Brrrrr!  Was anyone else out there fooled by the warmth of the first week of spring?  It went on and on … so we thought it must be an ‘early’ spring.  Throwing caution to the wind I acquiesced to my son’s request and let him put the screen in the door.  Too early!!!  Should have listened to reason because that seemed to call the cold back and it’s been cold ever since.  But the plants are still happy and coming up, Look!

                                                    Each jar is carefully filled and weighed.

 

Did anyone happen to see the “upside down rainbow” last Saturday?  I thought rainbows had to begin and end in water, but this one definitely had a mind of its own and was “free-flying” in the sky!  What a treat to see, and I’m sharing it with you – Fiori

How (deceptively!) ugly plants and gardens can look this time of year!  Just look at mine ...

                                                       Fresh, spring Yarrow leaves

                                                            Lamb’s Ear peeking out

Saint Patrick’s Day!  May he look down from Heaven and guide your footsteps safely home.

                                                                   Calendula Flowers

Meditation has been attracting a great deal of attention in the press over the last decade or so as a method of promoting physical, mental, and spiritual wellness.  Meditation has even been found to activate the body’s own stem cells to physically regenerate our systems.  Doris Taylor has done research that begins to shed some scientific light on this fascinating topic. 

It’s so satisfying to grow your own medicinal and culinary herbs!  I, for one, hate paying exorbitant rates for second-class dried herbs at the grocery store.  When I see my culinary and medicinal herbs drying at harvest time in my kitchen I get an immense satisfaction (alright, it MIGHT be slightly smug) from the picture.  Nothing says home and hearth to me like bunches of dried herbs and peppers hanging from the kitchen beams.

An herb garden in high summer, full bloom is a natural aromatherapy experience.  I like to take my morning cup of coffee out to the herb garden and just sit and breathe in the herb garden for a few minutes every morning.  It’s a mini-meditation that really helps me enter my day refreshed and ready.

Medicinal herbs are fairly “user-friendly” so to speak.  These herbs, so anxious, willing, and able to assist us in our daily needs with regard to healthy eating and also differing maladies, often grow naturally in the most unusual places; gravelly soil, craggy woods and infertile, unused meadows.  I like to seek out these little pockets, grab a few of the hearty little guys, and try to naturalize them in my herb garden.
Consider the lowly Chamomile:  it’s a gentle digestive aid, a calmative herb and a delicious sleeping aid when used in a tea.  It will grow in amazingly odd places with almost no encouragement whatsoever.  It is almost as if it is so anxious to give us aid that it’ll pop up wherever it’s needed.  There are two basic species of chamomile, Roman and German.  Both are tough varieties of plants named for tough peoples!  Once established in an area, these plants plan to stay.  They willingly re-seed and propagate themselves, without much assistance.  Even here in New England can be found a wild species of Chamomile — a cousin — called “Pineapple Weed”.

                                                                   Pineapple Weed
It has much the same properties of cultivated German and Roman Chamomile.  (This is the weed that my grandmother used to collect for winter tummy woes and probably what Peter Rabbit’s mother made her Chamomile Tea from when he returned, after over-eating, from Farmer McGregor’s garden.)  This “weed” is often found growing in between sidewalk cracks, unbidden, it waits for us to recognize its willingness and ability to calm our stomachs after over-indulging in food or drink or calming our nerves when for some reason we are unable to sleep at night.

Another pleasant aromatic herb not typically found in a culinary herb garden is Lemon Balm (Melissa officanlis).

                                                                       Lemon Balm
Once established, this lovely-scented herb is aromatherapy personified!  Be careful where you plant it, as it is quite prolific and will take over any area that it is planted in.  Also, I have seen this herb and others, like mint, begin to insinuate themselves into other herbs planted nearby.  One of my friends has a Greek Oregano plant right next to her mint and the oregano always has a faint minty flavor to it. 

Garden Mint

Greek Oregano
                 

 
Ater Lemon Balm (and mint, for that matter) sets down roots and established itself well, don’t be afraid to heartlessly dig up around the outside rim to keep it under control.  Call your friends and offer them some roots; it’s a well-known relaxing and soothing herb and your friends will love you for it.  It’s also the most effective thing that I’ve ever encountered for eradicating “Herpes Simplex” … better known as “Cold Sores“.

In days of old, when folks were more connected with the earth from which we came, planting according to the phases of the moon was common.  In fact, the knowledge of gardening in sync with the signs of the Moon and the Zodiac is still used in the “old” countries and interest in it is making a resurrection of sorts in this country as well.

  My Italian grandparents always had gorgeous and bountiful gardens — and apparently my grandfather did most things according to the signs of the moon.  He would never even let my grandmother cut his daughters’ hair unless it was the right phase of the moon.  (To this day, my mother, 80 years of age this summer, has beautiful, thick hair, as did my grandfather until the day he died, in his late 80’s!).

Planting your gardens according to the signs of the moon is really quite simple.  You see, the moon affects more than just the tides.  The whole earth is a gravitational field and the moon pulls from one side of the earth to the other.  When it is in its “new” phase, waxing, it’s pulling moisture up, thus you would want to plant crops that grow above the ground from the NEW moon to the Full moon.  When the moon is going “down” (waning), it is pulling moisture down.  Plant crops that are root crops which grow under the ground on the OLD moon (after the full Moon), when the moon is “waning”.

The signs of the Zodiac are also guides for planting, as some signs are more fertile than others.  This is not stuff that only “wierdos” know!  It’s very scientific, and renewed study has begun on it lately.  As the moon travels around the earth, she travels through the 12 different signs of the Zodiac, beginning with Aries, then Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo, Libra, Scorpio, Sagittarius, Capricorn, Aquarius and Pisces.  Some of these signs are more moisture-laden than others, and, hence, the soil affected by the moon’s travel through the differing signs is more or less receptive to the seeds being planted.  They can be actually considered “barren”, as are Gemini, Leo, Virgo, Sagittarius, Aquarius and Aries.  Taurus, Libra and Capricorn are considered “semi-fruitful” and Cancer, Scorpio and Pisces are considered the most fruitful of all signs to plant under.
For more information, check out gardeningbythemoon.com. They produce a beautiful Moon Calendar, which makes it very easy to know when to plant which crops.

PLANTING POTATOES ON THE WANING MOON IN THE SIGN OF CAPRICORN IN 2010:
Adding Compost to Enrich the Soil



 

Bed Ready for Potatoes            Fertile Home-Grown Potato

On a glorious spring day what better thing to do when one has a moment than to gather Coltsfoot (Tussilago farara).

Coltsfoot is a powerful anti-tussive and can be gathered, its properties extracted and then preserved for future use when one is suffering from a cough.  It is simple to make either a cough syrup or an extraction in alcohol.

HARVESTING:  Choose a nice, sunny day to harvest herbs.  Give the sun time to warm the flowers and draw the healing oils from the roots, where they rest during the night, to the petals, where they are most potent.  Harvesting before 10:00 a.m. is too early harvesting between the hours of 10:00 a.m. and 4:00 p.m. is best.  In the spring I wait until afternoon to do my harvesting.

HARVESTING TOOLS:  Get your sharp, clean scissors, grab a basket from the beams in the kitchen (if that’s where you keep them), tap the winter dust out of it (or any dried herbs that you didn’t use during the winter!) and you’re ready to go.  Throw on a pair of wellies because springtime ground can be wet.  Got your herb guide with you?  Off you go.

You’ll find that Coltsfoot grows in patches.  Use your fingers as “rakes” and pick a bunch of flower heads at a time.  You can use the stems also; a good general rule to remember if you want to use the stems of a plant is that if the stems are “juicy” they are full of the properties of the plant, too.  So, enjoy yourself!  Smell the spring air, listen to the spring sounds the water babbling and gurgling as it tumbles over the rocks, so happy to be out from under that restrictive ice that’s kept it prisoner all winter!  Fill your basket as full as you need it.  If you are gathering herbs for a family of four, two cups will be about enough flowers.

Bring home your harvested flowers and wash them twice in your salad spinner or colander to rinse off any dust or loam.

 Put your flowers in a mason jar that has a tight-fitting lid.  Cover the flowers with a 25% solution of vodka (use a cheap vodka – this isn’t about the flavor, it’s about the ability to extract and “hold” the properties of the herbs.)

The alcohol content is half of the proof.  In other words, if you have 80 proof vodka, you have 40% alcohol.  Since we are not a science lab, this is FOLK MEDICINE that has worked for centuries, you do NOT have to worry about being perfectly exact with your measurements.  Your remedy will be quite effective.

Cover your rinsed flowers with 2/3 vodka and the rest of the way with distilled water.  That will be about a 25% solution.  Put a piece of plastic wrap doubled over for thickness over the top of the jar, then screw the top on tightly.

Label it with the contents, the % solution, the day you put it together and then the date that is 3 weeks from the put-together day.  Shake your mixture a few times a day.  There are differing schools of thought as to whether it should be kept in the sun or the dark, so do whatever seems right to you.  It seems to me that if you put it in the sun, the sun will pull the properties out of the herb into the vodka, but there are others who think it should be extracted in the dark.  Either way you will have a powerful extract!

In three weeks (you can even use it after two weeks), strain it through a cloth.  Be sure you squeeze it really well to get all the properties that are lingering in the petals!

DOSAGE:  30 drops = 1 dropperful = the equivalent of one cup of tea.  Take your medicine 3 to 5 times a day.  No more than that.
If you’d like to make a syrup, just put 1 Tbs. +/- into 1/2 cup of honey +/- and mix well.  Take 1-2 tsp. to alleviate a cough.  You will be so happy and heal so quickly with medicine made from nature and the work of your own hands!