Posted on 05/01/2024 6:00:41 AM PDT by Diana in Wisconsin
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May Day
Origins of May Day: Beltane
The Celts of the British Isles believed May 1 to be the most important day of the year, when the festival of Beltane was held.
This May Day festival was thought to divide the year in half, between the light and the dark. Symbolic fire was one of the main rituals of the festival, helping to celebrate the return of life and fertility to the world.
When the Romans took over the British Isles, they brought with them their five-day celebration known as Floralia, devoted to the worship of the goddess of flowers, Flora. Taking place between April 20 and May 2, the rituals of this celebration were eventually combined with Beltane.
May Day Maypole Dance
Another popular tradition of May Day involves the maypole. While the exact origins of the maypole remain unknown, the annual traditions surrounding it can be traced back to medieval times, and some are still celebrated today.
Villagers would enter the woods to find a maypole that was set up for the day in small towns (or sometimes permanently in larger cities). The day’s festivities involved merriment, as people would dance around the pole clad with colorful streamers and ribbons.
Historians believe the first maypole dance originated as part of a fertility ritual, where the pole symbolized male fertility and baskets and wreaths symbolized female fertility.
The maypole never really took root in America, where May Day celebrations were discouraged by the Puritans. But other forms of celebrations did find their way to the New World.
During the 19th and 20th centuries, May Basket Day was celebrated across the country, where baskets were created with flowers, candies and other treats and hung on the doors of friends, neighbors and loved ones on May 1.
https://www.history.com/topics/holidays/history-of-may-day
Anyone have any experience with Hydrangeas?
Good bye winter here comes spring/summer. Get those plants in
the ground, watch them grow and enjoy till the next freeze.
Sadly no, tried them around here years ago. Not enough sun.
Still way too cool in North Dakota. Buds are barely on the trees. Night time temps still in the low-mid 30’s.
Please add me to your Ping list.
Done! Welcome! :)
So I woke up at 7 and the first thing I did was look around for the peacocks. That was bizarre yesterday. Weather is warming up at night so I am going to put all my seedlings outside for day and night, except the tiny ones that need repotting. It will be compost spreading time soon. Picking asparagus every other day now. No orioles yet but jelly has been out. They prefer jelly to oranges. Just one hummingbird so far. Blossoms out on the pawpaws, they are just very small now. Mason bees have been coming in and out of the two houses almost a month now. The full houses go in the barn for the winter in a gauze bag. Love spring!
Spring is finally here, hooray! Now I need to get some sweet basil to put outside- I can’t have it inside, the cats will get to it…
The first week in April we had a Late Freeze and Snow, killed most everything I planted. I had a lot of everything in the Green House growing so I was able to replant all my tomatoes,zucchini,peppers,cantelope, eggplant...Broccol;i, cauliflower, cabbage carrots and radishes managed to survive though. This weekend I will finish planting the sprouts in the green house.
Hydrangea are my favorites. I had many different varieties at my old farm - still shopping/deciding what to put in here at the ‘new’ (1900’s!) farm. ;)
https://www.monrovia.com/be-inspired/hydrangea-care-guide.html
Saw the radar yesterday, and it looked like it was still snowing north of you.
I’ll stop complaining, now. ;)
Thank you!
When when my brother and I were kids, one of our neighbors paid us 5 cents a pound to pick her asparagus after school. She had a huge asparagus patch.
I would get mad at my brother because he always made more money than me- I would miss a LOT of asparagus and he would go back over my part of the patch and pick what I missed. I think his eyes were better than mine.
Thanks for the May Day history. Good gardening BUMP.
Olive Brine Hot Pepper Sauce
A simple, hot pepper sauce condiment, needs only a little repurposed green olive brine and vinegar, and some really HOT chile peppers.The bottle in the picture used 15 – 17 Pimenta Reaper peppers. Allow 20 min to pack bottle and 1 minute to add brine. Looks so pretty on your table.
Supplies A glass jar--- mouth wide enough for 15 peppers. Chopstick to place peppers in jar.
Ingredients 15 or more (depending on jar and size of chile peppers), HOT, long, thin chile peppers (e.g., reapers, chile pequin, chile de arbol, Thai chile) small.Brine from a jar of green olives. Distilled White Vinegar* You need a ratio of 1:1 (brine:vinegar) and enough liquid to fill the jar once the peppers have been stuffed into the jar. For jar w/ 15 peppers. use a little more than 1/2 cup of each – brine and vinegar.
Instructions Clean and rinse jar. Sterilize in a water bath 5 minutes or rinse (don’t dry) and micro 3 min. While the jar is cooling, stab each pepper w/ paring knife to make a ¼” vertical cut; allows air to seep out and the brine to leak in. Once cool enough to handle, remove the jar to counter, and carefully add peppers. Use chopstick to hold and position peppers. The neater you pack them, the more you can get in the jar. Heat the brine/vinegar mixture. Btb,then let cool 1 minute.
Carefully pour into jar to about 3/4 full. Lightly tap the bottom of the jar to release air bubbles. Continue to fill and tap the jar to get as much of the brine mixture in and as much of the air out as possible. Let set on the counter for a few hours, tapping periodically. As the liquid level drops, add more of the brine/vinegar mixture.
Place in the refrigerator, let sit for 2 weeks and enjoy! Once the jar is almost empty, you can heat up more brine and vinegar and refill. Can refill several times .
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