Audio Transcript Auto-generated
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Hello, Fellow beekeepers and gardeners.
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Camille here with honors nursery.
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Today I'm going to be talking about harvesting your mason
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bees. If you saw my last video, we discussed how
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to house your mason bees.
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Feed your mason bees, give them plenty of building materials,
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and you should be all set up.
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In that respect, we're going to talk about harvesting today.
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So you probably had your cocoons.
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Um, Jeff stating, uh, in a little bag in your
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garage or a shed or something like this from June
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on 2 October, we're going to start talking about what
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you're gonna do in October when you're going to be
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harvesting those cocoons.
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So I've got a little slide show for you today.
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Hopefully, I can get everything all squared away for you.
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So harvesting Mason bees part to harvest.
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First off, I just want to go over again.
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Why? We're harvesting at all.
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Why shouldn't I just leave my mason bees how they
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are and let them naturally just state and be born
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again in spring?
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So there are a couple of reasons why you would
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want to harvest.
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You can clean your nesting block, which is a big
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thing in the wild.
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Your bees are not going to be nesting in such
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tight groups, so wherever you find a really tight group
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of a specific species, you're going to find lots of
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pests for that species.
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Um, so that's why it's really important to clean out
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your your nesting area and make sure that you don't
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have a bunch of pass around.
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Mhm. So as far as Peszko, the most relevant past
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these days is probably the parasitic mono wasp.
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It's, uh, it's possible for you to see it with
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your naked eye, but it's so small that it can
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be considered microscopic.
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Um, they will pierce your nesting tubes, particularly if it's
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just a paper nesting tube, and they will actually lay
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eggs inside your larva so you're going to wind up
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with an empty cocoon.
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If that's the case, pollen mites are pretty common.
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They are microscopic mites, and they are incredibly numerous.
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What they do is they don't actually directly hurt the
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larva or the adult female.
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They will ride on the adult females back from, uh,
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flower to flower, infecting other bees and hanging out and
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eating all the pollen.
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And then, if they end up in your nesting area.
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They're going to eat the pollen ball set aside for
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your larva, and your larva is not going to make
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it because someone that's starting to death basically the same
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deal with the Houdini fly.
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But rather than dealing with microscopic tests, were dealing with
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much larger insects here.
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Okay, so that's why you why you should harvest why?
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It's a really good idea to do so.
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So let's get into the harvesting itself.
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Mm. So there are a variety of nesting tubes, missing
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blocks, different things, and harvesting is a little bit different
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for each of these.
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Make sure that you have something to catch your mason
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bees, a little tray, a bucket, something like that.
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So for your wood blocks, it's pretty straightforward.
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You remove their bands.
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Maybe there's a piece of cardboard on the end.
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Take that off as well, and you can use pretty
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much anything you can use.
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A rubber scraper, a plastic scraper.
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Just a flathead screwdriver looking as well.
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Mason bees are pretty tough, so you don't have to
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be super super gentle around them.
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Yeah, okay.
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Mhm. The paper tubes are pretty easy.
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The picture I have here we have cardboard and paper,
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the cardboard you can use again next year.
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Just remove the paper tube, and then that's what you're
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going to be feeling back.
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Most of the tubes are easy tear tubes, so all
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you have to do is find a little area to
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peel, and then you can peel them off in a
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spiral to remove the eggs.
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The cocoons.
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Rather, if you're having a hard time peeling them, just
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soak them in water for probably about 10 minutes and
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they'll fall right apart.
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Mhm. So bamboo reeds.
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True bamboo is not a great idea because they're very
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difficult to harvest from.
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They are very, very tough reads, and you're going to
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probably wind up either just not being able to harvest,
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or you're going to wind up damaging your cocoons, pulling
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them back.
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If you like the look of it and you want
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to do something that's natural like this, we do carry
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natural reads, and there are a lot easier to peel
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apart. They're a lot more fibrous, so they're not going
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to hurt you.
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If the coons either what you'll do is you can
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probably see clay mud plug on the end just gently
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lift that plug out, and then you can cut about
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a quarter inch from the top and then carefully peel
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the rest back and you should have no problem at
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all getting those cocoons out of there.
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So now that we have our cocoons in a little
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holding container, we need to clean them.
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And as soon as you see all of your cocoons
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in your tub or whatever you have, it's going to
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become pretty clear why they need baths.
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Um, like I mentioned before, they're probably going to have
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several pests on them.
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You're going to see pollen lights.
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You're going to see remnants of pollen you're going to
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see. Probably Houdini fly larva or did Houdini flies and
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you're going to see a lot of tiny black specks,
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and that may be a little bit frightening at first,
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But just take a moment, take a deep breath.
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All it is is mason beaucoup, so you just need
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to wash that away, and it's not a problem at
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all. So what do you wash them with?
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Um, there are a couple different opinions on here.
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I would recommend doing kind of a lighter bleach bath.
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I do one tablespoon each eight cups of water, and
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you can soak them in here for about three minutes.
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This just removes any fungal stuff going on.
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If you have chopped fruit or something, that's going to
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get rid of it, and it's gonna knock all of
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the filth off of their the pollen rides, the extra
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remnants of Pol and stuff like that.
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Once you are done with the bath, pop these guys
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into a colander to separate any of the debris and
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rinse them off with just regular water.
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Make sure to soak off all that bleach, and once
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you're done with that, obviously you don't want to put
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them away wet.
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So dab them just gently with the paper towel until
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they're relatively dry.
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Yeah, so they are now prepared to overwinter.
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The next thing we're going to want to do is
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we're going to want to store them throughout the entire
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winter and on into spring, when we can finally release
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them again.
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The things you're really going to want to be concerned
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about here are temperature and humidity, so you're gonna want
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about 35 degrees and you're going to want 30% or
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greater humidity.
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If you get a humidity that is too great, you're
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going to wind up with mold on your rooms, which
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isn't always a deal breaker.
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You can give them another bleach bath and put them
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back in at a lower humidity, but you don't want
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to go any lower than about 30% so there are
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a couple of ways of doing this.
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Most of your refrigerators are going to be anti frost,
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which means they are not going to be ideal conditions
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for keeping your mason bees.
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You're going to want to add humidity to them.
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The humidity, which is pictured here, is a great way
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of doing this.
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It's just a little plastic box, Um, with a filter
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and a carbon filter on there as well.
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So you would do is you would put a little
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bit of water, and there may be a tablespoon or
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two, and then you put your mason the cocoons on
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top of that filter.
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Just so they're not in the water, but they benefit
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from the humidity.
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Another important part of the humidity here is it has
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little holes open the top here so that the cocoons
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can breathe.
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It is possible to suffocate them, so you want to
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make sure that they have a little bit of airflow.
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Um, if you have a refrigerator that you're in all
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the time, that's perfect.
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Just a little bit of air exchange is all they
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need. You don't necessarily need to use this humidity, either.
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You can use something like a plastic bag or a
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paper bag rather or a plastic sandwich container or something
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like that.
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It's just really important that you do have the humidity.
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So if you're going, that route plays a little bowl
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of water next to it.
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Mhm. All right.
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And now that you've got your cocoon stored, you can
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circle back around to my first video and set them
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out again next year.
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Thanks for watching and feel free to come at us
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with any questions you have were available via phone email,
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or you can come right on into the garden center
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and talk to us.
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Thanks again and have a great day