Save the Bees!

Laura Kelley's team of organic gardeners will be busy at Chez Sven today, busy as bees. The ladies will be mulching, and edging, making our gardens as beautiful as last year. It is important for a bed & breakfast to look nice. Bees buzzing through the flowers adds an element of peace.

Speaking of bees, Mother's Day is right around the corner. Yesterday I got the following urgent message: HELP HONEYBEES THRIVE IN SOMEONE SPECIAL'S HONOR FOR MOTHER'S DAY!

It read, "Bees are incredibly important to our food supply: one out of three bites of food you take is made possible by bee pollination. And bees are way cool! But our hard-working bee friends have it tough right now. Commercial beekeepers reported 30-50% bee losses over last winter, and pesticides are likely part of the problem. Your gift will help our legal team protect bees, especially against pesticides that are extremely toxic to them."

So, please go to the NRDC Web site and order up a $35 gift card for Mom. Your gift will help save the bees and our food, which needs pollination to grow ...

What's On My Food?

Above, two boxes of strawberries. On the left, the berries grown in my brother’s yard. On the right, berries from the farmer’s market in Amherst. Both varieties were full of flavor and pesticide-free. Now, the next time you are at the store check out the berries not labeled organic and packaged in plastic by a company whose name begins with D. They are huge and flavorless and, no doubt, laden with pesticides. I discovered a new site which I would like to pass along: What’s on my Food? Take a look. If enough people start paying attention and speak up, perhaps the folly of pesticide-laden foods will end. (This spring a Harvard study linked ADHD to organophosphate pesticide exposure.)

People across America are realizing the benefit of local food, grown in community gardens. Perhaps the urge to eat organic is why a community garden was started last year here in Wellfleet, located beside the Senior Center? Preservation Hall is holding its annual garden tour this Sunday, and the tour ends at the Community Garden, after informal visits to four other Wellfleet gardens. Preservation Hall events are always worth attending. The tour starts at noon and continues all afternoon. Tickets can be purchased online. (Here Sven sits in the flower garden at Chez Sven. Who knows? Perhaps one day it, too, will be on the Preservation Hall garden tour?) Finally, on June 29 Slow Food Cape Cod will show Fresh by Ana Sofia Joanes at Main Street Gourmet in Orleans, 7 pm. Organizer Mary DeBartelo asks that we all think about this question: where do you buy your food and how do you make your purchase decisions. To reserve for the screening and potluck, contact Mary at Main Street Gourmet.