the diggers - dorchester garden clubbarbara ellis, author chesapeake gardening . and landscaping:...

THE DIGGERS Dorchester Garden Club Spring/Summer 2017

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Mark Your Calendars

JUNE, 2017 3 “A River Runs” Small Standard Flower Show

Old Firehouse, Snow Hill, MD Hosted by Worcester County Garden Club

4-11 National Garden Week 9 DGC Annual Picnic and Awards at the home of

Jeanne Bernard

AUGUST, 2017 11 DGC “Art Blooms” monthly meeting at

Dorchester Center for the Arts hort entries 9:30- 10:30. Business Meeting 11 am. Contact Judy Slaughter to pre-register for a floral design Interpretation by July 15 [email protected]

SEPTEMBER, 2017

6 District 1 Board Meeting 7 DGC September Meeting “Embracing Diversity

With Native and non-Native Plants” Barbara Ellis, author Chesapeake Gardening And Landscaping: the Essential Green Guide Oxford Community Center. 11-noon

entries. 12:30 Meeting. 2pm Program 21 “A Blast from the Past” Standard Flower

Show, Kent Island Volunteer Fire Dept. 26-27 FGCMD Environmental Studies School Course 1. Cylburn Arboretum Baltimore Contact Linda Harris at [email protected] 28 Chestertown Garden Club Susan Foundation

Program featuring Kent Russell. Chestertown Yacht and Golf Club OCTOBER, 2017

13 DGC October Meeting “Fairy Garden Workshop” with Mary Lynn McCabe, Floral Designer Robin’s Nest at Eastern Shore Hospital Center. Meeting 11 am

Photo: DGC and Dorchester Center for the Arts

10th Annual Guest Artist Gala Floral Interpretations See Pages 14-15

Information for programs sponsored by other Clubs is at http://www.fgcofmd.org/Calendar_Events.html

mailto:[email protected]

http://www.fgcofmd.org/Calendar_Events.html


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2017 Annual Meeting and Installation of Officers The Dorchester Garden Club’s Annual Meeting and installation of the new 2017-2019 officers was held at the Eastern Shore Hospital Center on March 10, 2017. Outgoing club president Julia Berman acknowledged and thanked the members of her Executive Board for their service for the past two years. Ms. Berman also announced that the Dorchester Garden Club had received four state awards: The Federated Garden Clubs of Maryland Award of Merit for “The Potting Shed” Standard Flower Show to Faye Phillips; Second Place Dessie Moxley Youth Involvement Award to Nancy Hastings and Nancy Hebdon for their work with Camp Agape; First Place Yearbook Award “For the Love of Gardening” to Dee Terry; and Second Place Award “The Diggers” newsletter to Ellen Higgins. Bonnie Stevens, a member of the Dorchester Garden Club since 1983 and founder of the Oxford Garden Club, welcomed and installed the officers for the 2017-2019 term. Pictured below, left to right, President Jeanne Bernard, Treasurer Nancy Hebdon, Vice President Lynne Davis, Recording Secretary Sandy Lucas and Corresponding Secretary Pat Beck who was not in attendance.


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Bonnie, upper left did a lovely job with the installation. And some sweet photos of Julia and Jeanne Guest speaker, Karen Collins of Hillstead Gardens in Easton and a member of the American Hemerocallis Society, shared her experience in creating her daylily garden which has received national recognition for the number of cultivars grown in a small area. Karen shared her extensive knowledge about daylilies that she described as a “no fuss, no muss perennial” well suited for Eastern Shore gardens -- easy to grow, pest and disease free, drought tolerant and available in a wide variety of types and colors. Karen expects that the 2017 Open Garden will be June 24 / 25 or July 1 / 2, depending on weather conditions for peak bloom!


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Thanks to Judy Slaughter and the amazing catering staff at the ESHC for another superb luncheon spread!

The meeting also included our club’s hallmark mini-flower show exhibition. The design section featured a special “Art Blooms at the Eastern Shore Hospital Center” for which our talented club members interpreted botanical watercolor paintings by patients of the Eastern Shore Hospital Center. (See photos Page 6)


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1st Place Design Class 1 Faye Phillips 1st Place Design Class 2 Susie Middleton


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And a sampling of the March Horticultural entries…


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The March mini flower show and design awards are listed below: Division I-Horticulture Class 1 Forced Branches 1a. Forsythia, 1st Wanda Ciekot 1b. Pussy Willow, 1st Karen Cartwright 1c. Other, 1st Beverly Shelly, 2nd Kay Karminski Class 3 Conifers-One branch 3b. Without Cones or Berries: 2nd Beverly Shelly Class 4 Broadleaf Evergreen Tree or Shrub-one branch 4a. Flowering: 1st Barbara Stockton, 2nd Kathy Miller, 3rd Patti Hopkins 4b. Foliage: 2nd Beverly Shelly 4c. Fruited: 1st Barbara Stockton, 2nd Beverly Shelly Class 5 Ilex (Holly)-one branch 5a. Foliage: 1st Beverly Shelly, 2nd Martha Hoyer 5b. Fruited: 1st Beverly Shelly Class 6 Container Grown Plants 6a. Flowering: 1st Kathy Miller 6b. Foliage: 1st Nancy Hastings, 2nd Susan White Class 7 Open Class 7b. Perennial: 1st Kay Karminski, 2nd Martha Hoyer, 3rd Barbara Stockton 7b2. Perennials- Other: 1st Linda Easter, 2nd Mary Jo Papin, 3rd Patti Hopkins, HM Kathy Miller, Gloria Warner 7c Biennial 1st Patti Hopkins 7d. Bulb, corm, rhizome, tuber: 1st: Beverly Shelly, 2nd Karen Cartwright, 3rd Deana Kozak, HM Sue Jones, Wanda Ciekot Division II-Design Design Class 1: 1st Faye Phillips, 2nd Fran Collins, 3rd Julia Berman, HM Karen Cartwright Design Class 2: 1st Susie Middleton, 2nd Kay Karminski, 3rd Lynne Davis


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DGC April 14, 2017 Meeting “Four Points of Design” Club Members were back at the Eastern Shore Hospital Center for the first monthly meeting of the 2017 Program Year, featuring a series of mini workshops on floral design presented by Jeanne Bernard, Faye Phillips, Susie Middleton and Judy Slaughter. Special thanks to Alison Buczek for capturing photos from the day for us since I could not attend!

Jeanne’s “Designer’s Choice Using an Accessory”


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Faye’s “Multi Rhythmic” (Far Left) Susie’s “Under Water”

Judy’s Creative Line


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In addition to the design workshops, members brought in horticultural and design entries for the April mini flower show….


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Results of the Horticulture and Design Awards for April: Division 1 – Horticulture Class 1 – Standard Daffodils a - Division 1 – Trumpet 1st Fran Collins b - Division 2 - Large cup 3rd Fran Collins d - Division 4 -1. Double. One bloom to a stem 1st Fran Collins d – Division 4 -2. Double. More than one bloom to a stem 1st Sandy Lucas, 2nd Beverly Shelly h – Division 8 – Tazetta 1st Fran Collins, 2nd Helen Davies Class 2 Miniature Daffodils a - Division 1 – Trumpet 1st Evelyn Renkwitz e - Division 5 – Triandrus 3rd Barbara Stockton Class 4 – Conifers a – with Cones or Berries 1st, Martha Keating b – without Cones or Berries 1st Beverly Shelly, 2nd Cookie Brohawn Class 5 – Broadleaf Evergreen Tree or Shrub a – Flowering 1st Gloria Brake, 2nd Beverly Shelly, 3rd Kathy Miller b- Foliage 1st Cookie Brohawn, 2nd Beverly Shelly c – Fruited 1st Cookie Brohawn Class 6 – Deciduous Tree or Shrub a – Flowering 1st Martha Keating, 2nd Kathy Miller, 3rd Barbara Stockton, HM Pat Beck a1- Flowering-white 1st Beverly Shelly, 2nd Cookie Brohawn, 3rd Helen Saum c – Fruited 1st Cookie Brohawn Class 7 – Ilex a – Foliage 1st Beverly Shelly b – Fruited 1st Evelyn Renkwitz, 2nd Barbara Stockton, 3rd Beverly Shelly Class 8 – Open Class b – Perennial 1st Helen Davies, 2nd Kathy Miller b – Perennial Any Other 1st Sue Jones, 2nd Barbara Hubbard, 3rd Nancy Hebdon d – Bulb, corm, rhizome, tuber 1st Cookie Brohawn, 2nd Kathy Miller, 3rd Helen Saum d2-Bulb, corm, rhizome, tuber Other 1st Wanda Ciekot, 2nd Beverly Shelly, 3rd Jennie Rideout, HM Fran Collins e – Vines 1st Cookie Brohawn


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Division II Design Class 1 – Reflective Design

Kay Karminski, 1st Place Wanda Ciekot, 2nd Place Class 2 – Illuminary Design

Karen Cartwright, 1st Place


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DGC and Dorchester Center for the Arts April 27th 10th Annual Guest Artist Gala The theme of the 10th Annual Dorchester Center for the Arts Guest Artist fund raising gala was “Monet’s Garden.” In keeping with the theme, floral arrangements designed by members of the Dorchester Garden Club were featured. DGC members created interpretive designs inspired by Monet’s home – the green shuttered house in Giverny, France. Each design featured a green shutter. The beautiful designs were made available for the event’s silent auction. Our club’s participation is in keeping with the goals and objectives of the national Garden Club for community education and outreach. These lovely designs were the focal point of the event and raised over $300 for the Dorchester Center for the Arts. Photos compliments of Jeanne Bernard, Mary Slacum and Judy Slaughter!

Design by team Karen Cartwright and Faye Phillips

Team Linda Rossi and Judy Slaughter Team Kay Karminski and Mary Slacum


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Team Susie Middleton and Donna Dunlap

Team Jeanne Bernard and Martha Keating Team Lynne Davis and Sandy Lucas


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Beautiful Day at the National Arboretum The weather could not have been more picture-perfect for the DGC Bus Trip to the National Arboretum. Many thanks to David for coordinating this wonderful excursion and to Linda and Jennie for helping to make it as special as it was. David was a wonderful tour guide… lunch was delicious… and the muffins and cookies were such a nice touch! What a magnificent treasure the National Arboretum is. I can’t believe I’d never been there before, but I will definitely be planning on returning often. Thanks to Mary S. for sharing the photos!


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How Spiders Increase Plant Diversity … May 7, 2017 blog from indefenseofplants.com

If healthy ecosystems are what we desire, we must embrace predators. There is no way around it. Because of their meat-based diets, predators can have serious effects on plant diversity. Generally speaking, as plant diversity increases, so does the biodiversity of that region. It's not just large predators like wolves and bears either. Even predators as small as spiders can have considerable impacts on not only plant diversity, but ecosystem processes as well. Before we get to that, however, we should take a moment to review some of the background on this subject. The way in which predators mediate plant diversity falls under a realm of an ecological science called top-down ecosystem controls. In a top-down system, predators mediate the populations of herbivores, which takes pressure off of the plant community. It makes a lot of sense as a numbers game. The fewer herbivores there are, the better the plants perform overall. However, ecology is never that simple. More and more we


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are realizing that top-down controls have less to do with fewer herbivores than they do with herbivore behavior. Herbivores, like any organism on this planet, respond to changes in their environment. When predators are present, herbivores often become more cautious and change up their behavior as a result. Such is the case of grasshoppers living in fields. Grasshoppers are incredibly numerous and can do considerable amounts of

damage to plant communities as they feed. Picture swarms of locusts and you kind of get the idea. Given the choice, grasshoppers will preferentially feed on some plants more than others. Such was the case when researchers began observing grasshopper behavior in some old fields in Connecticut. The grasshoppers in this study really seemed to prefer grasses to all other plants. That is unless spiders were present. In this particular system lives a spider known as the nursery web spider (Pisaurina mira). The nursery web spider is an effective hunter and the fact does not seem to be lost on the grasshoppers.

In the presence of spiders, grasshoppers change up their feeding behavior quite a bit. Instead of feeding on grasses, they switch over to feeding on goldenrod (Solidago rugosa). Although the researchers are not entirely sure why they make this shift, they came up with three possible explanations. First is that the goldenrod is much more structurally complex than the grass and thus offers more places for the grasshopper to hide. Second is that goldenrod fills the grasshoppers stomach in less time thanks to the higher water content of the leaves. This would mean that grasshoppers had more time to watch for predators than they would if they were eating grass. Third is that the feeding behaviors of both arthropods allows the grasshopper to better keep track of where spiders might be lurking. It is very likely that all three hypotheses play a role in this shift.

It's the shift in diet itself that has ramifications throughout the entire ecosystem in question. Many goldenrod species are highly competitive when left to their own devices. If left untouched, abandoned fields can quickly become a monoculture of goldenrod. That is where the spiders come in. By causing a behavioral shift in their grasshopper prey, the spiders are having indirect effects on plant

diversity in these habitats. Because grasshoppers spend more time feeding on goldenrods in the presence of spiders, they knock back some of the competitive advantages of these plants. The researchers found that when spiders were present, overall plant diversity increased. This is not because the spiders ate more grasshoppers. Instead, it's because the grasshoppers shifted to a diet of goldenrod, which knocked the


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goldenrod back just enough to allow other plants to establish. It's not just plant diversity that changed either. Spiders also caused an increase in both solar radiation and nitrogen reaching the soils! In knocking back the goldenrod, the habitat became slightly more open and patchy as various plant species of different shapes and sizes gradually established. This allowed more light to reach the soil, thus changing the environment for new seeds to germinate. Also, because goldenrod leaves tend to break down more slowly, they can have significant influences on nutrient cycles within the soil. As a more diverse set of plants establish in these field habitats, the type of leaf litter that falls to the ground changes as well. This resulted in an overall increase in the nitrogen supply to the soil, which also influences plant diversity. In total, the mere presence of spiders was enough to set in motion these top-down ecosystem effects. It's not that spiders eat more grasshoppers, it's that they are changing the behavior of grasshoppers in a way that results in a more diverse plant community overall. This is a radically different narrative than what has been observed with examples such as the reintroduction of wolves to the greater Yellowstone ecosystem yet the conclusions are very much the same. Predators have innumerable ecosystem benefits that we simply can't afford to ignore. Photo credits (1) Midwestern Explorer Facebook page, (2) Andrew Cannizzaro, (3) T. Nagy, Nursery Web Spider

On the Lighter Side What should you do if you find a baby bird out of its nest? Rosemary Mosco of Bird and Moon Comics has a handy, humorous chart to help!


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Choosing the Best Tomatoes for Your Garden … John Porter urbangardenguru for Edible Gardening There are several factors that go into choosing the right tomato variety for your garden. Many gardeners focus on characteristics of flavor when selecting varieties, however disease resistance to common diseases and growth habit should also be considered when making choices. Choosing tomato cultivars for flavor and use There are several different characteristics that give tomatoes their flavor. People tend to pick and choose their favorite varieties based on a few different characteristics. Since these characteristics are so varied, the choice of a “best” or “favorite” tomato is a very subjective one. There are over 400 volatile compounds in tomatoes that give them their flavor, including glutamate, which is the major component of a taste category called umami that most people associate with the satisfying savory flavors of soy based Asian dishes, some meats, asparagus, and mushrooms. But what drives most flavor selections in tomatoes are acid and sugar. High-acid and low-sugar tomatoes are very tart, almost sour. Some people love these tart tomato varieties. The common Brandywine tomatoes are very high acid, as are Stupice and Zebra. Tomatoes that have a balance of sugar and acid in them are varieties like Mortgage Lifter, Black Krim, Mr. Stripey, Celebrity, and Big Boy, all of which are very popular for their balanced flavor.


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Low-acid varieties can be an answer for people who do have an issue with acid. Unfortunately, they also sometimes can be bland, especially if they are low-sugar. Varieties such as Ace, Amish Paste, Big Girl, Fireball and San Marzano are more common low-acid selections. When you select tomatoes to grow, you should also keep their intended use in mind. Slicing tomatoes are best used for slicing and using on sandwiches (or slicing and frying when green). Cherry and grape tomatoes are great for salads, because you usually don’t have to cut them for salads. They are also great canned, pickled, or dried. If you want to preserve some tomatoes, I would suggest a variety such as Roma or San Marzano. These paste-type tomatoes are meatier and have less water, which results in a better canned product. They also make great sun-dried tomato varieties. Remember that since tomato acid levels are variable, the recommended canning procedure now includes adding acid in the form of lemon juice or vinegar to make sure bacteria don’t grow in the canned product.

Choosing cultivars for disease resistance There are several common tomato diseases that can drastically affect the quality of your tomatoes and the lifespan of your tomato plants. Some cultivars have been developed that are resistant to common diseases to help reduce disease pressure without having to use control methods. There is a set of codes used to convey these disease resistance characteristics that can be found in seed catalogs or on plant labels or seed packets. Home gardeners should especially look for these cultivars if they have experienced the diseases in the recent past in their gardens. While heirloom varieties have become popular due to their flavor profiles, most do not have the disease resistances that have been

bred into more modern cultivars. A relatively new technique of grafting heirloom tomato plants onto tomato rootstocks bred for disease resistance has been used by farmers and is increasingly available to home gardeners through select suppliers. Choosing cultivars by growth habit Tomatoes can exhibit one of two major growth habits – determinate or indeterminate – that are important to keep in mind when choosing tomato plants for your available space or desired level of maintenance. Determinate tomatoes, sometimes referred to as bush tomatoes, have shorter and bushier growth than indeterminate varieties. They grow to a certain height according to their genetics and will stop growing when they reach that height.


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Due to the more compact growth, these plants often require minimal, if any, staking to stay upright. They make good choices for container growth, since they have a more defined height and width. Some varieties have been bred as super small miniature varieties that will grow even in small containers. For those growing with limited garden space, such as raised beds, the bushier growth means that they require more vertical space than indeterminate types, so you may want to grow indeterminate varieties on a trellis rather than determinate types. Determinate varieties produce a limited number of tomatoes per plant, which usually mature within a short timeframe.

Indeterminate tomatoes, sometimes referred to as vining tomatoes, have long growing branches that require staking or trellising to keep them off the ground. They don’t have directions in their genetic code telling them to stop growing, so they keep growing throughout the growing season as long as they are healthy and have available nutrients and water. They can grow 10 feet long or even bigger. They produce tomatoes throughout the growing season as long as the plant is growing and have no limit on the number of fruits they can produce. For best yields, indeterminate tomatoes usually require pruning when they are young. They especially need to have suckers, or growth in the joint of the nodes, removed.


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Some Good News: Chesapeake Underwater Grassses up 8%; Acreage highest in Decades … Karl Blankinship for The Chestertown Spy April 28, 2017

Underwater grasses, one of the most closely watched indicators of Chesapeake Bay health, surged to the highest levels seen in decades, according to survey results for 2016. This is the second straight year that grasses have set a record. Nearly 100,000 acres of the Bay’s and its tidal tributaries were covered by the underwater meadows, which provide habitat for juvenile fish and blue crabs, as well as food for waterfowl. That was an 8 percent increase over 2015, and more than twice what was in the Bay just four years ago. “It was an impressive year following a previously impressive year and we are at numbers that we’ve not seen — ever,” said Bob Orth, an underwater grass expert with the Virginia Institute of Marine Science who oversees the annual aerial survey, which began 33 years ago. Like all green plants, submerged grasses need sunlight to survive, and the clearer the water, the more sun they get. Because of the link to water clarity, the annual survey of Bay grasses — often referred to by scientists as SAV, for submerged aquatic vegetation — is considered a key indicator of how the Bay is doing. In their own right, grass beds are also a critical component of the Bay ecosystem. In addition to providing food for waterfowl and shelter for fish and crabs, they also pump oxygen into the water and trap sediments. Restoring underwater grass beds is one of the goals of the nutrient and sediment reductions aimed at cleaning up the Bay, as water clouded by sediment or nutrient-fueled algae blooms can be lethal to grass beds.


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The Bay’s underwater grasses were knocked back to 48,195 acres by the one-two punch of Hurricane Irene and Tropical Storm Lee in late summer 2011, which sent a flood of nutrients and sediment into the Chesapeake. But relatively dry conditions since then, which reduced the flow of nutrients and sediments into the Bay, have helped the grasses recover. The result has been unusually clear water in many areas. In fact, some grass beds are becoming so large and robust that they may be able to withstand at least some severe weather events, scientists said. Water has been so clear in places like the Upper Bay’s Susquehanna Flats, that scientists reported dense grass beds extending into deeper areas where they had disappeared in the wake of Tropical Storm Lee. Brooke Landry, a biologist with the Maryland Department of Natural Resources and chair of the Bay Program’s SAV work group, said that when she visited the flats on a field trip to train citizen scientists last summer, the beds were not only expanding but included an “incredible diversity” of species — at least 11. “It was beautiful,” she said of the bed, which reached 5,993 acres last year. “We definitely saw grasses deeper than I would have expected, and the water was crystal clear.” Overall, the survey mapped 97,433 acres in 2016. That was an 8 percent increase over the 92,315 acres observed the previous year. But in 2016, the aerial survey was not able to map some areas due to a mix of weather and security restrictions near the District of Columbia and the Patuxent Naval Air Station. Specifically, parts of the Potomac and St. Mary’s rivers, including Piscataway Creek, were not surveyed in 2016, although they had been mapped the year before. If those areas had the same amount of grass beds as in 2015, last year’s acreage would have increased by nearly 2,000 acres for a Baywide total of about 99,400, said David Wilcox, a VIMS analyst who works on the survey. But even that number is conservative, Wilcox said, because grass beds near the unmapped areas also appeared to have expanded last year. Last year’s mapped acreage represented 53 percent of the Baywide goal of 185,000 acres, and it exceeded an interim target of 90,000 acres set for 2017 under the 2014 Chesapeake Bay Watershed Agreement. One caveat is that much of the recovery is in the moderate-salinity areas of the Mid Bay, a region dominated by widgeon grass, which is a notorious “boom and bust” species that can disappear as rapidly as it pops up. More than half of all underwater grasses in the Bay are found in that area, and it accounted for most of last year’s increase as well. “In 2003, we lost about half of the widgeon grass,” Wilcox cautioned. “If that were to happen next year, our story would be very different, because there’s so much widgeon grass out there.”


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But scientists said they were encouraged that, at least in some places, they were starting to see other underwater species mix with the widgeon grass, which may help make the beds more durable over time. “We’re starting to observe additional species in beds that were just widgeon grass, like redhead grass and sago pondweed, which is a great sign,” Landry said. “So if widgeon grass does crash, in some areas at least, these other species will continue to provide those ecosystem services Bay grasses are so important for.” Though grasses improved Baywide, the survey found that trends varied in different salinity zones around the Bay (the following numbers compare acreages only for areas that could be mapped in both 2015 and 2016): • The tidal freshwaters at the head of the Bay and in the uppermost tidal reaches of most tributaries, saw a 9 percent increase over 2015, to 17,319 acres. • The slightly salty “oligohaline” waters that occupy a relatively small portion of the Upper Bay and tidal tributaries, experienced a 16 percent decrease, to 8,503 acres. • The moderately salty “mesohaline” waters — the largest area of underwater grass habitat, stretching from near Baltimore south to the Rappahannock River and Tangier Island and including large sections of most tidal rivers — had an increase of 20 percent, covering 57,380 acres. • The very salty “polyhaline” waters in the Lower Bay — from the mouth of the Rappahannock and Tangier Island south, including the lower York and James rivers — had 14,226 acres, which was a 15 percent decrease. Scientists said it was unclear why grasses declined in some parts of the oligohaline zone. But observations suggested that, at least in some places, the decline was in hydrilla, a nonnative species that is often quick to colonize unvegetated areas. But hydrilla is also sensitive to higher salinities, and scientists said drier conditions (and therefore higher salinity) in some rivers might have caused localized diebacks. Normally, declines in polyhaline waters are from diebacks of eelgrass, the dominant species in that region — which is always a concern because eelgrass can be slow to recover after setbacks. In fact, it’s been generally declining since the early 1990s. But based on limited observations, Orth said the overall declines in that area last year seemed to be caused by a loss of widgeon grass, even though that species had greatly expanded in other parts of the Bay. “Widgeon grass has always been one of these dynamic species that comes and goes,” he said. Except for 1988, the survey has been conducted annually in the Bay since 1984, when just 38,229 acres were observed — the lowest ever seen. The Bay’s 185,000-acre goal is based on actual acreages that could be observed in historical photographs of the Bay, taken for other purposes during the early and mid-1990s. Karl Blankenship is editor of the Bay Journal and executive director of Chesapeake Media Service. He has served as editor of the Bay Journal since its inception in 1991.


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Diggers in the Kitchen… Grilled Sweet Corn with Chili Lime Sauce (Serves 4)

Dreaming of your first taste of sweet corn this year? My husband and I attended a wonderful cooking class at “Two if by Sea” in Tilghman earlier this month. Chef Henry Miller prepared a number of delicious grilled selections, including one of the best grilled sweet corn recipes I’ve ever tasted. (Those of you attending the “Chillin on the Choptank” small plates dinner Friday evening will have a chance to sample more of Chef Miller’s culinary creations first hand!) Here is the recipe for grilled sweet corn with chili lime mayo. Enjoy! INGREDIENTS 4 ears of sweet corn 2 tablespoons mayonnaise 1 teaspoon chili powder 2 tablespoons parmesan cheese Chopped Cilantro Juice of 1 fresh lime DIRECTIONS

1. Open husks, but leave attached and remove silks from corn. Replace husks and soak corn in cold water 10 minutes

2. Heat indoor or outdoor grill over medium heat 3. Remove corn from water, pull husks back and grill until tender, turning occasionally to achieve charring 4. While corn is cooking, combine mayonnaise and chili powder in a small bowl and thin to desired

consistency with lime juice 5. Spread chili lime mayo on corn, sprinkle with chopped cilantro and parmesan and serve. YUM!

the diggers - dorchester garden clubbarbara ellis, author chesapeake gardening . and landscaping:...

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