, and one zucchini stayed green and is just now, May1, starting to yellow.
I am in zone 5, and I have a south-facing fairly steep bank that is cleared (kinda barren, really,) and which I plan to use to function like zone 6.
Along with the various trees and shrubs that I am putting in now, I plan to open the rattling squash and disperse those seeds, plus the zucchini , plus various melon seeds, plus various echinacea and chicory seeds, and see what happens. My plan is to be both landracing - letting what is happy thrive, - and having a good pollinators' feast ground-cover, which can then nourish the soil when it dies back in the fall. Wish me and the pollinators luck!

Carol Denton

pollinator

Posts: 105

Location: Central Arkansas zone 7b

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This year I planted lots of extra tulsi and anise hyssop starts. Of everything in the garden last year, the tulsi (holy basil) was the one consistently loaded with pollinators. This year, I'm being much more mindful about having plants tucked in every available spot just for the beneficial insects. Keep in mind that they need both nectar plants and pollen plants. Some plants provide both. So, instead of putting the the old standby, marigold, everywhere, though I still have some, I'm thinking a little differently and adding more of these plants directly in the vegetable garden or near the fruit trees, not separately in the herb garden.

Borage
Echinacea
Butterfly milkweed and swamp milkweed
Several different basils
Anise hyssop
Marshmallow
Beebalm and lemon beebalm
Yarrow
Sunflowers
Alyssum for the tiny wasps
More flowers in general along the perimeter of the whole garden

Note that some of these are perennials and some need to be stratified.

Anne Pratt

pollinator

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Location: Hudson Valley, New York, USA

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I second your mention of milkweed! Our common milkweed is abuzz with many pollinators beyond the beloved Monarchs.

I've been startled to see a lot of interest in zinnias, as I assumed (wrongly?) that they were hybridized beyond recognition. One of my favorites, liatris (gayfeather, blazing star), is also a favorite. Verbena bonariensis (tall, skinny stems with beautiful clusters of purple waving above the garden) is great, old-fashioned hydrangea, lupine, asters, monarda (bee balm), and spirea all seem to promote enthusiasm as well.

I've noticed the herbs are very popular, particularly basil, borage, yarrow, and mullein. Peas, beans, and squash among the vegetables.

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Anne Miller

steward

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This year, the butterflies are loving the thistle that has sprouted all around our house and garden area. The blossoms are very pretty in my opinion. I like to dry them and use the in flower arrangements.

Did you know that thistles are edible? Yes, the thistles in the genus Cirsium, and the genus Carduus, are edible.

This article explains how to eat them:

http://www.eattheweeds.com/thistle-touch-me-not-but-add-butter

This is edible Bull Thistle:

Bull thistle root can be eaten and is best used when mixed with other vegetables. Young flower stems can be cooked and young leaves can be eaten in a salad or tossed into a sauté.

https://www.ediblewildfood.com/bull-thistle.aspx

Invasive plants are Earth's way of insisting we notice her medicines. Stephen Herrod Buhner
Everyone learns what works by learning what doesn't work. Stephen Herrod Buhner

Michael Moreken

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Location: On the plateau in crab orchard, TN

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posted 2 years ago

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Many herbs, certainty squash flower (look into cumber family), borage I hope to plant this year.

I planted oil sunflower and birds attacked and ate ~all the seed. yellow finches favorite food.

Bless your Family,
Mike

Michael Moreken

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Location: On the plateau in crab orchard, TN

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I had a number of butterflies with some native plant I planted at the output of the small pool in backyard. I have to look up the variety. Light pink huge flowers.

Bless your Family,
Mike

Casie Becker

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General rule of thumb is the bigger, brighter or more fragrant the flowers the more they attract insects. In ornamental plants human interference has made this less dependable but in food plants fewer people have interfered with the bloom characteristics. The only one I know of is Joseph Lofthouse and he is selecting with the insects in mind.

Matt McSpadden

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I know this is a little off topic from the original question, but plant lots of the same thing in the same place. It's ok to mix and match, but large patches (or large bushes) with hundreds of flowers, will attract pollinators better than little bits spread everywhere.

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Anne Fletcher

Posts: 21

Location: Berkeley CA

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I always let some carrots flower, and they are absolutely covered in insects.

The sunflowers get a lot of native bees and honeybees.

Borage gets mostly honeybees.

Fennel and Dill flowers attract lots of small pollinators (wasps maybe?) plus tons of anise swallowtail butterfly caterpillars.

Calendula often has a bee inside the flower overnight.

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james keller

Posts: 9

Location: North Texas

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Several have mentioned sunflowers and I heartily agree. Although I didn't plant them, I have a never ending crop of wild sunflowers. Several years ago I fought this like a noxious weed. Then I figured out that it is easy to recognize inside the garden and pull it out. My relationship has now evolved to allowing it to reseed itself outside my vegetable garden, around the edges. It is hardy and attracts so many native bees and butterflies that I just stand and watch the action.

The sunflowers form a fence around my garden so pollinator action in the garden area is continual and robust.

I know that the wild sunflower is considered a weed in crop fields, but I have definitely seen a huge increase in a variety of bumblebees, leaf cutters, squash bees, honey bees, and orchard mason bees since allowing the sunflowers to grow.

I have heard that parts of the plant are edible although I haven't tried it. Given how fast they grow, I suppose I should try eating some--definitely a sustainable, renewable, and hardy source of food.

Anne Miller

steward

Posts: 16058

Location: USDA Zone 8a

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Hi, James

Do you know what kind of sunflowers those are?

When we lived in the Piney Woods of East Texas there were wild sunflowers. When I looked them up these sunflowers turned out to be Jeruselum Artichokes also known as sunchokes. This means that the roots are edible though I have never tried them.

Have you tried eating the seeds from your when they turn brown?

The buds of sunflowers are edible as well as the petals. These look lovely in salads.

I believe that young leaves might be palatable.

Invasive plants are Earth's way of insisting we notice her medicines. Stephen Herrod Buhner
Everyone learns what works by learning what doesn't work. Stephen Herrod Buhner

james keller

Posts: 9

Location: North Texas

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Anne Miller wrote:Hi, James

Do you know what kind of sunflowers those are?

I found this on a site called foragingtexas.com:

Sunflower - Wild
Scientific name: Helianthus annuus
Abundance: plentiful
What: young flowers, seeds
How: seeds can be eaten raw, ground into flour, roasted, or crushed for sunflower oil, the shells can be roasted then used as a coffee substitute; young flowers are boiled
Where: Sunny areas, ditches, abandoned yards
When: Seeds ripen in late summer, early fall
Nutritional Value: carbohydrates, protein and oils

The pictures they show are exactly what I have. The roots are not tuberous.

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