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When can I clean up my garden…and still protect beneficial insects?

The days are getting longer and (sometimes) warmer, trees are beginning to leaf out, spring bulbs are blooming, and lots of people are anxious to clean up their gardens. But you may have heard that cleaning up your garden too early is bad for pollinators and other beneficial insects like natural enemies of pests. Is this true? How long do you need to wait?

Garden bed next to a house still full of dead plant stems from last year’s flowers
Don’t clean up your garden too early this spring! Pollinators and natural enemies of pests need to stay cozy a bit longer.

What’s the concern with early garden clean-up?

There are two aspects of garden clean-up that pose a risk to beneficial insects in your garden: cutting out dead stems and clearing away leaves or other debris on the ground. Some species of wild bees nest in dead stems, so cutting down and disposing of these stems before the bees emerge for the spring is problematic. Dead leaves and other plant debris on the ground provide shelter for natural enemies like lady beetles, fireflies, and ground beetles. Pristinely-raked garden beds remove this shelter. You can read more about the benefits of messiness in this ThinkIPM blog post.

When should I clean up my garden?

First, please don’t clean your garden up in the fall. With the exception of removing and disposing of diseased or insect-infested plants (especially annuals), let your garden rest in the fall.

Ok, so you’ve waited until spring. But when? It’s complicated. You are trying to protect a diverse group of wild bee species, who are nesting in diverse settings (including both the ground and dead plant stems), in addition to many different species of beetles, spiders, and other arthropod natural enemies of pests. It should come as no surprise that all of these different arthropods emerge from their winter homes at different times. For example, around here (NY) bumble bees, carpenter bees, mason bees, and mining bees emerge earlier (early April) than sweat bees (May). Even within two species of mason bee, researchers found that the temperature during the winter, the sex of the bees, and their size all significantly impacted when they would emerge in the spring (varying by up to 40 days). Winter temperatures also impact when alfalfa leaf cutting bees and other bees emerge.

metallic green bee perched on a pink cosmos flower
Sweat bees nest in the ground, and emerge a bit later in the spring than some other bee species.

Read more When can I clean up my garden…and still protect beneficial insects?

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My favorite spring ephemerals

When I was asked to write a post on ephemerals, I had never recognized the word as applying to woodland flowers. In my mind, ephemeral was infused with the meaning of ethereal. It is fun to have clearly delineated definitions for both words now, though ethereal also seems quite applicable to the lovely wildflowers spring gifts us with!

Ephemeral describes some of our short lived woodland flowers that emerge in the spring, poking up from under the dead leaves. Though they blossom and die back quickly, they are a treat forest walkers look forward to this time of year. 

When average air temperatures reach the low 50s, one of my favorite flowers blossoms: Spring Beauties. There are two related types of this perennial. Claytonia virginica, also known as Eastern Spring Beauty or Grass Flower, has grass-like foliage. Claytonia caroliniana foliage has a rounder, broader leaf and also goes by Carolina Spring Beauty. The common names Fairy Spud and Spring Beauty can refer to either and the flowers are virtually identical in these two species.

Spring beauty flowers
Spring beauties are a cheerful reminder that spring is here.

The 4-6 inch plant has blossoms that are lovely and quite diminutive. The color ranges from almost white to pinkish with pink stripes on the petals and a small yellow center.

Spring Beauty grows from a small rhizome, which is edible (hence the name fairy spud). These starchy rhizomes are about the size of a peanut, and said to taste like a cross between potato and chestnut. A meal would require the decimation of a fairly large patch of flowers, so perhaps it is best to forgo the experience! Read more My favorite spring ephemerals

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E-Commerce Best Practices

I’m Jeremy Bloom (a.k.a. the Internet Farmer). Being a software nerd of over 25 years, I’ve helped small-scale farmers and food business owners with their online needs. I have experience working on farms and creating some of the first co-op buying software out there. After teaching a class on E-commerce Best Practices for the recent Ag and Food Producers Academy I thought I would share some of the main takeaways. We’ve come a long way in recent years with E-commerce thanks to the pandemic, and in the local food scene it’s become a game changer. It’s been an interesting twist to the online sales world during this odd time in our history. 

1. Cyber Security

This includes your domain name access, usernames/passwords and webmasters.

Control your domain name. 

  • Which means, have a username and password for access to your domain so you can make changes if need be. If you don’t have access, question who you are working with. 
  • Why do you need access? When your site goes down because your friend didn’t renew it and has left to sail the open sea, you’re not going to be happy when you’re offline until they get back.

Manage your usernames and passwords

  •  E-commerce connects to banks, emails, personal customer information, and is the lifeline to your sales. 
  • In many cases, you can set up a user name and password to give limited access to someone you’re working with. It can be a pain, but remember to change the password when the person is done working with you. 
  • Get a password manager like LastPass. This tool saves tons of time on so many levels of managing usernames and passwords.

Friends and family can be webmasters, but not professionally. 

  • Software is fun to tinker with and anyone can set up a domain and website that looks awesome on the surface. But are they thinking of your best interest for the long haul? 
  • Whether it’s your friend, a family member or a webmaster, do not let them set up a domain if you don’t get a username and password to it. You want to have direct control over the billing. 

2. Analytics 

E-commerce helps you see successes and can correct errors in your thinking.

Google Analytics example

Track past performance  Read more E-Commerce Best Practices