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Thursday, August 1, 2024

August 2024 Newsletter of the Sandy Spring Museum Garden Club

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Garden Club News

Christmas in July





In preparation for our December Greens Sale, our elves made itty bitty bows and medium sized bows, hurricane bases and wreath forms. Look for more fun projects at our Spooky Workshop on October 20th.


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Looking Ahead

The Extraordinary Lives of Honey Bees

How they make babies, honey, wax, fill our dinner plates, and are the smartest insect. 

Sunday September 8, 2024, 2-4pm

 


Learn about:

·         Why honey bees are irreplaceable (how they are unlike any other insect or pollinator)

·         How a colony of 10's of thousands of honey bees behaves as a single animal

·         How honey bees make honey (very labor intensive!) and where honey gets its flavor.

·         How honey bees make more honey bees (bizarre and always deadly)

·         What is killing the bees, and how you can help them

·         Loads of fascinating bee facts you can take home to impress your friends... including "No male honey bee has a father, only a grandfather."  And you will be able to effortlessly identify the gender of any honey bee you see on flowers in your garden!

Our speaker, Phil Frank, is a science journalist, writer, TV producer, and director of non-fiction films. His programs have been seen on CNN, Discovery Channel, National Geographic Channel, Science Channel, A&E, Travel Channel, Headline News, History Channel, TLC, NY Times website, Washington Post website, and international channels. While producing a National Geographic program about mass animal die-offs, Phil became fascinated by honey bees. In 2014, he started his first hive and now has 15 hives on his deck, and one glass walled hive in his kitchen where he studies busy bees year round. Phil developed and runs websites for the Maryland State Beekeepers Association and Maryland’s Montgomery County Beekeepers Association. He designs beekeeping curricula and teaches honey bee biology for beekeepers. After years of study, he earned a Master Beekeeper certification from Eastern Apicultural Society.  

Phil recently coauthored and published 'Hive Tour' a photo-rich book showing the extraordinary bees.

Light refreshments will be served.

The Garden Club plant sale table will be available.

 

Admission to this event is free for Museum Members. There is a $10 fee for nonmembers.

Please register at www.SandySpringMuseum.org or call 301-774-0022

 




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Eat your weeds!

Common purslane, Portulaca oleracea, is a highly variable, weedy plant in the purslane family (Portulacaceae) with a wide distribution. Although it is likely native to North Africa, the Middle East, and the Indian subcontinent, it had reached North America by pre-Columbian times and was in Europe by the late 16th century. It is now naturalized in most parts of the world, both tropical and temperate – equally at home in flower beds, cultivated fields, and roadsides or other disturbed or waste places. It has been grown for more than 4,000 years as a food and medicinal plant and is still cultivated in many places today.

Common purslane is a low-growing plant with succulent leaves.
Common purslane is a low-growing plant with succulent leaves.

It is considered quite nutritious because it is unusually high in omega-3 fatty acids (found mostly in fish and flax seeds) and contains significant amounts of vitamins A and C, as well as calcium, iron, magnesium and potassium and antioxidants. It also contains high amounts of oxalates (just as spinach does) so should not be consumed excessively by those susceptible to forming kidney stones. It is sometimes used as fodder and is fed to poultry to reduce egg cholesterol and was also used traditionally as an ointment for burns. Some other common names include garden purslane, little hogweed, pusley, and wild portulaca. It’s called pourpier in France and verdolaga in Mexico.
Purslane is a fast-growing herbaceous annual with succulent leaves and stems. Even the oblong cotyledons (seed leaves) are succulent. The multiple smooth, reddish stems originating from a single taproot are mostly prostrate, forming a mat covering up to 3 feet in diameter. Depending on the amount of moisture available, the plant may be quite low-growing or more erect up to 16″ tall.
https://hort.extension.wisc.edu/articles/common-purslane-portulaca-oleracea/




A crop of purslane growing in a neighborhood garden.
Good in salads or steamed like spinach.

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The Sandy Spring Museum Garden Club is an activity group of the Sandy Spring Museum. Our activities can be found on the Garden Club webpage:                        https://www.sandyspringmuseum.org/programs-and-events/garden-club/.

Follow us on Facebook and in the monthly Newsletters on our blogspot.

         ðŸ’®ðŸ’®ðŸ’®ðŸ’®ðŸ’®ðŸ’®ðŸ’®ðŸ’®ðŸ’®ðŸ’®ðŸ’®ðŸ’®ðŸ’®ðŸ’®ðŸ’®ðŸ’®ðŸ’®ðŸ’®ðŸ’®ðŸ’®



                                 Goldfinch eyeing the zinnias for a tasty treat


*  The flower in the August photo above is a Brugmansia arborea or Angel's Trumpet

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