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!!

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!!

May 19, 2023May 19, 2023

Celebrate World Bee Day with Us + A Modified “No Mow May”

Tomorrow is World Bee Day, a global celebration of the importance of bees, beekeeping, and pollinator-friendly gardening, lawn, and ag practices. The date was chosen because it’s the birthday of Anton Jansa, a Slovenian pioneer of modern apiculture. Historically, honeybees have been kept in many different shaped containers. The two most of you would recognize is the bee skep (the woven upside-down basket) and the Langstroth box, which is the type we use. The Jansa hive boxes can be arranged in rows and stacks. Many of the front panels are hand-painted with nature scenes because Jansa was also a painter.

Rosie Posie has a new bee sweatshirt!

Mandi has a cute collection of animal/avian sweatshirts — foxes, birds, and now bees! The new bee sweatshirt will be available to buy tomorrow. I’m bringing wildflower honey, rhubarb and berry jams, loose leaf chai tea blends, and peanut butter banana granola. I’m also bringing our queen bee t-shirts and my remaining seed bombs. THIS IS THE LAST WEEK I’LL BE SELLING SEED BOMBS!

Is there a better way to celebrate World Bee Day than to buy some of our bee-themed merch and wear it proudly?!

Modified “Mo Mow May”

It’s a coincidence that World Bee Day is celebrated during the month of No Mow May, but it also makes perfect sense since the purpose of each event aligns almost magically. No Mow May encourages people to leave their lawns in a wild state so that pollinators can have access to food during the crucial early spring when they’re active and hungry, but when many flowers haven’t yet had a chance to bloom.

A perfectly manicured lawn is like a desert to honeybees and other pollinators. Honestly, I don’t even think all-green lawns look good. To me, they look unnatural. Regarding No Mow May, I understand if you are a bit reluctant to participate. Afterall, not mowing your lawn for an entire month can lead to some pretty tall grass where we live. There could be lots of reasons you’re hesitant about participating: you have young kids who need to play outside, you’re understandably concerned about ticks, you have neighbors who would complain, etc. I get it. I’d rather people participate halfway (which is what we’re doing) than not at all.

If you can’t go an entire month without mowing, consider these alternatives:

Mow less. Instead of mowing every week, maybe just mow 1-2 times a month during April and May.
Set your mower at the highest setting.
Don’t use pesticides or herbicides on your lawn!
Intentionally plant clover. We sprinkle clover seed (not grass seed) in every bare patch. This gives our yard a beautiful cottagecore look.
Make as many wishes as you can! Encourage dandelions to grow in your lawn. Then have fun picking them and making wishes as you spread more dandelion seeds around your lawn.

No Mow May Bonus – Dandelion Harvest

Did you know that dandelions are edible? They were once a beloved flower and medicinal botanical. Most people think of them as weeds, but they’re an herb. If you participate in No Mow May (or a modified version of No Mow May) you can harvest your dandelions and make all sorts of delicious things out of them. I plan to make Dandelion Honey (a.k.a. Dandelion Syrup). If you harvest your dandelions, let me know what you make! 🙂

Quick Strawberry Update

Our little strawberry beds are looking great! I couldn’t believe that we had to once again cover them the other night. I’d been lamenting that I haven’t yet had a chance to get my zinnia seedlings in the ground, but this past Wednesday I was glad for my delay because it was less for us to cover that night. Hopefully, that will be the last spring frost warning for 2023!

We’ll be at the Hereford Farm Market tomorrow, May 20th, from 9:00 a.m. to noon at the Hereford High School. There’s no market on Memorial Day weekend, so our next market after tomorrow will be June 3rd. Look for us at the “Hats & Honey” table. Hope to see you there!

May 12, 2023

Mother’s Day Gift Ideas!

For tomorrow’s market, we’re bringing lots of great gift ideas for mom:

Wildflower honey – spring 2023 bonus harvest!

Loose leaf chai tea blends – both regular (made with black tea) and decaf (made with red bush tea).

Honey rhubarb ginger compote – delicious mixed in yogurt parfaits or on ice cream.

Peanut butter banana granola — one of my favorite recipes!

Bedazzled Queen Bee t-shirts – Save the queens! Support local royalty!

20% off seed bombs and suncatchers! – These make awesome gifts for mom! Beautifully packaged and improved, our seed bombs are ready to be planted. Make mom, Mother Earth, and the bees happy! 🙂

Loose leaf chai tea blends, perfect when sweetened with honey!

Hope to see you tomorrow at the Hereford Farm Market, which is now at Hereford High School (17301 York Road, Parkton, MD) from 9:00 a.m. to noon. You can find Windtree Bee at the “Hats & Honey” table. Happy Mother’s Day to all!

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.

September 16, 2022

Pumpkin Spice + Apples = Fall

Come see us tomorrow at the Hereford Farm Market! We’ll have pumpkin pie spiced applesauce, autumn apples studded with raisins & cherries (perfect for oatmeal, ice cream, French toast, or to add to homemade stuffing), and one pound jars of our 2022 honey. We’ll also have cottage bouquets and our artisan stained glass suncatchers. Look for us at the “Hats & Honey” table across from The Contented Rooster. Hope to see you there! 🙂

Went out to the garden late tonight. Couldn’t believe how many flowers were there! Our veggies are starting to slow down, but I was very happy with these gorgeous blooms. END OF SEASON SALE — I’ll be offering these at the same price as Labor Day weekend — $1.00 per bloom. Mix & match. Jar is included.

September 2, 2022

Labor Day Sale!

Hereford Farm Market is tomorrow! 9:00 to noon. We’ll be there with fresh cut zinnias, home-harvested honey, fruit jams, smoky-spicy applesauce, and artisan suncatchers.

If you buy honey, flowers, or a suncatcher, you get $2.00 off one of our homemade jams AND zinnias are $1.00 each (min $5.00 purchase; the jar is included).

Tomorrow may be the last day I sell flowers at HFM this year, so if you want a Windtree Bee cottage bouquet, don’t wait to stop by our table!! 😀

Mandi’s back too, and she’ll have her adorable knitted pumpkins available. Look for our “Hats & Honey” banner, across from the Contented Rooster at HFM tomorrow — 17004 York Road, Parkton, Maryland.

August 26, 2022August 26, 2022

We have honey! and flowers!!

The Summer 2022 honey harvest has been filtered, bottled, labeled, and is ready for sale!! As always, its taste is unique to this particular summer and we won’t have it for long. Every year, we sell out, so if you want it — please stop by our market table soon!

We didn’t enter our honey in the State Fair this year because we were moving our daughters into college. Both of them are at school now, which means I’ll need to muddle through Instagram solo now. Hahaha! 😉

Ellie is at the Fashion Institute of Technology in NYC

After a slow start, the flower garden I planted for the bees is finally blooming. This means, for a short time only, I’ll have beautiful Mason jar bouquets for sale at the market.

I’m not a professional flower grower, seller, or arranger. But I get so much joy out of my tiny flower garden. It’s full of pollinators — honeybees (of course), bumble bees, moths, and butterflies. Saw my first monarch of the season today, which made me happy!

Our Mason jar bouquets have zinnias in them. That’s it. But they’re pretty and every jar you buy supports our queens and their hives — remember Elphaba, Buffy, Cleo, Gaia, Tempest, and the rest? #supportlocalroyalty 😀

Hope to see you tomorrow at the Hereford Farm Market! We’ll be across from The Contented Rooster. Look for our Windtree Bee Banner! (Mandi has the “Hats & Honey” banner, but won’t be there tomorrow.)

On sale for a limited time only! Don’t wait to buy your jar!!

September 17, 2021

Goodbye, beautiful bouquets; Hello, mulling spices, tea blends, and cider jelly

“The pollen-dusted bees
search for the honey-lees
that linger in the last flowers of September” ~George Arnold

Mid-September means the growing season is ending. We’re still pulling flowers and peppers out, but that’s about it. I have mixed feelings about my flowers this year. On the one hand, my zinnias weren’t as strong as they usually are. I didn’t sell any at the market, which has been a goal of mine for years now. I wasn’t even able to give as many away this year as I have in years past.

Dahlias versus zinnias: similar but different

On the other hand, I was completely smitten with my dahlias this year. I’d never tried to grow them until this summer and, even though they are more difficult than zinnias, and don’t seem to last nearly as long in the vase, I was thrilled to be able to include them in this summer’s bouquets.

I’m also just very thankful and so grateful that I was able to grow, cut, arrange, and enjoy the many flowers I was able to pull from the garden this year. This winter, I’ll be mulling over what worked and what didn’t, what to do again and what to give up on but, for now, I’m posting a few more of my favorites as a way to say goodbye to the beautiful bounty of summer 2021.

My younger daughter loves to buy clothes at consignment shops and second-hand stores. She loves the idea that each piece gets a new life. She sews and often upcycles them into something different. I think she also finds the range of clothing (from every decade and style) more interesting than anything that’s offered in the “fast fashion” mall stores. In any case, when I go with her, I shop for flower vases.

One of my favorite finds this summer was the silver-plated vintage vase pictured above. I found it in a shop on South Street in Philadelphia. It’s not worth much — a couple of dollars at most — but I think it’s beautiful.

What am I bringing to market tomorrow?

To celebrate the upcoming fall equinox, I made a bunch of autumn-inspired treats.

MULLING SPICES: wrapped in unbleached “steep sacks” and tied with butcher’s twine, each jar holds four bags, which will each spice one bottle of wine or eight cups of apple cider.

FALL TEA BLENDS: Chai and orange spice. Best when sweetened with honey! 😉

CIDER JELLY: Spread on raisin bread toast or stir a spoonful into a mug of hot water for instant hot spiced cider.

SMOKY APPLESAUCE: This is a savory, spicy applesauce. The woman who made the recipe pairs it with pork or chicken, but I had mine with pierogies and red cabbage. Delish! 🙂

SPICED PEAR JAM: a great jam with the usual morning breads or on a cracker with brie.

I often use local and/or organic ingredients.
Left to right: smoky applesauce ingredients, cider jelly ingredients,
cinnamon pears, and some of the finished products.
DON’T WAIT TO STOCK YOUR WINTER PANTRY! 😉

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