Every Saturday from May until November, we’ll be at the Hereford Farm Market from 9:00 a.m. until noon. We share a table with Mandi and Rob (Rosie Posie Design Co). Mandi sells hand-knitted accessories, mug rugs (beautiful one-of-a-kind coffee coasters), and other fiber artisan offerings.

Look for us at the “Hats & Honey” table near Contented Rooster’s pop-up pastry shop.

Why “Hats & Honey” when we have neither hats nor honey to sell?? Possibly because I’m the worst marketer EVER. Possibly because I’m ignoring everything anyone has ever said about branding best practices. But, in truth, it’s because people at the market know us as the “Hats & Honey” table and we have a sentimental attachment to our table banner. (We will have both hats & honey in the fall!!)

While Craig and I wait for our little bees to finish making honey, we’re selling other fun bee- and honey-themed products, as well as homemade jam. Here’s what’s available from Windtree Bee this month:

HONEY CINNAMON ALMOND GRANOLA

Limited quantities! I’ll probably make this once or twice a month, just to take a break from jam batches, which are much more labor intense. These are 16 oz jars, but dry weight is about 2 cups. Except for the almonds, salt, and honey, all the ingredients are organic. Smelled awesome while baking. Like a fresh batch of cookies!! 🙂

HONEYCOMB SUNCATCHERS

St. Gobnait, Patron Saint of Bees and Beekeepers

My sister-in-law’s mom, Mary Nolan, is a glazier. She has a basement studio where she makes bespoke stained glass. This spring, she made six beautifully handcrafted bee and honeycomb suncatchers. The one above is my favorite.

BEE BALM AND GARDNER’S SOAP

Made from our beeswax!

My next-door neighbor, Tammy Tracey, makes homemade soaps, body scrubs, and beeswax salves. We gave her a bucket of beeswax from our hives and she used it to make a lavender-scented hand cream and a rich, dense nighttime balm, which is great for winter eczema. She also makes a strong gardener’s soap with pumice and tea tree oil — useful after possible poison ivy encounters!

HOMEMADE JAM

I’ve had a lot of fun coming up with new flavors each week. For Preakness Saturday, I made a batch inspired by the horses. “Midnight Bourbon” Maple Apple Butter sold out almost immediately. “Risk Taking” is My Jam (a caramel apple coffee jam) followed soon after. I have one — one!! — jar of “Keepmeinmind” for Grilling left. It’s a smoky-spicy savory apple-based jam that is a terrific compliment to grilled pork or chicken.

I also have a few carrot cake and cinnamon pear jams and a half-dozen mixed berry jams left. Mixed berry (raspberry, strawberry, blackberry, and blueberry) is a classic summer jam, so I made a double batch last week. Check back each week for new flavors!

Flower Update:

Everything is in the ground! Mostly. I held some of my sunflower seeds back. I’ve never been successful at succession planting, but it’s always fun to try. Our old garden fence was falling down, so Craig built a new one. Our spruced up garden with all the newly planted little rows of seedlings must have looked very enticing to one of the neighborhood’s wild rabbits. He (or she) chomped off the tops of several seedlings. I was just about to go all Mr. McGregor when I caught my younger daughter carrying a sack of carrots out to the garden in the hope that she could coax the rabbit out. Hmm… Stay tuned…

Bee & Honey Update:

Thank you to everyone who has stopped by our table to ask about the bees. The hives look good! Well, most of them. One hive probably has a laying worker, but we’ll probably let nature run its course and see what’s what with that hive in a month. In the meantime, Craig took on some additional beekeeping work looking out for another hive on a nearby farm. And we met some other local beekeepers who sell nucs only a few miles from us, which is great! We have neither the interest nor the acreage to try to sell nucs, so it’s nice to find a convenient source for Hereford-hardy bees!

Hope everyone is enjoying the cicadas and the start of summer! See you at the market!

Summer is winding down! Every week I wonder how many more blooms I’ll get this season. So far, I’ve made 26 bouquets (19 large; 7 small). Not a lot, but it’s my first summer growing cutting flowers. I’ve been experimenting and want to keep it fun. I probably could have produced more but:

I intentionally left lots of flowers in the garden for the bees and butterflies. My pollinator garden is working! Butterflies, including monarchs; bumble bees, wasps (not necessarily welcome, but allowed), and our beloved honey bees have all been busy in the garden.
I was lazy about “succession planting.” After getting my first batch of flowers in the ground, I never got around to planting anything else.
I made some mistakes about the types of flowers I planted. Sunflowers make me happy, but they’re tall and block a lot of light. Plus, they aren’t “cut and come again.” They’re “one and done.” The cosmos were a bust. I’m not even sure I’ll do cosmos next year, regardless of the species. I like hardier looking flowers. I’ll repeat the Zinnias (both the giants and the green envy). Ditto for the Black Eyed Susans. In fact, I’d love to try other kinds: Cappuccino, Cherokee Sunset, Cherry Brandy… I’ll do marigolds again, because I love them, but need to find a different, LARGER variety. Next year, I’m wondering if I might be able to plant some late blooming, fall flowers, but what? Dahlias intimidate me. Goldenrod is great for bees, but not necessarily honey. I’ll have to do more research! In the meantime…

ENJOY THE LAST FEW DAYS OF SUMMER!

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Jill and Craig have hundreds of blooms and tens of thousands of bees on their one acre patch of land in north Baltimore County. Come see them at the Hereford Farmers Market (Sept 14), the Perry Hall library (Sept 28), and the Hereford Fall Fest (Oct 19/20).

Tag: gardening

We’re back at the Hereford Farm Market!