Mesquite Milling Mania

Saturday July 1, 2023, 7am-11am
Location: At Mission Garden, Check in, pod sorting, & payment inside visitor gate near shop, Milling happens in the threshing ground, Information tables and presentations in the Placita and Event Ramada
Cost: Entry to the garden is free but there will be a fee for milling of $10 per 5-gallon bucket of pods. All other monetary gifts are appreciated. Your gifts keeps the garden growing.

This is an opportunity to bring in mesquite pods that you have harvested to get them milled into flour. Mission Garden will have three portable stamp mills running.

Mesquite flour can be used in a variety of sweet and savory recipes. Ground mesquite pods have been used for millennia for food.

Collaborators for this event include:

Tohono O’odham Community College (+ their mill)
Community Food Bank’s Las Milipitas Farm (+ their mill)
Southwest Sustainable Services (+ their mill)
Desert Harvesters will be selling the new edition of their book, Eat Mesquite & More
Baja Arizona Sustainable Agriculture
Iskashitaa Refugee Network

PROCESS

Mission Garden will open earlier than usual, at 7am, to get the milling started early due to the hot weather. Milling is time-consuming, so to keep the process moving we will accept a maximum of three 5-gallon buckets of pods per person. If you have more than that, please leave them in the car!

We will not accept mesquite pods to be milled after 10am, in order to finish the milling by 11am. (Running mills is hot work, and we’d like the millers to be able to be finished before the worst of the heat.)

When you enter the garden you need to have your pots examined to make sure they are clean enough to put through the mill, and free of mold (see harvesting instructions below). Then your pods will be measured and you will be charged $10 per 5-gallon bucket of pods. Your pods will be marked as inspected and paid, and labeled with your name.

You will be directed to take your pods to one of the three mills. Depending on demand, it may take 30-60 minutes for your pods to be milled.

While you are waiting for your pods to be milled, please visit the Placita and Event Ramada, where there will be educational displays and information tables about mesquite. Learn more about mesquite trees. Learn other ways to use mesquite pods besides by milling them into flour!

The book Eat Mesquite & More , 2nd edition, will be on sale. Published by the non-profit Desert Harvesters, this book has many recipes that use mesquite flour as well as others that incorporate other wild desert foods of the Sonoran Desert.

There will be a designated area in which to pick up your milled mesquite flour!

BASIC HARVEST, STORING, & PLANTING TIPS from Brad Lancaster’s Dunbar/Spring Neighborhood Foresters

Pick pods from tree not the ground.
Pick them when they are ripe, yellow, and dry enough that they snap in two when you try to bend them.
Taste pod from a mesquite tree. If you like it, pick more. If you don’t like it, go try a pod from another tree. (Every tree has its own flavor).
Store pods in a DRY place where rodents can not get to them.
When you bring the pods to the milling event, make sure they are in food-grade containers with your name and contact info on them, and make sure you ONLY have clean dry pods in the containers – NO leaves, rock, dirt, debris, etc.

Additional recommendations about harvesting, milling, and using mesquite are available here.

Many non-native, South American mesquite trees have been planted in Tucson. Native velvet mesquite trees (Prosopis velutina) more often have great tasting pods than non-native mesquites. Native mesquites are also believed to be better for native wildlife and are less likely to fall down during a windstorm. So, if planting a mesquite tree—plant a native!

There is more information here about how to tell a native velvet mesquite from the non-native South American mesquites.

There are many uses for mesquite trees. They are wonderful, drought-tolerant shade trees. They are hosts for any number of native animal species, including many birds that nest or forage in their branches.

ITINERARY
7am Garden opens for mesquite milling
7am-11am Educational displays and information tables
10am Last mesquite pods accepted for milling
11am Milling is finished
12pm Garden closes