It’s Tea (Gathering) Time!

Wildling Tea Herbs

    It’s wildling season! Time to fill your herbal tea cabinet! The wildlings are growing happily in my yard right now so I’m spending as much time as I can soaking up summer and gathering the teas that I use to help me stay happy and healthy when the Winter Hag romps outside, knocking on my windows looking for a… Continue Reading…

A Delicate Spring Green

The wild ancestors of lettuce were originally found in Asia Minor. We don’t know exactly when it was domesticated but the first recorded cultivation of it was in Egypt around 2500 BCE. It traveled to Rome around 50 CE. It was brought to the Americas by Christopher Columbus in the 15th century. There are three main types of lettuce: leaf, cos,… Continue Reading…

Lettuce (Lactuca sativa)

When my grandfather and I sat down with the seed catalogues in the winter to plan our spring garden we always gave a good look at the lettuce varieties that we wanted to plant. Lettuce is easy to grow only if you give it what it demands and some varieties are more demanding than others.We always had to balance what the… Continue Reading…

Stinging Nettle (Urtica Dioica)

Stinging nettle is a hardy perennial native to Europe, Asia, northern Africa and western North America.It spreads by both seed and rhizomes, which means it’s fairly invasive given the opportunity. It prefers moist rich soil in partial shade, but if there’s enough moisture, it will grow in full sun as well. Larger animals tend to avoid it due to its painful… Continue Reading…

The Early Gardener Grew Radishes

RadishRaphanus SativusThe cultivation of the radish hasn’t changed greatly over the last several centuries although medieval cooks made more thorough use of it than most of us do. Since the radish prefers colder temperatures to germinate in, it’s one of the first fresh vegetables available in the spring. Start them as soon as the soil is workable (you can start them… Continue Reading…

Raphanus Sativus

I was five. My great-grandparents passed away and in the Fall of that year my family moved from the small suburban apartment that we lived in to the small farm that they had left behind. They were both avid gardeners and left us a wonderland of beautifully unfussy landscaping and a great variety of unusual and beautiful flowers and shrubs which… Continue Reading…

error: Content is protected !!