Bumble bee puts in a full day’s work

For the past 15 consecutive years I have raised a half dozen six-foot-high highly productive sweet Italian pepper plants, despite our tough and short northeastern Ohio growing season. Photos of my pepper plants that look like corn stalks have appeared in national magazines and no one has ever come forward to say they have matched this feat. I was awarded a first place blue ribbon for the past four consecutive years and have only entered our Mahoning County Canfield Fair during these years. It is Ohio’s largest county fair.

I have been trying to determine the secret to my pepper plant success. I use plants from our local greenhouses, such as Angiuli’s “Liparie” and Lonardo’s “Laparie” plants. I use potting mixes, regular soil, vegetable fertilizer and buckets of water during hot spells. I believe hydration is one of my key ingredients.

Huge garden

At 85 years of age, I planted my largest garden this year since the Great Depression, when I helped my father, Giovanni, plant 100 pepper and 300 tomato plants in our survival garden. I have planted 90 pepper and 60 tomato plants on three sides of my brick home, east, south and west. In addition to water, heat radiating off the brick adds to my success.

But I believe there is a sleeper to my unknown formula: a big yellow and black hairy bumble bee, He (or she) who works tirelessly, pollinating the white pepper blossoms that eventually become beautiful yellow or red 8-inch peppers, for frying, stuffing or roasting. In 2009, I was surprised to find a few plants that produced yellow peppers equally as good as the red ones.

The big bees come up to my hands, yet do not sting me. I am allergic to bee stings, especially those nasty little yellow jackets. I looked up “bumble bee” in the dictionary and quote “they are any of a number of related large, hairy yellow-and-black social bees.” The key word is social, and now I know why they are my buddies and have been for 15 years. Long live the humble bumble bee that arrives each growing season like clock work.

X Michael J. Lacivita is a Youngstown retiree and an inductee into the Ohio Senior Citizens Hall of Fame and Ohio Veterans Hall of Fame.