could be the death of a planet.

I am having the best crop of tomatoes ever, but I have shade trees, and the heat is not so strong and it rains a lot.

But even that will change this month as it gets hotter. I am doing a raised bed over the rock garden now, I have giving up trying to grow things in the rock garden, just going over it. but it needs a lot of watering since it drains so well.

I use soil moist in most of my flower beds to retain the moisture so I don't have to water except in really bad times. more than 2 weeks.

See if your neighbors had been spraying for insects. they could be killing your garden - All for a perfect lawn

They are heavy users of pesticides and weed killers but have been so for decades. It hasn't had an effect on our yard in that time. The bees have normally been quite heavy and we even had to move slowly around the hollyhock thicket to keep from annoying them too much. I tend to think the colony-collapse disorder has had a more widespread impact here; not even seeing the wasps anymore.

I have used a granular water-retaining agent in the soil that is similar to Perlite but longer lasting. We still have to water twice a day to keep everyone from drooping.

Where do you live? It's awful to think that the bees are totally gone in some places.

We still have bumblebees and mason bees in Maryland, fortunately. I planted catmint, hyssop, agastache, lemon balm, lavender and purple salvias to keep them coming to the yard, at least as long as there are any bees left.

But I haven't seen a single honeybee in the past two or three years.

It's funny, but we have seen a number of bumblebees this year (is it just me, or have they developed into a Cessna-sized species?)

The honeybees are as rare as hens teeth, though.

I have seen ZERO bees this year, even in the spring...with the exception of maybe 10 mason bees.
2 fruit trees up and died this week, their leaves went from green to brown in 48 hours, altho they had been watered sufficiently.
Starting to wonder what is in the air/rain.

definitely lack of bees mean lack of cukes and squash - hand pollination can work.

Tomato flowers are perfect (they pollinate while opening - anthers brush against the pistil and do the deed), but high temps can inactivate the pollen.

You can use the male flowers to brush the pollen into the female flowers for squash and cukes.

We seem to have a reasonable bee population here, but I've seen less honeybees than last year (bumbles are pretty plentiful).

So far they have been swarming my perennials, but they have begun to go after the veggies.

many modern varieties are bred to have essentially all female or mostly female flowers and have a tendency to self-pollinate.

Your photo, however, is stunning! At first glance I thought it was a Hubble space shot, until I spotted the bee.

broccoli, cauliflower, spinach, mustard, carrots and even a cabbage! It was delicious but by June 1st it was too damned hot to work outside and we just gave up.

I planted a perennial garden with cat mint, salvia ostfriesland, Spicata, Coreopsis, etc and I can usually count at least 8 of them at any time.

dragon flies, butterflies, months, beetles, hummingbirds, hawk months, and flying yellow dragons*
.... biodiversity is where it is at



*

or anything else except for tons of mosquitos. More than half of my beans did not come up, four trees did not flower, lost a bunch of maples and small oaks. This is hugely noticeable...the absence of insects. No frogs either. Don't even hear them at night. A few of my tomatoes plants came up. My Hydrangea bushes have no blossoms at all. I saw one firefly. Very sad.

aplenty here in coastal Mississippi, and plenty of wasps and yellow-jacketed menaces.