keeping it fresh

I have been doing a lot of flowers lately. I like to keep STILL seasonal, and that is what is happening up here in the North. But I also like to keep you all a little surprised from time to time. So, today I present apricot pit kernels. We got a flat of apricots recently (no, not native to Minnesota, lol) and my son instructed us to save all the pits. When we were done with out apricots, Joseph sat on the front stoop cracking each pit open with a hammer to extract the kernel and they are now macerating in alcohol, after which they will not smell like apricots anymore, but like almond extract and marzipan, and he and my husband will add syrup to the mixture to make “creme de noyau,” a digestif (and one of the main ingredients in that Wisconsin classic cocktail, the Pink Squirrel). Never a dull moment.

apricot pit kernels

hanging around

These guys were just hanging around on my desk–doing nothin–so I asked them to scooch together for a group photo. The results look quite a bit like our roadsides right now.

july wildflowers: cutleaf teasel, queen anne’s lace, echinacea, pepperweed

What? Teasel in Minnesota?

Yesterday, Steve and I were driving home after running errands. We were about 3 miles from home on a road we take multiple times a week. I was lazily staring out the window, and Steve has driving. We passed a newish apartment complex where they had created one of these “rain gardens” to catch parking lot water runoff. The trend (which I am all for) is to line the concavity with prairie flower and grass mixes. I just assumed those mixes were using only native seeds. As we passed this particular rain garden, it took both of us the exact amount of cognitive dissonant mental processing time (about 5 seconds) to simultaneously say “wait? what? was that teasel?” We did a U-turn.

We became intimate with teasel while living in southern France. It is native there. And quite abundant. We don’t have teasel in Minnesota. It is not native here. And until yesterday I had never seen it here–not ever in my 62 years.

I have learned it is considered an invasive weed in North America and is not uncommon in parts of the midwest. But Minnesota has more in common, ecologically, with Winnipeg than it does with Kansas City. That’s why I refer to us as the North, and not the Midwest. Last year I saw teasel all over the roadsides of Chicago, and marveled at how big a difference a few degrees of latitude makes when it comes to botanical habitability. So when we saw that field of teasel yesterday, I could not make sense of it all. It would be like seeing an olive tree growing in my woods. It made no sense. Did someone plant it intentionally? Or mistakenly, thinking “midwest” and “upper-midwest” seed mixes were interchangeable? Or did birds bring the seeds? And has our climate changed so fast that Mediterranean teasel can now grow on our roadsides? I am still very confused about seeing my beloved teasel in Minnesota. I loved teasel in southern France–so structural, so photogenic, so lethal. But in Minnesota? I don’t know.

cutleaf teasel (Dipsacus laciniatus)

PS I always just assumed teasel was in the thistle family (genus Carduus), but I just learned (from Wiki) that teasel is actually in the honeysuckle family. I love STILL. It keeps me on my toes.

siblings? or cousins?

I wonder, are these two different varieties of coneflowers? Or the same species a few days apart in development? I foraged them from an open prairie of wildflowers near my house–so location is no help, either situation could have been going on there. I guess, the only answer is to keep these two on my desk this week, in a vase with water, and keep a close eye on them. I am quite sure some of you could relieve me of of watch duty however…siblings? or cousins?

coneflowers (echinacea)

a native food we have ignored

Have you seen a hazelnut? Can you believe how unique they look? Last year was my first time seeing them in their husks. I had no idea they the husks were ruffled, and the nut clusters look like groups of square dancers at a hoedown. Steve is doing research for an article on hazelnuts, so I have been tagging along for the fun of it. This week we visited our first hazelnut grove on the campus of the University of Minnesota. American hazelnuts are cold hardy but they have hard shells and relatively small nuts. European hazelnuts have thinner shells, bigger nuts, but are not cold weather hardy. The U of M and the UW-Madison are actively doing research on hybridized cultivars that could turn our native hazelnuts into larger nuts, thinner shells, but maintain the cold weather hardiness. This would make hazelnuts a viable cash crop for farmers that would add a little biodiversity to their farms. A win for the farmer and the environment. Cheers to win-wins!

hazelnuts on the U of M campus (probably an American x European hybrid)