(mellow music) >>When we think about pollinators, you probably think about the ones that come out during the day, such as butterflies and bees.

We see them everywhere.

They are ubiquitous in conversations about pollination in your garden and in the wider world, but there are a lot of really important nighttime pollinators that are vital to the health, wellbeing, and even production of our gardens.

Here I am standing in a gourd and squash arch that I made out of some old cattle panels.

And around me you'll see little birdhouse gourds, there's a large one here, some warty gourds, spinner gourds, and Choctaw squash here.

And these are gonna be long season varieties, so you wanna plant them in the spring.

And what I have here is basically maximizing the square footage that these leaves are going to get from the sun, which is also very important.

The leaves are the solar panels of their plants.

They're going to be converting that UV energy, the sunlight into the fruits that are coming off of these vines.

And these guys have very large light colored flowers that open in the evening, and they will attract those moths, such as the hawk moth and the sphinx moth.

Sphinx moth will actually lay their eggs on the Virginia Creeper and the grapes.

Their caterpillars will eat them and develop into those moths that will help our garden.

So if you wanna plant some grapes, that's a good way to get them around here.

These aren't the only plants however that will benefit from nighttime pollinators.

There are other plants such as okra flowers.

Okra flowers are actually my favorite flower in the garden, more than hollyhocks or roses any day, hands down.

They're beautiful and they're delicious.

So you can benefit from your okra harvest with those nighttime pollinators.

Eggplants benefit greatly, as well as asparagus, beans and peas, those legumes.

And we have quite a few different kinds of nightshades, such as potatoes, tomatoes, and of course the tomatillos.

The tomatillos not being self fertile, they benefit the most out of the nightshade family.

But these moths will visit almost all of your nightshades in your garden, hopping about and doing their duty.

So when you're planning your garden or maintenance in your garden, just remember, there is pollination happening around the clock.

So we wanna make sure we're taking care of our little relatives that are helping us put all of these amazing things in our house and on our table, and make sure that we're not doing anything that could possibly hurt them.

I hope this helps and happy gardening.