It’s All Connected

Back and fingers aching I return home at the end of the day. My host family knows better than to ask me what my day was like. I walk by a little stooped over. I only have one thing to say, “Thistle.”

This year Colchester’s fields have been particularly filled with thistle, and as we have dug it out with shovels and picked it out by hand, we have cursed this nasty little weed. “Why? Why? What have we done to deserve this?” we ask Theresa. The answer to that question is a little more complicated than you would think.

Like this year, there wasn’t much rain last year. According to Renee Brooks Catacalos in her article A Honey Fanatic, “…last year’s drought was particularly bad for nectar source plants,” (Edible Chesapeake, Summer 2008). This meant that honey bees and other pollinators had to look beyond their normal sources for nectar, and they turned to thistle.
The resulting overpopulation of thistle in our fields may in large part be due to honeybees focusing their attention on our thistle during the drought.

At least now when I am digging Thistle, I console myself by thinking about my Saturday reward of honey on my toast.