Saturday afternoon, DIL Tami and her mother Debbie visited the Medway Community Garden in Charleston. I was invited and couldn’t go, so Tami took pictures and the little video below of this pollinator garden.
A reminder, Tami is the Director and Co-Founder of The Bee Cause. She texted me with this message: “A beautiful afternoon at Medway Community Garden. The pollinators were plentiful in this beautiful pollinator habitat donated by The Bee Cause and installed by Charleston Parks Conservancy. We also got to meet and chat with the author of The Ark of Taste.” There was also a potluck supper.
A video of the garden.
And the new book:
From a review on the Slow Food USA web site: “The Ark of Taste is a living catalog of our food heritage and a movement to preserve gastronomic treasures passed down for generations—some rare, some endangered, all delicious. Created by Slow Food, the Ark illuminates the history, identity and taste of these unique food products, many of which were revived or saved from extinction by their Slow Food champions.”
And: “The Ark of Taste book features the stories of how some of these American products almost didn’t reach our table, with recipes from Slow Food chefs and profiles of growers from around the country.”
https://slowfoodusa.org/ark-of-taste-book/
As you know from this blog, I have planted pollinator plants in my new garden. And Tami has been working hard in her garden in recent days. She is developing a space where she would like to plant a pollinator garden–and that space is near her bee hive.
On a very happy note, Tami recently harvested some honey from that hive, and she generously gave me 12 jars of that beautiful honey–which I am busily lapping up.
The dried blooms are from the Panicle Hydrangea “Limelight.” In Maine, these big blooms would turn a gorgeous deep red color; here with the heat, they just turn brown. I clipped these blooms when they were just starting to show flecks of red in the petals, but before they started to turn brown. I put them in this vase with no water and let them further dry out inside. They will hold their color through most of the winter.
Drying hydrangea blooms is tricky. I’ve found it best to wait until they are starting to dry on the plant before clipping them. And even then, they might shrivel up once inside.
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