Happy New Year from Beespeaker Saijiki

You can see this is a leafcutter bee by the bright  yellow outline of the pollen hairs on her belly. Can you see how her abdomen appears flatter than that of a honeybee? I took this photo last August at the Salt Spring Centre of Yoga.

This is probably the wierdest photo I took last year. Does anyone know what kind of fly this is on the Viper's Bugloss?  In the meantime, check out this awesome post on Echium vulgare by Brian Johnston. Although you might think the pollen grains are blue, they appear transparent under the microscope.

One of my favorite bloggers, Sean McCann is giving a talk about his work with Ibycter at the Beatty Biodiversity Museum this Sunday. I am trying to get my work done today so I can check it out. Do check out his awesome blog and Bug Girl's feature on Sean's work in her fabulous Wired column called Charismatic Minifauna.

Id' also be interested in what you think of Bird Chick's two posts on Birding and Sexism, although it's really more about haters and online misogyny in general.

I was sad to hear that another blogger/chef I follow at Butter on the Endive is suffering from cancer. Make an apple tart this week and send Owen good wishes.


This week's saijiki: Christmas trees lie abandoned on city boulevards. A wind storm scatters gifts for foragers. We drink cups of strong, spicy chai.

May your 2014 be filled with radiant joy and blessings.

The Best Way to Grow Tomatoes: With a Hummingbird Helper

"You should make some fried green tomatoes," Catherine suggests as I'm leaving her house. "Grab some tomatoes in the greenhouse, dip them in egg, then cornmeal and fry them. I like mine with soya sauce for dipping." So I took her up on her generous offer. After all, the rains have started here in Vancouver so we are under pressure to start picking tomatoes before early blight sets in. The recipe sounds simple enough, so I don't even do a Google search for the details. I just buy the organic cornmeal and do it. First off, I didn't know how thick to slice the tomatoes, second, which way to slice them and third, I didn't know how much oil to put in the pan. So I tried thicker and thinner slices, one tomato sliced across the width, the other vertically. Peter sampled a bite and shrugged. He always does this when he's not impressed with something. It happens involuntarily and I can pick up even the most subtle of shrugs. It's his "tell". I wasn't too convinced either. The tomatoes seemed tough and the cornmeal didn't feel cooked. I chalk it up as one of my culinary failures.

Later that evening I do my research. It seems there needs to be milk in the batter and at least a half an inch of oil in the pan. So I will give it another try on a later date. In the meantime I heated a couple of leftover slices in the oven this morning and piled smoked salmon on top with tsatskiki, onions and capers. It was delicious. The fried green tomatoes make a good bread substitute. I can imagine making grilled cheese sandwiches this way.

 

Did you know that bumblebees pollinate tomatoes? Tomatoes are new world crops that didn't evolve with honeybees. Our new world bumblebees have the ability to shake the pollen out of the stamen like a salt or pepper shaker. People who have enclosed greenhouses have to hand pollinate the flowers with vibrators, which must feel pretty silly. Then farmers got the bright idea to farm bumblebees, placing artificial nests in the greenhouses. This may have seemed like a good idea at the time, but they imported eastern bumblebees to western Canada. These bumblebees not only got sick, but many escaped and started bullying the indigenous western bumble bees out of their nests.

 

There are two families of plants that benefit from buzz pollination. The first is the nightshade family (Solanaceae) which includes tomatoes, eggplant, ground cherries, chile peppers, potatoes, chayote, and goji berries (Lycium barbarum). The second family is the heather family (Ericaceae), including red huckleberry (Vaccinium parvifolium), cranberries and blueberries. Bumblebees are better pollinators than honeybees for watermelon and cucumber, although there are squash bees that evolved to pollinator the cucurbits. They are about the size of honeybees and the males have an endearing habit of bedding down in small groups inside pumpkin flowers.

 

At the Saltspring Centre for Yoga there is a greenhouse hosting a wide range of colours and shapes of tomatoes. The door is wide open so that bumblebees can come in and shake the stamens. Furthermore, there is a resident hummingbird that perches on the wires suspending the tomato vines. She eats up all the tiny bugs that would otherwise be munching on the tomatoes. The back of the greenhouse is planted with hummingbird flowers: nasturtiums and beautiful purple morning glories that twine up among the tomato vines and will provide extra nectar for the bumblebees once the tomatoes have finished flowering. Surely this is one of the best ways to grow tomatoes in a northern climate. I have read in gardening forums that hummers will sometimes perch on tomato cages, so I bought a bright red one to put in my raised bed even when I'm not growing tomatoes.

 

Ever since I heard the story of bumble bees and greenhouses, I have been intrigued by the question: what is the best way to grow tomatoes here in British Columbia? Tomatoes are tricky here because we tend not to get enough dry sunny weather for them. Sustained late summer rains often means the tomatoes get blight, which means you've got to toss everything out and it's risky to grow tomatoes in that soil again. They are the most high-maintenance veggie I'm willing to grow in pots in our back yard and this year I didn't plant any because I knew I'd be too busy to attend to their needs.

Yesterday my friend Lori made me a salad with tomatoes, cukes, feta and olives. Having forgotten spoons we ate the ripe tomatoes with our fingers on a picnic table at UBC Farm. At least I know the best ways to eat tomatoes.

Links for more information about the problems of using commercially raised bumble bees in greenhouses:

http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0002771
http://www.ballpublishing.com/insidegrower/CurrentNewsletter.aspx

Laughing Gods Poplar Salve: The Balm of Salt Spring Island

 

There is a balm in Gilead that heals the sin sick soul,

There is a balm in Gilead that makes the spirit whole.

Sometimes I feel discouraged and think my work's in vain,

But then the holy spirit revives my soul again.

When I was at the Saltspring Island Saturday market I sampled some poplar salve from a company called Laughing Gods. The little pots are charming an a bit mysterious, like something out of a magical tale. I tried a little bit on my wrist and I found myself transported into the inside of a honey shed. In another moment then I traveled in my imagination to the inside of a beehive, warm and sweet in the summer sun, heavy with the scent of wax and propolis. I had to have some of this beautiful balm. I was delighted to find that each salve comes in a beautiful handmade wooden pot and was able to choose from several custom made designs. The two artisans gather the buds themselves from local cottonwood trees.

I have been trying to find out exactly which plants bees harvest resins to make propolis as it is very important to hive health. The one tree that is cited most often is the poplar tree, especially in Europe, where the apis melifera originated. There are three poplar trees native to BC: The trembling aspen, (Populus tremuoides), the balsam poplar (Populus balsamifera spp. balsamifera) and black cottonwood (Populus balsamifera spp trichocarpa). The latter two are the largest of the broadleaf trees in BC. The black cottonwood is found west of the Rocky Mountains, whereas the balsam poplar grows up north and where they meet, the two species will hybridize. Poplar wood is used to make furniture and paper.

The salve from the balsam poplar is called The Balm of Gilead. First nations used the balsam poplar to make medicines to rub on their chests to help with breathing, especially in the longhouses which would get quite smokey. Poplar bud tea was served to those in mourning to help cure grief, but it is a powerful medicine--too much tea would be deadly. The tinctures were used in New England to treat minor cuts, bruises and sprains. It has been used traditionally to treat sore throats, headaches, aching muscles and constipation.

There is also a Balm of Gilead fir called (Abies balsamea Mill., fam. Pinaceae). In the Middle East there is an old world Balm of Gilead made from Commiphora gileadensis aka The Balm of Mecca. This would be the salve used as a metaphor in the Old Testament as the spiritual medicine for healing sinners. In the negro spiritual quoted above, the Balm of Gilead also refers to Jesus Christ, the one who "heals the sin sick soul".

 

If you are interesting in making your own pain-relieving Balm of Gilead, Dr. Ryan Drum describes in detail how to harvest the sap from poplar buds and infuse in into oil or make tinctures. As with all powerful medicines, there is a hazard involved with poplar bud sap: a very small percentage of the population is highly allergic to it. Poplar bud sap, cause anaphylactic shocks and contact dermatitis in some people. As poplars are related to willows, they contain the active ingredient in aspirin, salicylic acid. Anyone with an allergy to aspirin would be advised to avoid using poplar balm or bee propolis products.

Poplars are part of a good bioplan for helping make honeybees and humans healthy.

Jason the Tachinid Fly: He's So Bad He's Good

Visiting Dan Jason's farm this summer has been a highlight of my summer. I was always intrigued by his comment in the documentary film Gardens of Destiny* when he said he didn't need to practise pest control in his garden because there was a critical mass of biodiversity so that the pests took care of themselves. I asked Dan if he had a problem building up to this critical mass of plant diversity since he'd moved to a new farm only a few years ago, but he said that because he had the seeds and the plants to make it happen very quickly, he hasn't had pest problems. I pondered this as I looked through a big book of pests that will destroy your garden and how to deal with them at a Book Store in Ganges on Saltspring. I shudder when I page through those books as if even looking at them will jinx me and one of these villains will fly off the pages right into my garden. Dan Jason doesn't need one of those books.

Perhaps it is no surprise that one of the insects elbowing in at the nectar buffet circuit on Dan Jason's farm was a tachinid fly, most likely a Tachina algens wiedemann. I have noticed this fly once before and I never forgot it. I was watching an insect on an orange buddleia bush, which is in itself a weird plant to encounter in my neighbourhood, with its bright orange pin-pong sized infloresecences. It was generally shaped like a bee, especially the apple-seed shaped head, but it definitely had the back end of a fly. The head was grey like one of those skinny little aliens from Close Encounters of the Third Kind. The eyes did not quite match bulging eyes of a typical fly and it was calmly sipping nectar as my mind boggled over its identification. I was spooked. Then I went and looked it up on the web and found it was probably a tachinid fly. I have been telling this story ever since and it makes people's eyes glaze over with boredom. However, if I have not lost you yet, dear reader, this is some fascinatin' diptera.

 

Tachinid flies have been imported from the countries of origin as a biological pest control to parasitize invasive caterpillars that were unwittingly transported to North America. They attack cutworms. What's not to like? This article from Mother Earth News calls tachinid flies "the party guest from hell" because they kill their hosts but I think that's being a bit harsh, a bit too much like a trailer from Friday the 13th. It's more of a Midsommer Mystery kind of fly, or even a Lewis Carol invention, especially when photographed from certain angles. It looks like an old illustration out of a children's fairy tale book where bees have velvet waistcoats and tachinid flies wear top hats.

 

And so a tachinid fly becomes a symbol of one of the insects that make it possible to grow a garden without pesticides. But here's the thing, this particular contract killer doesn't have a common name. We've got to make one up! Should we name it a Jason fly, with a nod to Dan Jason, but also an echo of Friday the 13th? Send me your suggestions!

This fly feeds from nectar on asters and goldenrod, but I also saw in on Ammi visnaga, and of course here on this feverfew. This photograph is actually taken at the Salt Spring Centre for Yoga where Dan Jason used to have his garden. He left a few beneficial insects behind.

Many thanks to Mr. Dave Ingram for his post and photographs which helped my identify this fly. We need a British Columbian entomologist like Bug Eric to help us out with these insect ID's. Come on folks, who will be the lucky one to be pestered by us amateur insect watchers? Any volunteers?

*Gardens of Destiny is a film by Jocelyn Demers about Dan Jason's seed saving work that you can purchase on the Salt Spring Seeds website.

A Letter from Saltspring

Hiya Folks,

I am having a beautiful time on Saltspring Island on a much needed retreat. Last night we had a good soaking rain and I woke up to see the garden framed by mist. My room overlooks an orchard and the gardens where the ingredients for our lovely meals originate. This morning after a hearty breakfast of steel cut oats with all the fixings and a kale blackberry banana smoothie I went for a walk in the forest which was jumping with frogs of all sizes and colors and slippery with snails and banana slugs.

I went for my stroll around the garden and saw some pretty wet and soppy bumble bees in zinnias. By the time lunch came around, it was beginning to warm up. Lunch was a chard and cheese bake with sun dried tomato pesto. There was steamed broccoli, quinoa salad, and zucchini with dill. The green goddess salad dressing and the mustard salad dressings are so good I put them on everything.

The highlight of my day (and probably my trip) was going to Dan Jason's garden to take photographs of his bee plants. His garden is breathtaking, especially when you know he does most of the work himself. It is teaming with biodiverse plant and insect life. His passion for saving seeds is incredibly inspiring. I am filled with happiness and so to celebrate changed out of my sweaty clothes and put on my brightest pinkest outfit and sat in the garden at the retreat watching the sun set over the dahlias and the swallows zing through the air catching insects. I am blessed.

Pics will come soon.