Fall Events: Beekeeping & Canning Workshops, Harvest Festivals & Hereford Farm Market

Our regular market, Hereford Farm Market, is about halfway through its season. We’re there once a month this year, which is working for us. I miss being there every week, but we had a lot of scheduling conflicts this summer, so I’ve been grateful for the Saturdays we’ve been able to sell there. We’ll be at HFM again tomorrow, September 6^th from 9:00 a.m. to noon. Most of our crystallized honey is gone but we’ll have honey from this year’s harvest, as well as cut flowers (zinnias and dahlias) and the last of this year’s handstitched OOAK upcycled aprons, which can be used for cooking or gardening.

Upcoming workshops & fall fests – Come see us!

Beekeeping Workshop at Hereford Library – Sept. 13th 2-3 pm

Introduction to Beekeeping

Humans have been keeping bees and harvesting honey for thousands of years and you can too! An experienced beekeeper discusses the basics of backyard beekeeping – the equipment you’ll need, best practices and common challenges. This workshop provides a simple overview of honeybee anatomy, a hands-on demonstration of how a Langstroth hive works, tips for honey extraction and where to find more information. There is an observation hive with live honeybees, so participants can spot the queen, and a Q&A session. Weather permitting, the program may be held outside.

Craig & I + one of our queens will be the hosts for this workshop.

Canning Workshop at Norrisville Library – Sept. 16th 6-7 pm

Water Bath Canning Basics

Learn how to safely preserve fresh fruit in sealed jars using traditional water bath canning. We’ll discuss the types of fruit home canners can safely can, the process and best practices, the equipment needed to get started, how to find trustworthy recipes, and more.

I’ll be hosting this workshop solo. If you’ve ever wanted to know how to can like your granny once did, now’s your chance!

Oregon Ridge Honey Harvest Festival – Oct. 5th 10 am – 4 pm

Join us on Sunday, October 5th, for our annual family-friendly event that celebrates all things honey and nature-related in the bucolic setting of Oregon Ridge Nature Center!

Enjoy a variety of food trucks offering artisanal beer, crabcakes, burgers, donuts and ice cream. Shop from over 25 local craft vendors and honey farms offering a plethora of honey products and happy to talk about the practice of beekeeping. Visit the goats in the petting zoo or join a sing-a-long in our “1,000 Acre Woods”.

The Central Maryland Beekeepers Association will lead the honey extractions as we learn about all things honeybees – from pollinators to beeswax. Relax and listen to local musicians as your children do crafts, play lawn games or get up-close and personal with animals – from raptors to turtles to chickens. Take a tour through our historic tenant house and learn about the history of Oregon Ridge.

Craig & I + Mandi & Rob (Rosie Posie) will be sharing a table for this event. Mandi will have all sorts of colorful, fun, seasonal knit items and we’ll have lots of HONEY!!

Dejon Vineyard Harvest Festival – Oct. 11th 12 – 5 pm

13th Annual Harvest Day! A Family Fun Day!
$10 Adult Admission Upon Arrival – FREE Entry for Kids
Live Bluegrass Music from PORCH SETTERS UNION!
Hayrides, pumpkins, more local vendors. Delicious Wine!
BYO PICNIC/FOOD

Craig & me for this one. In past years, this has been a beautiful, laid back event. Hope to see you there – or at one of the other places we’ll be this fall!

Adding raised beds to our garden

Our biggest outdoor project this summer was building, filling, planting, and growing in raised beds. We decided to experiment with them because I thought it would help with the weeds and insane garden chaos that usually happened in years past. It worked! The beds turned out beautifully. They were a ton of work to build and fill, but planting and growing in them was much easier than when we planted directly in the ground. Our garden is still a work-in-progress, but I love the changes we made this season.

Before…

During…

After…

Other fun stuff…

After a worrisome late start, the dahlias turned out beautifully! We also grew some cactus flower zinnias. Love their “Raggedy Anne” look. Our milkweed came up again and we saw at least two caterpillars and a chrysallis. Unfortunately, we didn’t get to see the chrysallis transform into a monarch. Maybe next year!

Hope everyone had a wonderful summer and is looking forward to a fun Fall! See you soon!!

April 18, 2025

Earth Day is April 22nd!

I’m beginning the season with another post about butterflies, but I promise I’ll be back to posting about bees and honey again soon!!

Come celebrate with me this Tuesday!

Along with two other Ladew Gardens Butterfly House docents, I’m hosting a NATIVE BUTTERFLIES OF HARFORD COUNTY program at the Norrisville Library at 6:00 p.m. We’ll have lots of great info for all the pollinator fans out there. Come see some gorgeous photos of some of Maryland’s most beautiful butterflies. You can learn about their life cycle, how butterflies differ from moths, and how you can attract more of them to your own backyard, balcony, or farm. Register here.

Happy spring & hope to see you all soon!

September 13, 2024

This season’s butterflies

As we head into fall, I’m taking note of all the amazing butterflies I’ve seen this season, both near and far. Most of the butterflies I saw this year were native to Maryland, but a few were spotted in more exotic locales. I captured photos of beautiful North and Central American butterflies in a Mexican ecopark, on a Costa Rican coffee estate, and, of course, in Harford County.

Native Butterflies at Ladew

Ladew Gardens Butterfly House is open for another week or so. There’s still time for a visit. Although the butterflies are shifting into fall mode, there’s still a lot to see there and you can pick up tips for planting or improving your pollinator garden next spring!

The Butterfly House was designed to look like a butterfly

Black Swallowtails

Fennel is one of the host plants for Maryland’s Black Swallowtail butterflies (anything in the carrot family will do). Love that the caterpillar below was checking out his own sign! 🙂 The butterfly on the right is a male — you can tell because it has more yellow and less blue.

Buckeyes and Clouded Sulfurs

I still occasionally get the Clouded Sulfur and the Cloudless Sulfur mixed up. I tend to focus on the spots, but I think the defining characteristic between the two might be the wing edging.

Monarchs and Eastern Tiger Swallowtails

Like last year, the Butterfly House had a lot of monarchs in all stages. Keep planting that milkweed! 🙂

Monarch and Eastern Tiger Swallowtail on Joe Pye Weed

Pearl Crescents and Variegated Fritillaries

I get these two confused a lot. It’s easy to see why. I’m hoping my careful notes here in this post will help me get up to speed quickly next year.

Silver-spotted Skipper

For some reason, I always forget this one’s name… This is a butterfly, not a moth, even though it has a thicker body and is less colorful than many butterflies.

Spicebush Swallowtails

I love these butterflies for many reasons: their host plant is incredibly easy to remember (spicebush — haha), their caterpillar stage is adorably cute (they have big faux eyes and like to “taco” or curl up inside spicebush leaves for protection), and they are beautiful in the butterfly stage!

There’s a spicebush caterpillar curled up inside that leaf…

Zebra Swallowtails

These are really neat and dramatic looking. Their host plant is the Pawpaw tree, which is native to Maryland. Have you ever eaten pawpaws? They are an interesting fruit, kind of like a banana in consistency but hard to describe in taste. You can find them at farmer’s markets and specialty stores when they’re in season. I’ve heard pawpaw ice cream is the best, but haven’t had a chance to try it yet.

Eggs and baby caterpillars are tiny!

When I see how small butterfly eggs and baby caterpillars are, I always think they could easily be mistaken for disease, an invasive infestation, or even insect or bird poop. But these little ones will eventually turn into gorgeous and majestic butterflies!

Some really cool native Maryland moths – Cecropias & Clearwings

The clearwing hummingbird moth is one of my favorites in the Butterfly House. They truly look like small hummingbirds when they fly from flower to flower. You can see in the picture below that their wings are see-through. (Maybe hemaris thysbe was the inspo for Wonder Woman’s invisible plane? 😉 )

Shoutout to some other amazing North and Central American Butterflies

I love Ladew Gardens Butterfly House because it allows Marylanders to see all the beautiful butterflies our state has. But I was lucky enough to see some exotic butterflies this season in their own native areas.

Costa Rican butterflies

Blue morphos were everywhere! No need to go to a butterfly house to see them, but I was excited to check out the butterfly garden at Hacienda Doka and one in San Ramon. It was inspiring to see how Costa Ricans have embraced ecotourism and really want to rightfully show off all the natural wonder and beauty of their country.

Pura Vida is hard to translate but it’s a saying that seems to be equal parts carpe diem, joie de vivre, and stop and smell the flowers (or watch the butterflies). But it could also be used to express gentle acceptance of something that didn’t go as well as you wanted it to, gratitude, or simple acknowledgement.

Mexican Kite Swallowtails

Saw these beauties at Cenote Zapote in the heart of the Yucatan. There were clouds of them “puddling” near the water. They have really long tails, a neat aqua color and kite shape, and are constantly fluttering. My encounter with them felt ethereal and was truly magical. I’m both awestruck and not surprised that these creatures have been on planet Earth for 100 million years!!

Fashion Institute of Technology Textile Design Student Emily Chibnik’s “Mariposa”

Last picture in this post, but my first butterfly sighting of this season. Was collecting Ellie from school last spring and we went to see the student exhibits at the Pomerantz Art and Design Center. This embroidered design was one of my favorites, showing that nature continues to inspire whimsical, delightful art.

That’s a wrap for my 2024 butterfly season ~ More lepidoptera next year!

If you’ve read this far, you deserve a high five and a discount on honey or a free t-shirt! Stop by our table this weekend and tell me your favorite butterfly or moth and I’ll give you a dollar off a jar of honey or a free Windtree Bee t-shirt (while supplies last — I only have a handful left). See you tomorrow at the market!

July 21, 2023

Seasonal Jams, Colorful Flowers, and Butterflies

We’ll be at the Hereford Farm Market tomorrow . For anyone new — the market is held at Hereford High School every Saturday from 9:00 a.m. to noon — live music, food truck + tons of great vendors! 🙂

We’re bringing our usual mid-summer offerings: seasonal jams and flowers. I grow lots of flowers for the bees and butterflies. It’s no secret that zinnias are some of the easiest cutting flowers to grow, which is good because I’m a middling gardener at best. I always joke that I like gardens a lot more than I like gardening – ha! 😉

For a short time during mid to late summer, I offer cut zinnias for $1.00 a piece. You choose which ones you want. Free clear jar with your purchase. Sometimes I offer colorful ribbons or vintage vases (prices vary for those). I can arrange your cottage bouquet or you can. I’m no more a professional florist than an experienced gardener — but our flowers are beautiful and every purchase helps support the bees. Any profit from our market table goes toward our beekeeping expenses.

From left to right: Chai Tea Rooibos Blend, Chai Tea Assam Blend, Pina Colada Jam, Black Forest Preserves, Maple Strawberry Jam, Mimosa Jelly, Strawberry Chipotle Jam.

Ladew Gardens’ Butterfly House

I volunteered there again this past Thursday. There were twice as many butterflies in the house as there were last week. It’s been really neat learning more about them. Obviously, butterflies are very different from honeybees! It’s fun chatting with other people about pollinators and pollinator gardens. And, by the end of the summer, I’m hoping I’ll be able to identify most of the butterflies that visit our house, gardens, and bee yard.

Hazy summer morning at Ladew Gardens, walking toward the Butterfly House.

See you tomorrow at the market!

Look for Windtree Bee at the “Hats & Honey” table near the musician’s tent!

July 14, 2023July 14, 2023

We’re back at HFM tomorrow!

After a three week hiatus, we’ll be back at the Hereford Farm Market tomorrow! We’re bringing: Mimosa Jelly, Pina Colada Jam, Black Cherry Preserves, Maple Strawberry Jam, and our Chai Tea loose-leaf blends. The market is on Saturdays from 9:00 a.m. to noon at Hereford High School.

Honey Update

We’re currently out of honey but will be offering a second harvest soon. Craig pulled a bunch of supers off the hives, so now we just have to centrifuge the frames, filter the honey, jar and label it. We’ll probably have it ready for sale in 3-4 weeks. I’ll definitely let everyone know when it’s available again. End-of-summer honey is always delicious!!

Another Use for Our Chai Tea?

My younger daughter, Ellie, is a Fashion Design student at the Fashion Institute of Technology. She wanted to experiment with natural fabric dyes, so earlier this week we spent one morning testing tea blends, including chai, to see which worked best.

Ladew Gardens Butterfly House

The Butterfly House at Ladew Gardens is open! It’s early in the season for butterflies, but the interns have caught a half-dozen or so beautiful, native butterfly species. One of the neat things about Ladew’s Butterfly House is that you can see all four stages of a butterfly’s life cycle: egg, caterpillar, chrysalis, and butterfly. The docents there — including me! 🙂 — will happily show you which species are in the house on the day you visit and point out where all the life is happening inside.

Our Garden

Absolutely overgrown with weeds! I made the mistake of not weeding before vacation and — wow!!! — came back to monstrous growth. (I know, I know… I should not be surprised; this is what happens when you let a garden run amok.) There are more weeds than flowers in there right now, so I spent a lot of time this week trying to restore order. It’s an ongoing project.

One silver lining is that the pollinators don’t care about the weeds. In fact, they’re thriving amongst the chaos. Because of that, I’m being selective about what I yank out. A bunch of mint and three ginormous yellow sweet clover plants sprouted up in the middle of our white clover walkway. I left them. The yellow sweet clover is always covered in different types of bees, but was quickly growing to overtake the entire middle of my garden. I gathered up all of the overflowing branches/vines/tendrils and gently staked them.

My messy garden — I’m sharing this in solidarity with other lawless gardeners who color outside the lines. Pollinators are perfectly happy in an imperfect garden!

Zinnias! Hope to have more of these soon…

See you tomorrow at HFM! Look for us at the “Hats & Honey” table!!

June 16, 2023

Jams Dads Will Love

We’re bringing two jams dads will love to Hereford Farm Market tomorrow: Hot Peach with Sriracha (great as a marinade for grilled chicken & pork) and Strawberry Chipotle (excellent with turkey sandwiches or cheese & crackers). We still have about a dozen jars of honey left until our next harvest. Our honey makes a fantastic base for homemade hot honey or honey BBQ sauce!! Make dad happy this Sunday with a jar of something spicy!!

Also… Ladew Gardens’ Butterfly House opens July 6th!

Ladew Gardens is a wonderful public garden right in Monkton. Perhaps best known for its topiaries, it offers all sorts of excellent nature-themed info, education, and entertainment. I’ve posted here about its awesome fall event, Garden Glow. This summer, I’m volunteering in its Butterfly House, so I can help out in a place I’ve admired for years.

Native Butterflies

The neat thing about Ladew’s Butterfly House is that it’s a native butterfly house. Many of the region’s butterfly houses are gorgeous and magical, but they are full of non-native species — beautiful tropical varieties that look spectacular but wouldn’t live outside of their enclosed spaces. At Ladew, all of the butterflies are caught each year instead of shipped in from elsewhere. That way, it’s not a big deal if they escape. It also makes handling caterpillars easier and (frankly) nicer. If there are too many caterpillars in the house to be supported by the greenery in there… off they go to the great outdoors right outside the door. The other reason Ladew’s native Butterfly House is so cool is that it allows all of us (myself included) to learn more about those colorfully winged pollinators.

Did you know that butterflies don’t eat? They only eat in the caterpillar stage. AND many of them eat only ONE TYPE OF HOST PLANT. So, if that plant isn’t around… neither are they.

I hope to post more about the Butterfly House in the future. We can learn together — hahaha! In the meantime, please come see us at the market this weekend. Pick up something hot & spicy for Dad or the dude in your life! 🙂

We’ll be at the Hereford Farm Market, which is located at the Hereford High School, 17301 York Road, Hereford, Maryland, tomorrow from 9:00 a.m. to noon. Look for Windtree Bee at the “Hats & Honey” table!

September 22, 2022

Biking, Monarchs, and Gingerbread-Spiced Pear Drizzle

We’ll be at the Hereford Farm Market Saturday, September 24th, from 9:00 a.m. to noon. This week’s batch is gingerbread-spiced pear drizzle. It is pure pear awesomeness — little bits of cooked pears in a cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, allspice syrup offered in tiny 4 oz jars. Perfect for drizzling on ice cream, yogurt, pancakes, French toast… or add it to a cheese board… or use it in a grown-up grilled cheese with baguette and brie.

I also tried to make a fig and pear jam that sounded absolutely delicious. It was a disaster. It’s the second time I’ve had bad luck trying to make a fig jam. The first time was with dried figs, these were fresh. Maybe third time’s the charm? We’ll see… It will be a while before I try again. Why am I telling you about my epic fails? Because (1) everyone makes mistakes; and (2) sometimes epic fails make for good stories. The fig fails were kind of boring, but click here if you want to read about a cherry fail and how I almost got arrested for bootlegging. 😉

Fall Biking

I’m still chasing my goal of 1,000 miles this season. Current mileage? 760 miles. I do a lot of riding on the NCR and Heritage Rail Trails, but I’ve also participated in a few organized rides this season. Last Sunday, I did the Yellow Breeches Ramble and the Kings Gap Climb as part of Harrisburg’s Bicycle Club’s Three Creek Century Ride. It was terrific! Beautiful routes, friendly SAG support (thankfully not needed, but their presence was appreciated), and an incredibly brutal 4-mile uphill slog (at least I thought it was brutal — hahaha — more experienced riders were blowing past me on the regular) to the Kings Gap Environmental Educational Center. But sooooo worth it! Gorgeous views and an incredible ride back down!!

Monarch sightings

I’ve spotted six so far this season (not a lot, frankly), most while biking, but one in our garden earlier this evening. Craig and I want to plant milkweed next year and truly give them a place of R&R in our yard. How about you? Any monarch sightings this year?

We’ll be at the Hereford Farm Market, 17004 York Road, in Parkton, Maryland, from 9:00 a.m. until noon this Saturday. Look for us at the “Hats & Honey” table beside The Contented Rooster.