Emma the Gardener

El enlace para hoy es sobre la historia del olivo en México. ¿Cómo se arrive?

→ El olivo y México

Bees are in trouble for a variety of reasons, and our gardens (and our food supply!) is threatened by a decline in the pollination services they provide for free. We need to support them by planting more bee-friendly plants that flower all through the year and give them something to feed on.

However, some people are afraid of being stung by bees, or that their children will be stung by bees. Brigit Strawbridge has written up a lovely blog post explaining which bees can sting you, and how likely they are to do so.

→ Which bees 'sting' and which don't?

Today’s Link of the Day is two, but they are linked together so I can get away with it ;)

It all started with a post from one of my new favourite blogs, Kitchen Butterfly, about Meyer lemons. It’s called The Anatomy of Meyer Lemon, but it’s more of a love poem than a science lesson. It’s all about making use of every tiny particle of a Meyer lemon once you’ve managed to get your hands on it.

And Kitchen Buttefly links to another lovely post, on how to grow Meyer lemons from seed, so once you have got your hands on one you need never be without them.

→ The Anatomy of a Meyer Lemon

Plagues, entomophagy and the Jekyll and Hyde nature of Jiminy Cricket.

→ The crunchy, kosher snack taking Israel by storm

The life of a plant collector is never easy – jetting off to far flung places can be fraught with dangers. Vipers, for example. But it’s important work for those intent on conserving our agricultural biodiversity, and they persevere. This piece from Slate is mainly about avocados, including a variety that is nice in smoothies.

→ The World's Rarest Avocados

Edible flowers are trending upwards at the moment, although (with no garden) they’re a bit tricky for me to grow at the moment. This blog post is a lovely one, explaining the best moment to harvest daylily flowers, with an idea of what to do with them once you have.

→ Golden Needles Harvesting Has Started

To celebrate St Patrick’s day this year, a farming family in Dublin have come up with a new flavour of crisps – Shamrock and Sour Cream*. Apparently the shamrocks used have come from the same farm that supplies the White House. 250,000 bags have been shipped to the UK and are in sale in branches of Tesco.

*Apparently shamrock and garlic isn’t very nice. Who knew? For more about shamrocks and clover, listen to episode 101 of the Alternative Kitchen Garden Show.

→ Shamrock-flavoured crisps

I recently blogged about a trip to the Kew Fungarium, where I encountered some useful lichens (which aren’t plants, but a double-act of a fungus with (usually) a green alga). Lichens are fascinating things, about which I know very little, but OPAL have produced an identification chart for common orchard lichens, which is downloadable as a PDF file – so you can have a go at spotting them when you’re out and about. There’s also a second guide for orchard mosses.

→ Opal's orchard lichen ID chart

Marine biologists have discovered that a sperm whale that washed up on the Spanish coast died from ingesting plastic waste from greenhouses on the coast that supply tomatoes and vegetables for British supermarkets. It’s not pleasant reading supermarket shoppers, but then neither was the Salad Slave report from 2011. I’d grow your own, if I were you.

→ Spanish sperm whale death linked to UK supermarket supplier's plastic

A chef in Israel has come up with a novel suggestion regarding the plague of locusts that has just been swept in on the wind from Egypt – he’s going to turn them into risotto. There’s a distinct religious lean to this piece from the Guardian, but there’s also some intriguing hints on eating and cooking locusts, including a pasta recipe….

→ Israeli locust plague is a blessing for adventurous palates