Posted on 06/03/2023 6:16:46 AM PDT by Diana in Wisconsin
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Now the week is complete! :)
A very good friend of mine, who has similar interests, knew I was getting into medicinal herbs, homeopathy, etc. She gave me a bag of dried elderberries (I used them to make tea) & a book called “Alchemy of Herbs” by Rosalee De La Foret. The author has a podcast my friend listens to so she had an idea about what was in the book.
The book itself is organized well & has lots of nice pictures. If you are into herbs & especially medicinal, this IMO is a very nice resource/reference.
Calendula isn’t in this book, but is in my homeopathy handbook. Elderberries are not in the homeopathy book but are in the Alchemy if Herbs book. Between the two, I can usually find what I need.
Currently, I have a ‘fantabulous’ sage plant. I cut it back this spring which was obviously a good move because it bushed out & then started blooming like crazy! Looking in my Alchemy book, I am making Fried Sage Leaves today:
2-4 Tablespoons coconut oil
20 whole fresh Sage leaves
Heat enough oil (amount depends on size of pan) so leaves are barely submerged. Oil is ready when it sizzles if you drop in a leaf. Fry the leaves for about 20 to 30 seconds and then, using a fork or tongs, flip them over for another 15 seconds or so.
Once fried, transfer them to a plate lined with paper towels or cloth to soak up excess oil. Eat when cool.
When I have Sage leaves that I have dried from my beautiful sage plant, I am going to make Sage-Lemon Tea.
1 tbsp crumbled dried Sage leaves
thin slice of lemon
honey, to taste (optional)
Bring 1-1/4 cups of water to a boil.
Place the lemon and Sage leaves in a tea mug or large infuser. Avoid cramming the herbs into a small tea infuser; it’s better for them to have room to expand and move around. Pour the just boiled water over the sage and lemon.
Steep, covered, for 5 minutes.
Strain and add honey to taste.
Yup, the herb garden is definitely going to be expanding! 🙂
That’s really cool, and now you’ve given me new ideas!
Hey, on the elderberries, are there certain varieties that are good or bad? Are any poisonous? My next door neighbor has elderberry bushes in her backyard that encroach into mine. She can’t see them at all from her vantage point, but I do. They have pretty lacy blossoms that should be here in a few weeks, then the berries come. I don’t know much about them, but I should learn.
She can’t really get to them from her yard. There’s a bunch of wild stuff growing on her side that makes it hard to get to. Since it has a pretty blossom, we put up with it. It does keep popping up in the bed that we have near the property line. Hard to control in there.
I love the idea of the sage & lemon tea. I’m going to put a jug of Sun Tea out to steep - it’s certainly hot enough out there.
I have lemons on hand and sage, so I might experiment a little, too!
Watering the fruit trees this morning, on tree #2, so 4 more to go, then off to the Grad Party for a neighbor farm-kid. ;)
I am ‘cultivating’ a bunch of local young men that can ‘do stuff’ for me as I age, LOL!
***I am ‘cultivating’ a bunch of local young men that can ‘do stuff’ for me as I age, LOL!***
That’s exactly who we hired this week to plant our new shrubs for us. We found a landscaper who is mentoring a recently graduated high school kid that is a young entrepreneur. He’s teaching him the business. Met through the 4-H program.
So we are getting the brains of the older gentleman, and the brawn of the young man and his new company, about half the cost of the older one. These 2 young men planted 17 shrubs and one tree for me the other day in just a couple of hours. It would’ve taken me several days to do that, I think. I still got my workout in, too, as I wanted to transplant some hostas that were in the way of where some of those shrubs were going. Everything looks so much better now.
Like you said, time for more watering!
Do not eat raw elderberries, but cooked/dried are OK. Here are 2 articles:
Elderflower and Elderberries: How to find and use
https://www.wildedible.com/wild-food-guide/elderberry
You can get domestic varieties:
7 TOP ELDERBERRY VARIETIES TO GROW IN YOUR BACKYARD
https://gardenerspath.com/plants/fruit/best-elderberry-varieties/
I bought a bag of dried elderberries on Amazon. They were organic. When I opened the box, the smell was really strong - sort of an earthy, fruity odor. The berries have been great for making tea - haven’t tried a tincture yet.
I got some sort of bug when my dad was in the hospital (December/January). We both had the same cough which was a pretty bad cough, but it was not covid (the hospital tested). Anyway, it lasted about a month and I lost my voice as well. When my daily shift at the hospital was over and I came home, I would make myself a cup of elderberry tea with some honey and it was as if my body was absolutely craving it. I ran through my friend’s elderberries and went to Amazon to buy some more. Between the elderberry tea and a homeopathic remedy for cough called PULS (pulsatilla nigricons), I finally got rid of the cough/hoarseness. The Elderberry and PULS worked better than commercial cough syrup which I only took once (I was desperate and it was not a good experience).
I believe Ellendra has/grows elderberries.
I've used it for minor things with good results, and I also use witch hazel for skeeter bites!
I know they say it's for animals, but...to ivermectin with it!
It was another mostly hot-n-dry week here in Central Missouri. Lots of pop-up storms around the midwest last week, but none of them did more than knock down the dust here.
I spent a good bit of time last week doing some deep watering in the victory garden so I’d be able to run off to the racetrack without having to worry about things getting wilty while I was gone. Buying all of those soaker hoses was a good move.
Spuds, tomatoes, eggplants, gourds are all blooming now. Garlic crop is about a month away from harvest. Sweet corn is responding well to the urea I gave it last week. Pole beans are up ~6”. Cukes aren’t climbing the fence yet but they’re gaining on it. Stonehead and Kaitlin are starting to make heads.
I failed to collect all of the necessary ingredients for a proper kimchi in time to use the napa cabbages that I had going in the hoop house. One day they were perfect, the next day they were bolted. So I fed em to the chickens and will try again in the fall when the weather is a bit cooler.
The Dunstan Chestnut trees that I planted earlier this spring are doing very well. Getting hose water out there was a brilliant move on my part, and placing 20-gallon watering bags around the grow tubes made it even better. I’m spending less time, using less water and what I do use is soaking in where it needs to go.
Three 12 hour work days DUN.
Drip Irrigation Kit will be here Wed. I work Thurs/Fri and then have three days off so that’s when I’ll try the - Tank Sprayer Pump Running a Small Drip System - experiment.
Going to rake the mulch off the garden and burn it tomorrow. The mulch is grass/leaves I mowed down yonder where the bugs are so now I get seed ticks on me when in the garden. I’ll leave the garden bare for a few days and spray the perimeter so that the escapees of Death Valley(bare dry soil) will die.
I’m also going to pick up a truck bed of compost tomorrow and that will be my new mulch. I’ll put it on this weekend once the ticks are gone. Going to install the drip kit first and then cover it with compost mulch.
Also need to pull back my shade cloth. I set it up as though it was 99 degrees out there just to know/have that setup when I need it. Will have to ponder how to pull it back so it’s easy to extend back out, after I kill the ticks of course.
Pole beans ain’t having a good time. I have a mole/vole running back and forth under them. I started them in peat pots so the pots are pushed up every day. Something else to kill and a design revision to the high tunnel. Underground barrier around the perimeter.
Good ad! It’s always nice to find products that work.
We’ve used Udder Balm for ages. Grandpa used to call it, ‘Grandma’s Goose Grease’ because his OWN mother would use goose or duck or chicken fat as a salve back in the day before ‘petroleum by products’ (like Vaseline!) were invented.
I use a product called Boroline, which is great for just about anything. It actually dried up and dissolved a patch of sun damage on my face so I didn’t have to have it burned off. Called my doctor, told her what I did, cancelled my appt. with Dermatology and the next time she saw me, she was impressed.
Works well wherever you have a dry or itchy patch, too.
‘Weekend’ starts on a Monday! My weekend used to be Thursday and then Sunday, LOL!
I still have to get my beans IN! Yikes. I was way ahead, then it got so hot that all I was doing was watering everything. My lawn is yellow and CRISPY; I refuse to water anything but newly sewn grass seed...so the beans were neglected, but there’s still plenty of time.
I managed to kill my Cucumbers with kindness by over-watering them. *Rolleyes* And I’m supposed to be the ‘professional’ around here, LOL!
I think it was psychological. I’m not a huge fan of cukes. They’re cheap to buy all year and I’m well stocked on Pickle Relish, which is pretty much all I use them for. I will make refrigerator pickles if the need arises.
Any propagation gurus here? I want to propagate my trumpet vine this year. I have successfully propagated a Niagara grapevine and a Thunbergia grandiflora Blue Sky Vine, but so far, no luck with the trumpet vine seeds. I want to try cuttings propagation of the trumpet vine this year. Any tips would be appreciated.
National Gardening Exercise Day – June 6, 2023
On National Gardening Exercise Day, June 6, we appreciate the bodybuilding activity that is gardening by picking up our trowels and toiling in our gardens! Not only is it so satisfying to grow your own flowers or herbs from seedling to sprout to a full-grown plant, but it’s also great exercise! Any gardener will tell you that squatting to pick weeds or water a seedling will get those quads burning. Besides, working in the hot sun adds an extra athletic challenge.
History of National Gardening Exercise Day
The history of gardening is so old and intertwined with agriculture that it can be challenging to tell where farming ends and gardening begins. However, it’s clear that the first enclosures in forests and wild spaces were made all the way back in 10000 B.C. — humans used these enclosures as a kind of primitive landscaping, as well as to produce food. It’s probable that the first real farms and gardens were established in Mesopotamia.
Gardening flourished all over the world — and almost at the same time! While evidence of ancient rice cultivation was found in China in 7000 B.C., corn was found in Central America, and so on. All over the world, different flowers, produce, and herbs sprung up and were domesticated, then shared. By 1100 B.C., gardens had moved beyond agriculture, cropping up in front of temples and around public buildings.
Between 100 BC and 100 A.D., books on horticulture, agriculture, and botany started to take off. They depicted everything from rural life and herbal medicines to waterworks that were placed in gardens. Letters described beautiful villa gardens teeming with carefully domesticated and cultivated plants. ‘Scholar gardens’ and palace gardens reflected culture and government as civilizations flourished. The study of botany emerged in the 1600s, followed by botanical gardens.
In the past century, gardening has undergone more trends than we can count. The 1910s were defined by World War I victory gardens and influenced by art nouveau, while the 1920s and 1930s were preoccupied with the arrival of potted plants on the market. The idea of the classic American backyard featuring a modest garden and manicured suburban lawn arrived in the 1950s.
Since the environmental awakening of the 1960s, much of gardening has been dominated by principles of sustainability and environmentalism. Many gardeners dream of patches full of low-maintenance, native plants, with house plants like succulents sunning themselves indoors. Though gardens have definitely changed throughout the centuries, it’s clear people have always loved their plants!
https://nationaltoday.com/national-gardening-exercise-day/
Weeding the garden this weekend I must have killed a hundred snails................
I might try direct sowing but need to do something about the mole/vole. I don’t even know which it is. I’ve got some old oak boards. Could dig a trench, line it with boards, fill it in and sow beans.
I’ve read so many different depths to protect from them. Everything from 6 to 24 inches deep. I think they make traps and poison to get rid of them.
Propagation Ping!
Diana here: I don’t do much propagation - I want to sell you a whole new tree or shrub or perennial- not teach you to make your own. :)
Danie_2023 asks:
“Any propagation gurus here? I want to propagate my trumpet vine this year. I have successfully propagated a Niagara grapevine and a Thunbergia grandiflora Blue Sky Vine, but so far, no luck with the trumpet vine seeds. I want to try cuttings propagation of the trumpet vine this year. Any tips would be appreciated.”
Well, I like making new plants to give as gifts, since it didn’t cost me anything except a little time and patience...lol.
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