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August 11, 2022

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Food and Garden Food-Garden Homepage Food and Garden Food-Garden Portal lead

Adkins Mystery Monday: What Fuzzy Critter Did We Find?

August 8, 2022 by Adkins Arboretum
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Happy Mystery Monday! What fuzzy critter did we find in the sycamore tree?

Last week, we asked you about spotted knapweed (Centaurea stoebe). Spotted knapweed is an invasive plant that tends to grow in disturbed and nutrient-deficient soils. Each plant can produce between 1,000 to 20,000 seeds each year, so it is important to prevent it from setting seed! Every summer, we control the knapweed by manual removal and mowing to allow the areas to seed in with the desirable native meadow species.
#adkinsarboretum #mysterymonday #mysterycritter #mysteryplant #spottedknapweed

Adkins Mystery Monday is sponsored by the Spy Newspapers and Adkins Arboretum. For more information go here.

Filed Under: Food-Garden Homepage, Food-Garden Portal lead Tagged With: Adkins Arboretum

Adkins Mystery Monday: Do You Know What Plant this Flower Bud Belongs to?

August 1, 2022 by Adkins Arboretum
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Happy Mystery Monday! Sometimes we just need to slow down and take a closer look. Look at this beautifully intricate flower bud! Do you know what plant it belongs to?

Last week, we asked you about swamp rose mallow (Hibiscus moscheutos)! Swamp rose mallow is slow to break dormancy in the spring, but once it does, it can reach 3 to 7 feet high with abundant blooms ranging from white to pink. There are even some red cultivars available! These plants like it wet and swampy and are very attractive to bees, hummingbirds, and butterflies.
#adkinsarboretum #mysterymonday #swamprosemallow #mysteryplant #nativehibiscus

Adkins Mystery Monday is sponsored by the Spy Newspapers and Adkins Arboretum. For more information go here.

Filed Under: Food-Garden Homepage, Food-Garden Portal lead Tagged With: Adkins Arboretum

Adkins Mystery Monday: What Native Plant is Blooming in Our Wetland?

July 25, 2022 by Adkins Arboretum
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Happy Mystery Monday! What tropical-looking native plant is blooming in our wetland and bioretention gardens?

Last week, we asked you about dodder (Cuscuta sp.)! Dodder is an annual parasitic plant that grows on other plants and taps into their stem using a modified root structure called a haustoria. By using a host plant for structure and nutrients, dodder’s only chore is to bloom and set seed for future generations. There are seven species of dodder in Maryland and it can generally be identified by the stem and flower color, as well as the flower part arrangement.
#adkinsarboretum #mysterymonday #dodder #ectoparasitic #mysteryplant #notsillystring #whatsinbloom

Adkins Mystery Monday is sponsored by the Spy Newspapers and Adkins Arboretum. For more information go here.

Filed Under: Food-Garden Homepage, Food-Garden Portal lead Tagged With: Adkins Arboretum

Adkins Mystery Monday: What Plant is Growing Around our Wetland?

July 18, 2022 by Adkins Arboretum
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Happy Mystery Monday! It may look like silly string, but it’s actually a plant growing around our wetland. Do you know what it is?

Last week, we highlighted the nodding onion (Allium cernuum). Nodding onion is beautiful in mass plantings, offering delicate blooms bowing in the summer breeze. Nodding onion flowers range from white to pastel pink and are very attractive to hummingbirds, bees, and butterflies. This native perennial is a host plant for the hairstreak butterfly and can grow in stressful environments, like full sun, dry, and sandy soils.
#adkinsarboretum #mysterymonday #mysteryplant #pollinatorplant #noddingonion

Adkins Mystery Monday is sponsored by the Spy Newspapers and Adkins Arboretum. For more information go here.

Filed Under: Food-Garden Homepage, Food-Garden Portal lead Tagged With: Adkins Arboretum

Adkins Mystery Monday: What Native Herbaceous Perennial is Blooming?

July 11, 2022 by Adkins Arboretum
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Happy Mystery Monday! Do you know what native herbaceous perennial is blooming? It thrives in full sun and dry to medium soil and is appropriately named for its downward facing flowers.

Photo credit: Kellen McCluskey

Last week, we asked you about blazing star (Liatris spicata). Also known as gayfeather, blazing star offers a spectacular structural element in the garden while attracting plenty of pollinators including bees, butterflies, and hummingbirds! It is often used in rain gardens and perennial borders.
#whatsinbloom #mysterymonday #adkinsarboretum #blazingstar #nativeplants #pollinatorplants

Adkins Mystery Monday is sponsored by the Spy Newspapers and Adkins Arboretum. For more information go here.

Filed Under: Food-Garden Homepage, Food-Garden Portal lead Tagged With: Adkins Arboretum

Mid-Shore Food: They’re Now Eating Sprouts in Annapolis

July 7, 2022 by Val Cavalheri
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Eat Sprout in Easton and St. Michaels has always been trendy. For good reason–they serve nutritious and innovative food. Next week when they open in Annapolis, the other side of the bridge will find out why this unassuming business is so popular.

Not that it came easy. Some successful businesses are inherited, while others result from a lifelong dream. Then there are the accidental businesses, such as this one.

It all started when Ryan and Emily moved to Easton in 2012. She had been in the Air Force. He had a Masters in Nutrition, and they both had a job helping start someone else’s business. All was going well; they bought a house and had a child, but then in 2015, both lost their jobs.

That’s when things got bad. But people they had met throughout the years reached out wanting to help. Including a friend/client who owned Tiger Roofing in Cambridge—Gary Sampson. Sampson needed someone to cook for him while he tended his burgeoning business. Could the Grolls help?

Ryan and Emily Groll

And so Ryan and Emily began cooking for Sampson as a way to pay for their mortgage while continuing to look for jobs. But the Grolls’ cooking became known. Could they also cook for some of Sampson’s friends? “We decided it probably wouldn’t be that much more challenging,” says Ryan, “since we were already doing it.” Before too long, two became three, then four, and soon they found themselves cooking for about a dozen people.

As can be imagined, that became challenging. The couple was getting up at dawn, shopping, making and packaging the meals, and delivering them (with baby in the back) to their various clients. They would then come home, do the dishes, and research recipes for the following day. Emily compared it to cooking a large family Thanksgiving meal every day, seven days a week.

With that came the realization they were on to a good thing that just might be worthy of their time and investment. What they needed now was a commercial kitchen that would allow them to keep up with their demand. Instead, a family member suggested, what about a food truck?

Emily and her children

Ryan found a place in Michigan that retrofitted old school buses. With the company’s help, the Grolls designed one that would fit their needs. They licensed it, hooked it up to their well and septic, and in 2016 opened Eat Sprout, a subscription-based meal delivery business. “We would do this once a week,” said Ryan. “And when we got busier, we did it twice a week, and then three times a week. Then we brought on our first employee, then our second employee. We sold Emily’s car to buy a delivery van. And then we got our first delivery driver. And it just grew and grew and grew from there.” The growth included a start in the retail business when they began providing food to a couple of companies that allowed them to keep a refrigerator at their location.

Clearly, it was time to expand beyond their 120-square-foot food truck space. After an extensive search, they found a building on Aurora Street and a bank to finance it, and in 2018 Eat Sprout became a place where people could come in and pick up a meal, snacks, and drinks. “One of our mottos,” Emily said, “is ‘if you keep good food in your fridge, you’ll eat good food.’ So it’s up to us to make that happen for you.”

Just as with their personal chef experience and then with their delivery business, soon the clients increased to where the Grolls felt they could grow even further. They opened in St. Michaels at the beginning of 2019 and started to plan going over the bridge. And then, like all stories that begin and end around this time, COVID hit, and doors and plans were shut down.

Once businesses began to reopen, owners were finding a whole new set of problems, including the need for and retention of staff. Where around them, restauranteurs were making do with shorter hours and less help, the Grolls continued to attract a talented group of employees. It may have had something to do with perspective. “Our staff is incredibly talented, and everybody is important,” says Ryan. “The chefs I know work terrible hours, so, for instance, we told our chef we could offer him a different lifestyle. He could make his own schedule, have paid time off as needed, as well as nights, holidays, and weekends. Plus, there are no tickets to fill since this is a production-style kitchen. So how do we keep our staff? By providing them with what they want.”

The Grolls are also thankful for their employees, believing that the creativity of their staff contributes to the success of the products they carry. It is the staff, they say, who tweaked what was already on the menu to make it better or interpreted what the guests were looking for and then made it happen.

Whatever the reason, Eat Sprout is well known and appreciated on the Eastern Shore and is about to be introduced to a new audience. The pause contributed by COVID allowed the Grolls to plan the approach to their expanding business. Location is everything, and they think they found it in Annapolis, next to Home Goods and in the same shopping plaza as Trader Joe’s. It will be a sit-down café with the same feel as the St. Michaels location but with the grab-and-go concept of Easton. But the Grolls’ strategy also includes a hub-and-spoke business model that so far has been working and which they hope will be the blueprint for all future locations.

The hub, at the Easton location, is their central kitchen. That’s where all the talented chefs are and where all the production, logistics, manufacturing, packaging, and quality control happens. From there is the distribution to the various spokes, which has been St. Michaels for the last two years and will now also be in Annapolis. “So the idea is consistency,” says Ryan. Since everything is still made in Easton, they can expect the exact same quality of bread, drinks, snacks, and entrees at all locations because it was all made fresh that day.”

Consistency will also extend to the atmosphere of the Annapolis shop, as some of the Eastern Shore employees will be commuting to help establish the new location. But the Grolls are also excited about this new location for another reason. Both were born and raised in Anne Arundel County, and both lived in Annapolis. So to them, it is almost like coming home and reconnecting with old friends.

“I was at the Annapolis shop doing some work, said Ryan, “and took a quick lunch break. As I’m walking to the parking lot, I hear my name called, and it’s an old friend that I went to high school with years ago. They said they were so excited to see Eat Sprout coming and are bragging to their friends about knowing the guy who owns it. So it’s kind of like some old friends I probably haven’t seen or talked to for over 15 years promoting this for me, just because they know who we are.”

If history repeats itself, it won’t be long before a whole new clientele in Annapolis will also know who they are.

P.S. In case you’re wondering what happened to their old food truck, it is now in the care of another Easton favorite, Four Sisters Kabob and Curry.

Val Cavalheri is a recent transplant to the Eastern Shore, having lived in Northern Virginia for the past 20 years. She’s been a writer, editor and professional photographer for various publications, including the Washington Post.

For more information: https://www.eatsprout.com

Filed Under: Food-Garden Homepage, Food-Garden Portal lead, Spy Top Story

Adkins Mystery Monday: Do You Know What Native Plant Blooms from the Top Down?

July 4, 2022 by Adkins Arboretum
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Happy Mystery Monday! Do you know what native plant blooms from the top down and is appropriately named for the fireworks tonight?

Last week, we asked you about wild bergamot (Monarda fistulosa)! This powerhouse pollinator plant boasts shades of pastel pink and purple in the summer. Monarda is in the mint family and certainly acts like it, as it has a tendency to spread and fill in an area. Its aromatic petals and leaves have a peppery oregano flavor.
#adkinsarboretum #mysterymonday #naturesfireworks #wildbergamot #nativeplant #mysteryflower #powerhousepollinatorplant

Adkins Mystery Monday is sponsored by the Spy Newspapers and Adkins Arboretum. For more information go here.

Filed Under: Food-Garden Homepage, Food-Garden Portal lead Tagged With: Adkins Arboretum

Adkins Mystery Monday: What Flower is Blooming in our Parking Lot Alive! Gardens?

June 27, 2022 by Adkins Arboretum
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Happy Mystery Monday! What enthusiastic native flower is blooming in our Parking Lot Alive! gardens?

Last week, we asked you about ragweed (Ambrosia artemisiifolia)! There are three species of ragweed recorded for Maryland, though this annual ragweed seems to be the most common in our area. While many may dread the ragweed for its wind dispersed pollen, ragweed is an excellent plant for wildlife. It produces abundant seeds that are high in fat and protein and offers cover for birds like quail and turkeys.
#mysterymonday #adkinsarboretum #mysteryplant #nativeplant #ragweed #whatsinbloom #parkinglotalive #plantsforwildlife

Adkins Mystery Monday is sponsored by the Spy Newspapers and Adkins Arboretum. For more information go here.

Filed Under: Food-Garden Homepage, Food-Garden Portal lead Tagged With: Adkins Arboretum

Adkins Mystery Monday: What Plant is Starting to Appear Along the Meadow Edges?

June 20, 2022 by Adkins Arboretum
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Happy Mystery Monday! What plant is just starting to appear along the meadow edges? Hint: this native plant is often considered a weed, but its ecological benefits are nothing to sneeze at.

Last week, we asked you about the Tree Swallow (Tachycineta bicolor)! Tree Swallows have iridescent blue wings with black tips and a white chest. They are often found around open meadows and wetlands, which host plenty of their favorite food — flying insects! They will line the nest with gently curving feathers to protect the eggs and lay 4-7 pure white eggs in each clutch.
#mysterymonday #adkinsarboretum #treeswallow #mysteryplant #nativeplants

Adkins Mystery Monday is sponsored by the Spy Newspapers and Adkins Arboretum. For more information go here.

Filed Under: Food-Garden Homepage, Food-Garden Portal lead Tagged With: Adkins Arboretum

Adkins Mystery Monday: What Bird Lays Pure White Eggs and Lines Their Nest with Feathers?

June 13, 2022 by Adkins Arboretum
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Happy Mystery Monday! What bird lays pure white eggs and lines their nest with feathers?

Last week, we asked you about the netted chain fern (Woodwardia areolata). This fern looks very similar to sensitive fern (Onoclea sensibilis), but can be distinguished by its glossy fronds, alternate pinnae, and netted venation. The netted chain fern has dimorphic fronds where the fertile frond is much more slender than the sterile. Sensitive fern fertile fronds tend to have shallowly lobed pinnae that are opposite to each other. Of course, if you are fortunate enough to see the spore stalks, the netted chain fern spores appear in a netted chain pattern, while sensitive fern has a spike of many paired branches.
#fernsoftheforest #mysteryfern #mysterybird #adkinsarboretum #mysterymonday

Adkins Mystery Monday is sponsored by the Spy Newspapers and Adkins Arboretum. For more information go here.

Filed Under: Food-Garden Homepage, Food-Garden Portal lead Tagged With: Adkins Arboretum

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