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Published on Leave a comment on Post Peony Plans

Every year I look forward to the blooming of the peonies in my yard. Not just beautiful, they are sentimental. We have hot pink and white peonies that are descendants of the farm I grew up on in North Dakota. My husband has planted them in the several places we have lived in the Philadelphia area, and they have luckily always done well. They are a little piece of my childhood that allows me to enjoy tripping down memory lane every May.

We also have a giant dinnerplate yellow peony that came from Costco and is quite amazing, as well as a newer planting of blush pink peonies that are just a little bit behind the others and allow us to extend our peony appreciation for a few additional weeks. We have but a few of the over 6,500 varieties available in the world!

But every year, they bloom and are absolutely brilliant for a week or so, but we inevitably get powerful rainstorms in May.......almost notoriously Memorial Day weekend to the frustration of the BBQ/camping crowd. Following those rains, we are inundated by soggy peony petals on the ground.......hoping the few remaining buds stay dry and give us a few more weeks.

But this year, I'm determined to get a little more out of my peony plants.

...continue reading "Post Peony Plans"

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Published on 1 Comment on Get Savvy about Herbal Salves

Hi all - it's been some time since my last post.  But I'm excited to say I recently retired from a wonderful 28-year career as a pharmacist working for a large drug company. I'm now thoroughly enjoying spending more time on my beekeeping and gardening hobbies and hope to share my new musings more often in future posts now that the day job no longer interferes!

As a perpetual curiosity cat, my posts will continue to be a blend of whatever I happen to be doing in my Dakota Pharmgirl-related activities combined with a bit of side-wanderings into historical fun facts.

In this post, I'll share how to make herbal salves. I've enjoyed making them for years from plants from our garden and sharing them with family and friends.

Not only are they easy to make, they're gentle, effective, and very portable!

Even if you don't want to make them for yourself, hopefully you'll find it interesting to understand how they're made and what they're good for as well as enjoy a bit of fun history along the way!

...continue reading "Get Savvy about Herbal Salves"

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Published on 3 Comments on Elderberry Syrup

Hard to believe that my last blog post was from March of 2021! A new managerial role at my day job - while a great career opportunity - certainly took its toll on my available time for pleasure writing. Didn't COVID-19 seem to wreak havoc on our habits as well?

Anyhoo, I'm thrilled to get back to some nature musings and restore a little of that important work/life balance we all need.

...continue reading "Elderberry Syrup"

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Published on 6 Comments on Reduce, Reuse, Wrap (in Beeswax!)

It's been a continuing journey to reduce our family's waste footprint over the years - at times really difficult making that choice of consciousness over convenience - particularly with a large family.

We've tried to be aware of our food choices and their impact on water (see What's Your Water Footprint?), our health and beauty choices and their impact on plastics and packaging (switching to bar soaps, shampoos, conditioners), as well as household items like Ziploc bags, cleaners, and laundry detergent (switching to silicone bags and eco laundry sheets).

We're by no means close to model eco-citizens but we keep slowly plugging away at it, hoping to keep lowering our impact.

...continue reading "Reduce, Reuse, Wrap (in Beeswax!)"

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Published on 4 Comments on Honest Honey

As my summer beekeeping season comes to a close, I've processed the last honey harvest and will soon prep the bee hives for their winter break. I've left them enough of their own supply to feed themselves through the winter months and will soon wrap the hives to provide protection from cold winds and snow. And then cross fingers the girls will stay safe, healthy, and happy for a well-earned winter rest!

Similar to last year, one hive was really banging while the other just tried to get up to speed. But with close to a total of 170 pounds from primarily just the one hive, I'm not sure I'm ready for 2 hives at full production! Harvesting frames of honey in June, July, and August gave me 3 different color and flavor varieties due to the abundance of different nectar sources in my area. For fun, I've posted some honey harvest videos at the end of this post.

...continue reading "Honest Honey"

Published on Leave a comment on Veggie Highlight: Tomatillos

Hi all! I've been having a blast harvesting honey every couple weeks this whole summer, but the season is almost over and I'm looking at pulling my last few frames this weekend before leaving the rest to the bees for their winter. So it's time for a non-bee related topic!

The last Veggie Highlight I did (on the Japanese sweet potato) was over 2 years ago so I'm MORE than overdue for a new one. And if you follow this blog, you know my Veggie Highlights will give you the basics, a few cooking ideas, along with a few crazy factoids thrown in.

On my last trip to Maple Acres Farm, my local farmstand, I picked up some heirloom tomatoes and a few tomatillos. While I love Mexican dishes including salsa verde and have enjoyed tomatillos in a variety of restaurant dishes, I had actually never cooked with them before. Tomatillos will be in season pretty much at the same time as tomatoes, even a little longer into Fall so you should be able to find them easily at your local farmers market right now. Figured this was a perfect opportunity for both you and me to learn something new, right?

...continue reading "Veggie Highlight: Tomatillos"

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Published on 2 Comments on Swarm Story

Isn't it funny how something so common and naturally occurring can happen every Spring across the whole country without you knowing a thing about it and then suddenly, once it happens in your own backyard, you wonder how you possibly could not have seen it before?

Bee swarms. They're quite common this time of year and clumps of bees might be found on signposts or fences, backyard trees, or even patio furniture. How could I not know anything about this fascinating and amazing natural event before now? And....importantly.....know they're nothing to fear and something to behold. Really. More on the fear thing later.

...continue reading "Swarm Story"

Published on Leave a comment on Vary Your Veggies

It's that time of year to get planting! It's still a bit cold here in Philly but I got my beds ready last week and planted one box with the usual greens plus a few new ones (trying to take my own advice from the "Lettuce Be More Exciting" post). So I've thrown some mache (corn salad), mizuna, and minutina in with the spinach and lettuce.

But I'm planning on stepping it up even further this year with a few more unusual greens as well as some exciting alternatives to the 'tried and true' veggies. I want to share with you a great book by Niki Jabbour titled "Veggie Garden Remix" that matches up the typical veggie garden staples with ideas for how to try more unusual alternatives. Many of them inspired by immigrant cultures who have introduced an amazing and flavorful diversity to our home gardens, the book has a stunning variety of suggestions - it was hard not to go overboard when I was deciding what to order from the seed catalog!

...continue reading "Vary Your Veggies"

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Published on 8 Comments on Dakota Kuchen

I've been meaning to tackle the challenge of Dakota Kuchen for awhile now but my day job kept me busy all Fall.

Was glad to have a few quiet days over the holidays to finally test my grandmother's recipe.

What is Dakota Kuchen?

Well kuchen just means 'cake' in German so really it could mean any kind of cake generally speaking. But Dakota Kuchen refers to a specialty of the region made by German Russians - a pie-shaped pastry with a sweet yeast dough and fruit mixed into a custard with a little crumble on top.

...continue reading "Dakota Kuchen"

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Published on 3 Comments on Honey Harvest!

As a first-year beekeeper, it was definitely not an expectation to be able to harvest any honey, so it was thrilling to discover I would be able to pull off a few frames this month and still have plenty to leave for the bees to get thru winter.

In this post, I'm going to share the fun of this harvest with multiple videos capturing the process of getting to the good stuff!

...continue reading "Honey Harvest!"