Tag Archives: pollinator week

Before the Honey Bee

by Katie | Leave a comment

It’s National Pollinator Week! Did you pick up some local ingredients to make your own pollinator power salad?

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Originally I was going to write a post all about honey bees because they are fascinating creatures. We can’t talk about large-scale commercial food production, without acknowledging our reliance on bees. And if you want to really think about how intimate our relationship with honey bees is, just remember that we eat their vomit and enjoy it! If that isn’t fascinating, I don’t know what is. Continue reading …

Pollinator Power Salad

by Katie | Leave a comment

We originally published this salad recipe four years ago. We’re republishing it today as this is the start of Pollinator Week 2019!

There are many ways to celebrate and show our appreciation for the hard-working pollinators that help to keep nature in balance and play a key role in providing 75% of the food we eat.

  • plant a pollinator garden
  • stop using pesticides on your lawn
  • buy organic produce (to reduce large-scale pesticide and herbicide use)
  • encourage your neighborhood to become Pollinator/Bee Safe

If you’d like to learn more fun-facts about pollinators (and see an awesome video of a nectar-drinking bee-fly!), click here.

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Today we have a recipe for a salad that is jam-packed with good ingredients, and every single one, from the mustard in the dressing to the pumpkin seeds, required pollination to help them grow and reproduce. As you’ll see, the salad looks absolutely beautiful and represents everything that is good about summer. But before you dig in, say thanks to every pollinator that played a role in bringing this food to your table.

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As we mentioned on Monday, about 75% of the food we eat required pollinators to grow and produce seeds. That seems like a lot, but when you look at this salad, it’s so easy to see how that’s possible. In making this salad, I used information from this USDA document to determine which foods required pollination. As you’ll see, I got a bit creative with this salad, but if you have a family of cautious eaters, you can look at Table 1 in that document and find ingredients that suit your household. For example, I didn’t even put tomatoes, which are such a common salad ingredient, in this dish, but they are on the list!

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Natural Bug Sprays

by Katie | Leave a comment

This is part of our ongoing series on using essential oils for home and body care. You can see our archive of essential oil posts here.

We’re celebrating Pollinator Week around here with a series of pollinator-related posts. When you grab a bottle of bug spray, I’m guessing that “pollinator” is not the first word that you think of, instead, it’s likely “mosquito” “f-ing mosquitos”. Am I right? But guess, what?! Mosquitos are pollinators!

Pollination aside, we will never grow to love the pesky mosquitos, ticks, and fleas. Today we’re sharing a natural, non-toxic bug spray. I find that this works well when the mosquito populations aren’t too high, but I admit, there are still times, particularly in the swampy waters at the shore, that I have to use something containing DEET. What this spray lacks in DEET, it makes up for in its beautiful scent, and in the ability to personalize (there are so many mixing options below!).

Continue reading …

Pollinator Week!

by Katie | Leave a comment

Today is the start of pollinator week, and we’re always excited for any reason to talk about the role of different organisms in nature, especially when it comes to the variety of species that we are intimately linked to through our food supply. Did you know that 75% of the food we eat is the direct result of pollination. In the US alone, the value of insect-pollinated crops is over $20 billion. But the benefit of pollinators goes well beyond food crops, as they are essential for preserving the biodiversity of native habitats. When talking pollinators, bees often come to mind, but did you know that butterflies, flies, birds, moths, bats, and other mammals are also pollinators? In fact, around the world there are over 200,000 species of pollinators!

In this post we’ll answer some of the big questions about pollinators, why they’re important, why they’re at risk, and what we can do to help them. Throughout the rest of the week, our posts will be tied to pollinators in one way or another. Check back to see what we’re up to!

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