Discovering Herbalism :Classes in Avon, Maine

January 29-30, February 19-20, March 12-13, April 23-24, May 14-15

Summer and Autumn Dates TBA

$100 - $150/month, payment plans and thoughtful barter proposals will gladly be considered.

Sean Donahue and Darcey Blue French are offering an opportunity for beginning and intermediate herbalists to develop or deepen their relationships with the healing plants of New England through a series of weekend intensives at our home in Avon, ME.

Through lectures and discussions, readings, meditations, ceremony, and direct experience, participants will learn about:

* Listening to and learning directly from the plants themselves

* The art and ethics of wildcrafting

* Making herbal medicines

* Understanding the energetics of herbal medicine and of the human body

* Nourishing the body, mind, and spirit

* Therapies for chronic and acute injury and disease

* Working with plants in ceremony and magic

* Plant identification and Materia Medica

* Establishing herb gardens

For more information or to register, e-mail herbalists@brighidswellherbs.com

Floor space and limited couch or bed space will be available for those traveling. 

Breakfast will be provided.  Lunch and dinner will be potluck.

It's Time - Quick, before it's too late Plant Tulips – Now!

Planting Tulips
From : Gardening with kids

All flowers are beautiful in their own way. But no other flowers herald spring like tulips, which captured the imagination of the Dutch some 400 years ago and can still steal the show today.

Tools and materials

High-quality tulip bulbs (in mild-winter areas, chill for six to eight weeks)

Trowel or bulb-planting tool

Shovel

Bulb fertilizer

Mulch

Start with quality bulbs, most often from a mail-order supplier but also from a well-stocked garden center. The Netherlands tightly regulates its tulip growers, and as a consequence, all Dutch tulips are of good quality.

If you're shopping at a garden center, shop early in the season and choose only bulbs that are firm and free of defects such as cuts, bruises, or mold. Later in the season, be wary of store-bought bulbs or ones offered at significant discount. We also recommend you buy tulips by variety or species name, not color. "Red tulips" for instance, can mean different kinds of varying performance. Or you may get a mixture of colors.

Mild-winter tulips. If you live where winters rarely or never reach freezing temperatures, tulips likely won't grow all that well. However, you can still grow tulips if you chill them for six to eight weeks before planting (see below). The best choices are Darwin Hybrids or Single Late varieties. The long, strong stems of these tulips are more tolerant of wind and rain, and their midseason blooms appear before hot weather or spring weather.

Or consider some of the species tulips that are better suited to milder climates. These include lady or candy tulip (Tulipa clusiana), with rosy red petals that are white inside; Candia tulip (T. saxatilis), with vivid rose-lilac petals and a yellow base; and yellow Florentine (T. sylvestris). These are smaller and less dramatic than hybrid tulips but are still full of tulip character.

When and where to plant
Plant tulips any time the soil 6 inches deep is 60oF or colder. As a general guide, plant in September or early October in USDA Climate Hardiness Zones 4 and 5; October to early November in zones 6 and 7; November to early December in zones 8 and 9; and late December to early January in zone 10.

In zones 8 through 10, refrigerate tulip bulbs for six to eight weeks before planting. Place them in a paper bag away from ripening fruits (the fruits produce ethylene gas, which destroys the flower bud within the bulb).

Tulips grow best in full sun in well-prepared soil with fast drainage. Avoid planting where water collects, or in locations that are prone to late frosts.

How to plant
The rule is to plant tulips pointed end up and 6 inches deep, meaning 4 inches of soil above the top of the bulb. Plant a little deeper, to 8 inches, if soil is light or sandy, or if pests such as voles are a problem. Those 2 extra inches put them just out of reach of voles. Deep planting also keeps the bulbs cooler, an advantage in mild-winter areas.

For an attractive flower display, plant five tulips per square foot, or 250 bulbs per 50 square feet. Space individual bulbs about 5 inches apart. Use a low-nitrogen granular fertilizer specially formulated for bulbs, and follow label directions about the amount to apply.

When planting a grouping, take the extra care to plant at exactly the same depth; this ensures that they all will bloom at the same time. With a shovel, excavate soil to create a level planting base. Set bulbs into the bed, fertilize, and then cover with excavated soil.

After planting
Firm soil and water thoroughly. Don't water again until leaves appear. In cold-winter areas (zones 3 through 6), apply straw mulch about a month after planting. This gives the bulbs time to begin growth before the soil freezes solidly. The mulch also protects the bulbs if snow cover is light or nonexistent. In mild-winter areas mulch after planting to help keep soil as cool as possible for as long as possible.

Tips
Showy annuals to plant with tulips include 'Carmine King' (pink) forget-me-not with 'Angelique' (pink) tulip; any blue pansy with 'White Triumphator'; or 'Mrs. John T. Scheepers' (yellow) with Chinese forget-me-not (Cynoglossum amabile).

Combine tulips with perennials to maximize the impact of both. For instance, combine 'Beauty of Apeldoorn' tulip with basket-of-gold (Aurinia saxatilis). Or combine any tulip with white candytuft (Iberis sempervirens).

Combinations of tulips to try include 'Golden Apeldoorn' (yellow) with 'Apeldoorn' (red); 'Boccherini' (maroon) with 'Hibernia' (white); or 'Esther' (pink) with 'Shirley' (white with purple).

Check out Gardening with kids Tulip collection. Click here.

Spring Vegetable Soup

So I promise to put up another breakfast post SOON! In the meantime, here's a non breakfast recipe for you to enjoy!

It is the season of transition between winter and summer, the last of the winter root crops are being harvested, and the new spring veggies are starting to ripen. Here's a lovely, rich tasting, vegetable soup for a light evening meal.

1 qt chicken broth, salted
1 tbsp Garum (or asian fish sauce) Note: This is salty, do not add extra salt.
1 tsp thyme
1 tsp summer savory
1 tsp sage leaf
1 tsp dill
4 cloves garlic, sliced thin
pepper to taste

1/2 fennel bulb, sliced
3 small carrots, sliced
1 c snap peas
2 cups fresh nettles ( use dried if needed, or substitute another mild green like spinach or chard)
3 mushrooms, sliced
1/2 yellow summer squash, sliced in half moons
1 bunch green onions, diced
1 c cooked chick peas (or cannellini)

lemon wedges ( garnish)
olive oil (garnish)

In a large sauce pan, combine broth, herbs, and fish sauce. Add diced carrots, fennel, garlic, nettles, squash and mushrooms to the broth. Simmer 5 or 10 min till veggies are cooked through. Add the beans and warm (5 min). Remove from heat. Add green onions and snap peas. Serve immediately.
Garnish bowls of soup with fresh squeezed lemon juice and olive oil.

Perfect light spring supper. If you want something less substantial remove the beans, feel like you need more protein, use chicken in addition to or instead of beans.

More garden love....

My garden is overflowing with luscious winter greens. All those sweaty hours of digging in the October sun were definately worth it. I've got so many greens I can't seem to eat them all. This week I'm freezing or pickling 90% of what I've harvested so the green goodness lasts for months to come. That there is about a 3 x 5 square of tablecloth, loaded with veggies, and I have at least half that amount in the fridge still from my last trip to the garden!
That would be top, from left to right- Swiss chard, cabbage, rapini, mizuna, kale, kohlrabi, dill, cilantro, tat soi, green onions, arugala, snow peas, calendula flowers.


I harvested my first cabbage today! I'm going to turn it into kimchi!




And my new favorite vegetable, rapini or broccoli raab, a bit like broccoli, a bit like cabbage, and oh so versatile, and grows fast! It took only about 30 days to grow, from seed to plate ( in this mild climate anyway, the package says 45 days.)


And of course, don't forget the kohlrabi, basically a swollen broccoli stem, but the perfect dipping vegetable, sliced into thin rounds like chips and dipped into hummus, salad dressing or other things. I like it best raw, but it can be cooked in stirfries or pickled too.

I still have lettuce, spinach, fennel bulbs, carrots (maybe), Beets, mustard greens, chamomile, nettles and dandelion greens to harvest too! 12o sq feet of garden plot grows a lot!

let thy food be thy medicine

Here's a brief article I recently wrote for the community gardens newsletter. Enjoy!

Let Thy Food Be Thy Medicine

Darcey French

Certified Clinical Herbalist, Clinical Nutritionist, Presidio Gardener

The father of Medicine, Hippocrates said, “Let thy food be thy medicine and thy medicine be thy food.” As a lover of plants, both wild and domestic, I’ve learned that some of our most common food plants can be amazing medicines. Here is just a small selection of in-season vegetables, and their lesser known medicinal uses.

Carrot (Daucus carota)

The freshly grated root of the common garden carrot makes a wonderful poultice for nasty sores and ulcers that just won’t heal; painful, festering, and don’t form a scab, i.e. bedsores, cold sores, diabetic ulcers, and persistent boils or cysts. The carrot poultice stimulates the body’s natural healing processes (granulation), cleanses, cools inflammation and reduces the pain. William Cook, a doctor and herbalist in the 1800’s said, “Sores in which it seems impossible to arouse a healing process by ordinary means will usually improve at once under this application. The raw carrots are not to be continued after full vital action in the part has been established.” To make a poultice, grate a fresh carrot and lay it on cloth in a layer about ¼ - ½ inch thick. Lay the cloth carrot side down on the affected area, and wrap the cloth/carrot with another cloth or loose ace bandage to hold it in place. Leave on for 20-30 min. Poultices are most effective when applied several times a day, use a fresh carrot for each application.

Beet (Beta vulgaris)

Beets have long been used in Europe as a liver cleansing and blood building food medicine. Beets contain betaine, a potent nutrient that helps to breakdown homocysteine (a major contributor to cardiovascular disease), and increases liver production of glutathione and superoxide dismutase. These antioxidants are vital to healthy liver function and are considered preventative for cancer. Beet juice or raw beet is helpful for constipation, but start with small doses (1 oz of juice), otherwise it may cause diarrhea. Rich in iron and blood building nutrients, beets are a good food for menstruating women who tend to get pale, dizzy, and weak during menses.

Cabbage (Brassica oleracea)

Many people have heard of drinking raw cabbage juice for gastrointestinal ulcers, it was a prime remedy used the by the ancient Romans for gangrene, war wounds and more, and is an excellent drawing agent for skin infections. A cabbage leaf poultice stimulates circulation and is used in mastitis, arthritis, bruises and sprains, sore throats, and lung congestion. Take a whole cabbage leaf, bruise with a jar or rolling pin, lay on the affected area, and cover with a cloth or ace bandage, leave on for 20-30 minutes, until the leaf becomes warm.

Garlic (Allium sativum)

Garlic is well known for its beneficial effects on cardiovascular disease like lowering LDL cholesterol levels and hypertension. But garlic is so much more! Garlic is one of my personal favorite food medicines for fighting off all sorts of winter illnesses and infections. If I feel like I’m coming down with anything at all (sore throat, sniffles, influenza, cough, UTI) I often reach for some fresh garlic. The easiest way is to crush a quarter clove, smother in honey, taken by the teaspoon every hour. Garlic can be hard on the stomach so I usually suggest taking fresh garlic with food. One of my favorite flu-season recipes is a syrup made with equal portions of honey, garlic and ginger juice (use a juicer for this). The secret to this recipe though, is to bury your jar of syrup in the earth for 17 days. This recipe was passed down to me from my teacher, who learned it from an elder Yogi from India. It keeps well in the fridge for the winter season (3-4 months), and is much easier on the stomach than fresh garlic. Mix in salad dressings, marinades, or take plain in hot water. Garlic is also an excellent remedy for infections on the skin. Never use fresh garlic directly on your skin though, as it will burn and blister. Chopped garlic can be steeped in warm water, wine or vinegar (overnight and strained) and used to wash infected wounds.

This is just a smattering of the many medicinal uses for plants we grow as vegetables in our gardens. As with any herbal medicine, you should always do your own research or consult with someone knowledgeable about the use and safety of botanical medicines. It is prudent to seek the advice of a health practitioner if symptoms do not improve or get worse.

Questions or comments? Feel free to e-mail me @ shamana.flora@gmail.com.

References:

University of Maryland Medical Center, Betaine.

http://www.umm.edu/altmed/articles/betaine-000287.htm

Liver-protecting effects of table beet (Beta vulgaris var. rubra) during ischemia-reperfusion. Nutrition. 2007 Feb;23(2):172-8 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17234508

Project Foodie. Cabbage: A Vegetable Medicine Chest. http://www.projectfoodie.com/from-the-.../garden/cabbage-a-vegetable-medicine-chest.html

The Earthwise Herbal: Complete Guide to Old World Medicinal Plants. Matthew Wood. 2008.

The goings on

I've been meaning to post about my garden, and show you all the pictures of a nice big trench I dug with my wood chopping muscles I grew while I was at the Anima Center. I think I even outdug my sweetie who's been digging with me.

But alas, I've had much more on my plate than I'd like, and have been a bit overwhelmed.

The garden plans are getting in place, we have two 20 ft long 3 ft wide plots at the community garden down the road from our house. 120 sq feet of plantable space. But, that means we need to dig 240 cubic feet of dirt out of the ground, and fill in the plots with lots of manure and soil amendments before we start planting. The new irrigation lines should be in place by Monday, so I'm aiming to fill in plot #1 by friday, which can be then planted on saturday or sunday.

Probably will mostly grow from seed, due to cost, and we have very little frost worry here. But it is still the time to grow the cool season plants, root veggies, cabbage, greens, peas. We're defiantely planting a bunch of cabbage for making kraut with, various greens (mizuna, kale, mustard, bok choi, chard) beets of many colors, carrots ( both of which can be pickled as well). Among other things, we're going to plant a few artichoke plants (under the impression that one plant can grow up to 30 artichokes as long as you keep up with removing the flowers as they grow.)

Strangely, I've been having a difficult time deciding which herbs to plant in my other bed...so many of the medicine plants I use are very easy for me to wildcraft in the nearby mountains. I don't really want to plant mint in a community garden, considering it's invasiveness, and it is the cold season, so I can't plant out anything really sensative to cold, like ashwaganda (which i do want to plant). So...I have a couple of wood betony plants that Jim McDonald gifted me with at the beginning of the year, when I still lived in Colorado. They have had a long journey, and though doing very well in their pots, I think would be happier in the ground, to be fruitful and multiply. Things like fennel, dill, cilantro and such are obvious ones, and I have some seed from my marshmallow plants I grew in Colorado, so I'll plant some of those as well. We have enough space that I'm going to dedicate a nice corner of the plot to a chamomile bed, as it is one of our favorite medicines that doesn't grow very abundantly around here. I'm also hoping to plant a little corner of nettles, which I'll probably mostly use as a food/green, since I dont drink the infusion much (gives me headaches). Will need to experiment more with very young nettles as a food to see if it hurts my head like the infusion does. In the worst case, I'll harvest nettle seeds for medicine.
I'm also going to plant some lemon balm, as it is always better fresh, and a little less invasive than mint.

On other notes, I've been feeling terribly grumpy and overwhelmed with the business aspects of business plans, filing paperwork for establishing LLC status, asking for a small business loan to help start an Earth based wellness center here in Tucson, where I will base my practice out of, along with two other women practitioners, including an Ecotherapist and an Energy Worker ( and not a weekend certified reiki practitioner either. She's been in school for several years, and needs to acquire 200 practice hours before she can claim certification). I'm starting to rethink the idea of asking for a loan at all, but really not sure how I can finance the place (including buying some chairs, and paying the minimal rent) without it.

I'm completely broke again, and though a small trickle of money finds its way to me from consultations and orders, it is in no way a living wage yet, and doesn't even begin to cover my living expenses ( especially with the debt I'm already in from living in Boulder, which was way too expensive). So, I've been diligently trying to find a job, with some positive leads at a local store, but nothing has panned out yet, and its stressing me out. I'm really tired of constantly scraping the bottom of the barrel, and I'm tired of eating beans as my main source of protein. I'm not hungry, i've been donated lots of good things to eat by caring friends, including tons of beans and some treasured cans of wild meat, and as soon as the garden starts producing, we'll be eating organic local produce almost exclusively ( minus the blueberries I love so much, and any other fruit), which will save money in the long term on shopping.

But it isnt my ideal situation, to say the least.

I've been invited to give a talk to a local alternative medicine group next week, about nutrition, and will be talking about simple ways to improve the diet to increase nutrition and overall health. I'm working on the outline, and once I have that complete, I'll probably turn it into a blog post or an article. I'm not so much nervous about the public speaking part, I actually rather enjoy it, and prefer some level improvisational speaking rather than each word planned out and written on an index card, but I am concerned about having enough resources and references to back up the assertions I'm making, since some of what I have to say doesn't jive with the American Dietetic Association, or what doctors are telling their patients to do. Of course, doctors have no where near adequate nutritional education to actually be telling patients about their diets, and i dont know too many docs who are keeping up with modern nutritional science in detail. Things ARE changing, but we've got a long way to go to disperse the myths that any fat is bad, that lowfat high carb diets are the best way to lose weight, or even achieve good health, and that traditional whole foods are far and away better than modern processed food products. Of course, half the battle is just educating folks, so that's what I plan to do with the hour next Tuesday.

Among other things, I got some fresh, ripe peaches very cheap today, and plan to spend the evening and early morning tomorrow canning peach sauce and peach skin chutney for a touch of late summer sweetness in the cold, dark of winter, and make some saurkraut with 2 cabbages. I wont have my own caggabe for probably 2 or 3 months to kraut up, so I'm making it with store bought for the time being. But I definitely feel the autumnal calling to preserve, harvest, and stock up for the cooler season ahead.

No one seems to be able to make the herb walk this coming saturday, so I'm seriously considering rescheduling it for later on this month, in hopes more people will be able to make it.
I have yet to go harvest prickly pear fruit, and passionflower, and I'm getting the feeling I'm not going to have the time to get to it with everything else that needs attention right now. I guess that is what I get for leaving everything for a month to spend time with myself and Gaia in the wilderness, but I needed the time, and the space, and have to accept the consequences of that decision now ( including the part where I'm broke and jobless). Once the wellness center is off the ground, and we're pulling in more local clients, it will help, but that may take another month or so yet.

I've gone on long enough for today, but I'll try and get some pictures of the garden as it progesses over the next few weeks.

Monarda- A semi happy plant cutting

So a few weeks ago while collecting some of the local monarda (m. pectinata) in the wash up in the mountains, I brought a few sprigs home and stuck them in water to keep them fresh for a demo at a talk I was giving. I kept one at home in the water and sure enough, like other mints, it grew roots quickly and easily. So I've potted this little monarda cutting with roots up in some native soil and hoping it will take to transplanting alright. It seems to have started to flower, which may or may not be a good sign. Struggling to reproduce before it dies? Or just in the season of flowering?
Hrmm. I won't be around to baby it, so hopefully it will be alright, but suffice it to say, monarda cuttings root very easily!

Rosey goodness and unseasonably warm autumn weather

Today was a beautiful day. Darin and I woke up early, and did some yoga first thing this morning, and then cooked a delicious breakfast of eggs with green salsa and pan fried salmon with cilantro walnut pesto. We went out into the back yard and sat in the sun while we lit a little fire in the chiminea. I decided it was a good day to make herbal treats, instead of doing homework. So I decided that I needed a dose of Kiva's Briar Rose honey paste, with roses, orange peel and cardamom. Talk about a little taste of heaven. I ground up the sweet fragrant pink roses, orange peel and a touch of cardamom into a fine powder, mixed it with warm honey and poured into a baby food jar.
Soo wonderful! Just plain tasty, but nice for cooling a hot constitution while slightly stimulating the appetite with orange and cardamom. Just lovely!

I also decided to make some rose petal herbal lozenges, for sore throats, or just sucking on for sweetness, with rose petals, rose hips, marshmallow root, slippery elm powder, honey and a sprinkle of water to hold it all together into a stiff dough, which I shaped into little lozenges, and dehydrated in the oven with the light on.

I also made a lovely salve with the rose infused jojoba oil I made last spring. Jojoba is nice and light, and I will use this gentle salve on my face as a moisturizer, and all over for a lovely light rose scent.

Then I made a nice comfrey based salve for my sweetie, because I realized, with all the salves I've made, I didn't have a generic comfrey salve for healing. So into the pan went comfrey infused in almond oil, plantain infused seasme oil, and a touch of calendula oil and rose jojoba oil. Soothing, healing, and just what my sweetie needed.

We decided after that to take a little walk down the bike path to the Juice/smoothie place down the way. It ended up being a bit longer than we had thought, but the smoothies were good, and the weather was amazing. It was about 45 on saturday, and today, it was about 75!! We walked down the path, talking to prarie dogs, chirping and wagging fat little tails as we walked by.

Of course, then I got into the cattails and couldn't resist breaking open the brown fuzzy tails into white fuzzy clouds of cattail explosion. I threw them into the air, and they fell down all over us, floating on the wind, in the warm sun. I love playing with fuzzy seeds! Darin says that me playing with the cattails, in the sun, dancing around and laughing and playing brought out my true nature, the Darcey that I really am. Not this mundane go to work , go to school , do homework drone that my life has become. I need to play with cattails outside more often....

It was so nice out we decided we were going to sleep out in the back yard this week. I made a big pot of bison chili for dinner, which we finished off with some dark chocolate.

Quite a perfect day!

Harvest Days

Well it's definately that time of year, the garden is beginning to overflow with bounty....I can't even begin to imagine what to do with all the purslane! We're swimming in it. We've pickled some, but I dont know what else to do to preserve it for the winter? Any great ideas? SHort of getting a five gallon bucket and making 5 gallons of pickles.
Of course the proverbial zucchini plant is overwhelming us with giant zuchiniis, and the crookneck is about to start doing the same. Tonight we're having squash blossom fritters, fried crookneck slices, some fresh raw peas, and brats.
Carrots are abundant, beets are swollen and sweet, beans are growing, and the butternut squashes are growing, but still green, promising winter nights full of nourishing goodness. I'm still trying to figure out how to preserve more of this food. I think it might be time for me to invest in a pressure canner.
I mean, I am still swimming in kale. Frozen kale would be ok, but the freezer is broken at the moment, zuchiinii pickles maybe ok but i think canning might be the best way to go on this.

On the herb front, i'm harvesting calendula flowers every other day, but some of them are being eaten by these black beetles. Hyssop is flowering and I have that drying at well. Soon I'll be collecting catnip, marshmallow leaves and flowers for tea, and basil for pesto!
The tulsi basil I planted this spring is growing, but very small yet. Not really big enough to harvest from yet, and I'm kind of counting on harvesting some of all three varieties for tincture,a nd hopefully there will be enough for teas as well.

The chokecherry brandy turned out just amazing, and I'm thinking of getting more this weekend for more brandy. It is just delicious! Wild plums aren't quite ripe yet, but plum brandy is the way to go on that too.

It's dinner time, more on harvesting soon!

Summer is in full swing

I can't keep up!
I've been so busy...my head is spinning. I've finished up classes for the summer, then I moved to a new house, have been trying to keep up the garden and purslane is running away with me. I can't seem to eat it fast enough, and i've already pickeled a lot. the calendula is blooming and i'm just getting ready to go away again to Mt Hood in oregon for an amazing plant field trip.

dont expect too much from me in the month of july. ....i'll be busy and away and trying to get some more sleep and take care of my health.

See you all soon! Enjoy your summer time!

Gaia's gift of a Garden

Having your own garden is truly one of Gaia's great gifts. I know, I know, the whole wild world is Gaia's garden, and I'm a HUGE fan of wild foods, and wild medicinal plants. They can't be topped really, and if i had my druthers, all my food would be wild. But alas, i live in the city, and i am too busy to wander the hillsides finding food and hunting....

so i grow a little garden down the street at the community gardens.

I recieved a small plot in march, and began working it at the beginning of april. Many weeks i waited while little seedlings were growing and stretching their arms to the warm sun, that has transformed the frozen Rockies into a burgeoning bliss of wildflower profusion.



I'm really a novice gardener, almost all my medicine plants I wildcrafted in the past, or grew in pots on my patio in Arizona, but last year, my love taught me some things about having a garden, and now i feel somewhat more confident that i can grow a few things in the dirt. Even in Arizona we had an amazingly successful garden.



SInce I planted early in April, I went with cool season crops that would be hardy to frost, but it seems now i should be planting summer veggies, and i'm not ready yet.

Oh what a treat to eat the fresh spring greens straight from the dirt...mizuna, lettuces, kale, chard, radishes and soon, peas, beans, daikons, bok choy and carrots!

There's nothing like seeing seeds you put in the ground, grow, and then nourish yourself with the plant that you so lovingly nourished into life, with your love and attention, and of course, the great nourishment provided by Mama Earth, in her dirt, rains, and sunshine. It's a big gifting cycle, of love, attention, nourishment and labor...gardens are not without labor. I spent several hours just weeding away the grasses that are encroaching on my plants and threatening to outcompete. some see gardening as a constant war on the weeds, but the best part of weeding is, you can eat your weeds too! I pull up amaranth, lambsquaters, purslane and mallow all which come home to my table!



There's a volunteer catnip, hyssop, rosemary, lavender, sage, thyme , parsley, cilantro, onions, garlic, marshmallow, tulsi, globe basil, and hopefully wood betony and monarda. calendula too is popping up!



Oh and it does feel so good to sit yourself down in the dirt, and be outside in the sunshine and fresh air, and tending to your plants, nourishing the food that will nourish you in weeks and seasons to come.



Truly a gift.



mizuna, lettuce and kale

Dandelion lessons

The ubiquitous dandelion. She's so prolific that most people deign to notice her, or instead scorn her presence on their lawns.
I've lived for several years in a dandelion drought. In Arid-zona, dear dandelion was few and far between. When I did her bright sunny face it was usually high in the mountains and solitary little plants. Never the less I always exclaimed with joy to see her. There were never enough to collect for medicine though, let alone for eating.

When I moved to Colorado it was the dead of winter, literally, and slowly spring has been having her way with things. The trees are blooming, the seedlings are up in the garden plots, and dear Dandelion, she is everywhere!
Oh the joy!
I've been getting some greens every week for several weeks now,picking around the edge of my garden plot,but now the bright sunny flowers are out, and as an herbalist, I must heed my calling to make medicine. This time of year, the medicine is from the flowers.

Those bright sunny orbs that spring up anywhere, and everywhere. Despite pesticides and concrete, persistant little dandelion pokes her spiky toothed leaves up, and then waves hello with her multitudes of bright flowers.

My heart has been heavy these last few weeks, and even though spring has sprung, and life renews itself, my eyes have been turned inward. I haven't taken the joy of spring into my heart yet. "What a shame!" Says dear dandelion, and she beackoned to me. After a long day inside at work, I headed to the fields to spend some time with dandelion. I needed more greens. Free nutritious food for the taking, and wanted to make dandelion flower oil. Down on hands and knees, it is hard to be sad for long when on the earth smelling green things and moist earth, and sweet dandelion flowers all around. Oh it felt so sweet and good to lay down on warm weedy ground, and smell the mustard and dandelion everywhere.

By the end of my little walk about the field my beargrass basket was chock full of greens,flowers and roots.
back at home I washed all the greens and proceeded to make dandelion walnut pesto!
Delicious!
Dandelion Walnut Pesto
2 good handfuls of fresh dandelion greens
1 c olive oil
2 tbsp lemon juice
3 cloves of garlic
1/2 c toasted walnuts
salt and pepper to taste

blend in a food processor, serve! YUMMY!

I also started a quart of dandelion flower infused oil, perfect for breast self lymph massage and to spread a little sunshine , where the sun dont often shine!

Go out and enjoy the dandelion medicine people! She's just begging for attention and to be eaten, giving of her nutritious stores from the wild earth.

Pickled Dandelion Greens and other ways to fix wild greens

So even after freezing rain, spring does return. I spent some time at the community garden plot this week and discovered that many of the little seeds I've planted are well on their way to coming up. Mizuna, lettuce, radishes, peas, daikons are all poking little cotyledons above the soil. 3 weeks till radish and mustard salads from the garden!

I also decided to take a quick walk around the field after weeding and watering to get a little exerzise and a breather after school and before heading to work. On my little jaunt I found mountains of wild mustards, dandelions and mallows. It was greens city. Lucky me had a basket and filled it full of wild spring greens! Yummy!
Wild nutrition and free food to boot! What could be better?

Dandelions are still pretty mild tasting right now, but they can get bitter and tough with age. I found a delicious way around the unpalatable bitterness that dandelion greens can sometimes have. Though the bitter flavor is actually beneficial for lots of reasons, here's a good way to tone it down a notch.

Pickled Dandelion Greens
1 pt jar with a lid filled to the brim (packed firmly)with washed and chopped dandelion greens
Fill half full with apple cider vinegar
Fill the rest with water leaving an inch at the top
add 1-2 tbsp sea salt
and 1-2 crushed garlic cloves

Put the lid on and shake well to mix the vinegar and salt in evenly among the greens and let sit and brine for 2-3 days. You can let it go longer if you'd like it ferment a bit (like saurkraut) but i was anxious to try my concoction and only left it out 2 days.

Use the greens as a topping or addition to any recipie, other sauteed greens, to soup, on top of veggies, or on a sandwhich. Delicious and nutritious! I'm a huge fan of pickles, and the sour vinegar and salt help moderate the bitter greens, but if you rinse them they'll be less salty. Also if you plan to eat them in one sitting, adding a couple of tablespoons of olive oil to the jar and shaking just before eating ( please dont let olive oil and water sit on teh counter. Probably not a great idea as far as food safety is concerned). Or pour the olive oil over them on the plate. Yummy!

These were delicious on top of a meal of steamed green beans, tomatoes, garlic and sardines with garlic and lemon juice, and some dropped into my hot chicken broth for dinner.

My other favorite way to dress up wild greens, or even just kale or chard, is a big bowl of steamed greens, topped with a dressing of equal parts olive oil and lemon juice, with a clove of garlic crushed in, salt and pepper to taste.

Dandelion greens or any wild green you wish to serve is also quite good simmered in just a bit of chicken or beef broth. I add a 1/2 c of broth to my pan, and then fill to the brim with my greens. They steam in the hot pan with lid on and then simmer a bit in the broth. The salty broth helps with the bitterness again, and if you make sure to serve the greens in the broth you wont be missing any of the mineral nutrition that might cook into the broth. A splash of olive oil or butter on top makes this a simple and delicious addition to any meal. I bet bacon would make it even tastier.

Happy picking and eating of wonderful, wild greens to you!
( realize my obsession with dandelions is that we just didnt have dandelions in arizona. This is the first spring i've eaten dandelions in at least 5 yrs!)

Deep Freeze

At the beginning of the week I was planting seeds with my love, and now I am alone and the world is frozen over.
No Joke. We're under ice here. It's been below freezing for two days, and the precipitation has varied between sleet, freezing rain, and snow. But mostly freezing rain. The grass is covered in ice and crunches under foot. I had to chip ice of my windshield 3 times already.

The hawthorn tree is more like a hawthorn popsicle. The tender new leaves and flower buds encased in a thick layer of ice. I picked a few to snack on. Hawthorn leaves frozen are tasty...but alas, I doubt that the tree will make much of flowers or fruit this year. The freeze came at such an inoppurtune moment in plant development.
Seems appropriate, that spring should virtually stop in it's tracks, as my love left me this week. I feel like I'm in deep freeze as well. Funny how the world and universe reflects, or how we influence the world around us with our thoughts, feelings and perspectives.

I was hoping to go camping this week in the mountains of Colorado. So keeping my fingers crossed it will warm up again.

I'm sure the seeds I planted are fine. But the tender garlic greens may not be. It will be ok. I have more garlic starts.

I know that life goes in cycles, and even the cruelest of winters do eventually end, and spring comes again, but I feel as if I was in the spring of my life, so much promise, so many buds promising fruit, and now...well winter has returned, and taken the promise of the summer fruits back. The sweet fruits of love no longer await.
I've been guzzling down lemon balm and rose elixirs this week, in hopes it would support my tender feelings and broken heart. Mostly I just feel heavy in heart and spirit. I think holy basil might be helpful now, as would the hawthorn that is now frozen over, but I have some berry tincture I can take.

I also feel like I'm coming down with a mild Urinary Tract infection. I haven't had one in years, but, alas, the stress, the weather, the emotional upheaval combined may have waylaid my health for the moment.

I've been sipping on calendula, yarrow, cornsilk and mallow tea and cranberry juice all day, and taking my manzanita juniper tincture. I'm going to start an echinacea decoction as well.

It's snowing again, and the temperatures are supposed to drop into the single digits tonight. from 65 to 0 degrees in the space of about two days. That's pretty intense.

Send a bit of warmth my way. I wouldnt mind some rain, but the frozen part is tough on the spirit right now.

More snow and gardening lust

I was supposed to amend the soil at my garden plot last sunday. It had just rained and was too muddy. So I postponed it. Now it is snowing again! In like a lion, out like a lamb perhaps? Or vice versa in this case, as it has been around 60 degrees most of March.

The last frost date in Colorado is around may 15, so I can't be planting out too many things. Just the frost hardy greens, peas, and root veggies like radishes and beets. But I've ordered seeds for new herbs to grow, including marshmallow, wood betony (stachys), hyssop and more. I'm anxious to get some seeds in the ground.

But alas it is snowing, so instead I made a recipie we learned in class the other day. Known as an "Antioxidant Bomb"
Some mixture of the following, with half of the total quantity made up by
rosehips (split and seeded, not whole)
orange peel
lycium berries
and any other brightly colored fruits you like (elderberries, cranberries, blueberries etc)
mix and pour into a jar. Cover half way with blueberry or cranberry juice, and the other half with black cherry juice concentrate.
Soak and then eat!

YUMMY! I bet you can't eat just one!

The Buds are Popping!

Today I found the first buds popping open on the hawthorn tree down the walk! Hooray! Spring is coming finally! The daffodils are out, and the dandelions are poking their leaves up!

We made a trip over to the Hawthorn Community Gardens this morning to check out the plot we were assigned for the year! Yay! Gardening too! I'm already fantazising about all the plants I want to plant this year, wood betony, holy basil, hyssop, and veggies and more! It is a huge garden with over a hundred plots in it. my garden last year had 15 small plots. These range from 140 to 400 sq ft.

It's exciting to think of spring and possibilities!

The Patience of Winter

Today it’s raining. I don’t mind the rain in general. Being that I’ve lived in the desert for the majority of my adult life, I’ve learned to appreciate the rain, as it can be infrequent. Rain is refreshing, cooling, life giving. I always know that when it rains, the flowers will follow shortly after.

This has been a long and rather cold winter with plenty of snow. I’ve been cooped up inside too much. I haven’t been able to hike as much as I’d like, and haven’t touched my bike in months. But I try to remember that the snow does what the rain would, feeding and nourishing the earth with the moistness of life, and more importantly allowing for rest.

Most of my friends from the southwest are now commenting on how their plants are growing, flowers are blooming and the cycle of life is beginning again. I too feel the stirrings here, farther north, but we’re a bit behind. Whereas flowers are blooming in the Sonoran Desert, the snow is just melting here. Trees are leafed out in Tucson and here they are just swelling with buds. I’m getting impatient for spring to start! I want to go hike and find new flowers! I’m waiting eagerly for the plants on hill behind the house to put out some GREEN. Fresh spring rose leaves, and DANDELIONS galore. But winter is still upon us, the rain is falling softly, and I must learn to be patient. Winter teaches us patience, but I know spring is around the corner and I want to plant my garden (I think we might have a plot at the community gardens again this year.) I want to go out and find new plant friends. Herb school is great and all, but more than reading about herbs, I like being with herbs, alive and growing and full of LIFE.