The Growing Season in Retrospect

The lovely geometry of the spring garden, when beds are newly turned and planted.

A little later in the season, trellises provide vertical interest.

I seeded calendula, an annual,  into the new lavender bed where it will share the space this year.
Hopefully, next season the lavender will need the entire 4' wide bed. 

Elecampane
a stately perennial
with large composite yellow flowers, makes a good show in the early garden.

Later in the season,
they will get rangy and unkempt
and need cutting back,
leaving some huge downey leaves
to collect strength into
the roots.

In the autumn,
I will lift the whole plant,
replant the side shoots,
and harvest the roots
for a sweet and effective
cough syrup.

Hops flowers.

 Hops, a climbing vine with prickly, clinging stems, is another good addition to the garden. I discovered a tangle of young hops vines when I first started cleaning up the herb garden. They had been allowed to sprawl along the side of the garden for a couple of years, where they made an impenetrable and unwelcoming mat. Hops only produce flowers and fruit (the strombiles used in medicine and beer- brewing) when trained up on supports, so I construct some simple bamboo tripods, and gently encourage them to grow upwards.

In the 16th and 17th centuries, when hops began to be produced in quantity for european beer production, acres of hops vines were trained onto 'poles' -- usually tall "T" shaped trellises. At the end of the season, the hops were cut, and the poles were pulled out and laid on sawhorses, where the papery 'fruits' could be picked off by hand. Deforestation in Europe was already a problem, and so "an acre of hops poles' was valuable enough to be listed in period inventories.

Echinacea purpurea
in bloom in June.

Here, again, the root is
primarily
the part used -- along
with the seed heads --
and so this  is enjoyed
all season
and dug, separated,
and harvested
in the fall.



My garden this year was a combination of about a 1/2 acre of established (and formerly allowed to languish) garden, and another 1/2 acre of new 4' wide herb beds, newly planted.The older section of the garden mostly need sorting...curbing the enthusiasm of some plants -- motherwort, catnip, sage -- while weeding and giving a little space to others -- like butterfly weed.  A bed of chives, lifted and separated, became regimented into a long 30 foot row, more easily harvested by our CSA members.

A partial list of the produce from the herb garden for 2012 includes:
Echinacea, peppermint, spearmint, lemon balm, catnip, mountain mint, french sorrel, chives, marjoram, oregano, thyme, lemon thyme, lavender, witch hazel, rhubarb, lovage, feverfew, motherwort, valerian, borage, bugloss, wood betony, elecampane, marshmallow, joe pye weed (queen of the meadow), nasturtiums, rosemary, corn flowers, elder blossoms, elder berries, calendula, hyssop, anise-hyssop, tulsi -- both krishna tulsi and rama tulsi -- lemon basil, purple basil, parsley, roman chamomile & mexican 'lemon gem' marigolds.

Edible/medicinal weeds include: chickweed, purselane, dandilion, yellow dock, red clover, white clover, mallows, & violets.  Appreciate the volunteers!!!

Herb: A - Z : A Trip to Russells Gardens' Herb Houses: Lavenders

Few things
are
as
sweet

as a greenhouse
on a rainy day.

Russell Gardens, growers par excellence in our area, has a rabbit-warren of herb houses to poke through, one treasure after another: the extra-warm basil house and  the hidden scented-geraniums-- masters of mimicry: rose, lemon. grapefruit.  The rest of the offerings, alphabetized, present a scratch-and-sniff wonderment, serenaded by the drip and splash of a misty rain, seeping through the seams of these patchwork buildings. Ah.  The fragrance of heaven!


                                 Its always good to remember to bring the photographer,
                             and hope for a few             great           shots from the master.

The orderly precision of trays and trays of the hardier English lavenders.  The secret to these is drainage, drainage, & more drainage in a sweet sandy soil mix, with each planting hole (space them 12" - 20" apart) amended with pea gravel or course construction sand.  Raised beds, or placing the lavender rows at the top of the hill will also provide better success in our Bucks County clay. Here in the greenhouse,  each flat must be perfectly level to hold just the right amount of water.

The fringed french lavenders are too tender to survive the winter unprotected in my Pennsylvania gardens

Hurrah!

I have come in search of
more lavender for my sunny
next-door garden, where some four year old english intermedia  lavenders, Grappenhall, have been growing into sturdy shrubs. In the greenhouse, these look unimpressive now, but I add them to my purchase, along with some flashy-sounding "Elegance Purple" lavenders that bloom July - September and three woody lemon-verbena that will go in pots on the porch.

Its really to early yet for the warmth-loving plants to be happily transplanted into the soil -- I'll wait to put in the basils and tomatoes and dipper gourds from seed another tw week, perhaps.  They can languish here in the care of these experts better than in my makeshift protections at home or at the CSA farm, and will provide another reason to stop on my way home from chemo.

http://www.ces.ncsu.edu/fletcher/programs/herbs/crops/culinary/lavender_mccoy.html   More excellent information on the intricacies of lavender  hybrid may be found on this website from North Carolina. (and another Jeanine at work!)


Its not yet raining in earnest when I get home, so I water my flat of new babies,
              --   never trust the weather report  --
knowing that they will need a couple days for hardening off -- getting used to the great outdoors,
as they have been cosseted inside up til now.  I'll sit them outside, but bring them in if the evening turns cold...pampering them for a bit more while readying their permanent homes in the garden.
I think its mostly the wind and the pelting rain that makes them grow stronger.  I remember reading some amazing dry science paper on how the pressure of the wind stimulated both root and stem modifications:  http://www.amjbot.org/content/93/10/1546.full.  Ah.  Wonders of the Web!

The gist of it was that the environmental stressors unleashed specific chemical changes the created structural modifications as a response.  And that these plants are then less likely to be uprooted in areas where they are grazed, or to top-kill in drought situations: cool. huh?   Anyway, being a philosopher/scientist sort leads me to see this as a metaphor, is not an actual hint,  as to the effects of stressors on the production of adaptable and resilient offspring, generally.  As in children... perhaps these hovering parents (helicopter parents) that are overinvested in their children should be called greenhouse parents... and we should be given "hardening-off" instructions for our  teens to twenty-somethings, as well... eh?

The preparations for perennial beds should be more extensive than the prep for annual beds.
The Grappenhalls, after all, will be in their new home for years, growing to a robust 4'.  They are  hardy to zone 5, as is Munstead, another English favorite, and given proper soils and drainage will lay in those beds for decades. They will produce more essential oils in a sand or stone mulch, rather than a vegetative mulch,  which tends to hold moisture. All lavenders appreciate a Ph of 6.5 - 7.5., so test and lime as needed. Try to give them a sweet, sandy, sunny spot, for they will not suffer wet feet gladly.

In Praise of Dandilions

Gerard's Herball 1633

The ubiquitous dandilion

Taraxacum officinale

is found throughout the northern hemisphere, and is surely in its glory here in eastern Pennsylvania this week.  The golden flowers, at first so proudly held aloft, and now sneakily stretching low amongst the leaves, have given way to a blanket of silver orbs, a thousand thousand wishes waiting to be set adrift.  They love compaction, and can be found where footsteps or mower or car tracks have ground the once-flying seeds into the dirt.

 A deep taproot then goes to work -- straight down into the deep subsoil. bringing up an assortment of vitamins and minerals, thickening root and flesh bitter leaves, slippery stalks (used by first nations' people for beestings: a european plant for an imported insect sting) and familliar sunburst flowers -- all parts are used, but for the elusive and far-travelling seeds: the roots for tea and as a roasted coffee substitute, the leaves as delicious bitter green, digestive tonic, (one of the roots in Rootbeer), stewed with garlic and olive oil, the flowers are gathered in great quantities for dandilion wine, and for a yellow dandilion liqueur that ages well.


The virtues of dandilion are so extensive that Maude Grieve's The Modern Herbal (sic 1933) devoted 11 full columns to it, including the observation that "By careful watching, it has been ascertained that no less than 93 different kinds of insects are in the habit of frequenting it."

I rarely take the time for such prolonged admiration, and my attentions mostly focus on harvesting them in the guise of eliminating them from the garden.  In the last couple weeks, I have been ruthless.  My reward is two trays of dandilion roots, chopped fresh and allowed to dry on papertowels in the kitchen, or on screen racks in the barn.  They are joined by a few weedy compatriots: yellow dock and curley dock roots are reputed to be almost 40% iron at this time of year... good blood-building material.

Yellow dock is another european native, naturalized into american fields now,
 and with a deep group of taproots.

Clusters of dock roots await thee chopping block.

Dandilion roots and yellow dock roots must be chopped or sliced fresh.
Once they have dried, they are leathery and tough to cut.  

Althea officinalis


 Marshmallow Roots
are almost impossible to chop, even fresh.  Their mucilaginous qualities, and heavily-cored roots yield best to a pair of small sharp scissors.

All these plants bring up gifts from the deep with their strong tap-roots.

Yes, this plant is the original source of the confection by this name -- undergoing somewhat of a resurgence lately.  Most modern marshmallows don't contain the root powder of althea, but if you want to experiment.... take a look at this great blog:

http://lostpastremembered.blogspot.com/2009/12/hot-chocolate-with-real-marshmallow.html


Dandilions contain Vitamins A,  B vitamins, potassium and copious amount of vitamin C.  They are a diuretic that replaces potassium, and is called "Pis -en-lit" by the French -- or Pee in the Bed!  It is a tonic and general stimulant to the system as a whole, and tonic especially to the liver.

Preliminary supports for hops vines make a good hat-rack

Motherwort in the foreground,
with chive blossoms and the large leaves of elecampane  behind.

Pennsbury Manor, Revisited

The Kitchen Garden at Pennsbury Manor is protected by paling fences and sturdy gates --  in the 17th century this would protect the plants  from free-ranging farm animals, in the 20th century from the deer.

Sloped perfectly south,
on a rise of Delaware River silt,
a bend in the Delaware River, just below the falls at Trenton, where the fresh water of the river still rises and falls with the ocean tides, following the moon, the Kitchen Garden at Pennsbury Manor
is perfectly placed.

It is a  colonial Revival garden, really, reconstructed in homage to Penn in the 1930's as one of the last big WPA projects... its herringbone brick paths probably inaccurate for the 17th century...

                                                                         (Penn did not even brick the back of the Manor House)

But still, the geometry, the scale of beds to path, the beautiful prospect...


 Although the kitchen garden is not bursting with beds of vegetables and herbs (as it would have in Penn's time) and there are hardly any flowers in the front terrace garden, where the tidily clipped topiaries of my tenure have grown into shaggy beasts, it is still evocative.  I imagine few visitors stop to marvel at the square terrace, or wonder at the work it took to create this flat level court, BY HAND,  but there is a still quiet rightness to this place, evident to even the untutored guest.

I have not been back here, where I labored so many happy hours/ years,
since I retired in 2003.

Budget cuts and personnel lay-offs can be seen in the landscape, looking slightly sad and unkempt, but a closer inspection reveals that some things have remained: the Orris Root

Iris florentina persists by the steps.
Known as Orris Root, it a fragrant early Iris whose roots  become more odoriferous as it ages. An important potpourri ingredient, it was famously grown around Florence, Italy, in the 16th century; thus the name.

Rosemary cold frames without glass 'lights'

The dipping well, adorned with buckets and (20th century) watering cans.
Beyond the fence is the Delaware River.

 Milk Thistle is heavily armored with thorns and spikes, perhaps one reason it has persisted here for so many years

Milk Thistle

Silybum marianum

has been used for the liver for over 2000 years. Compounds from the seeds help protect the liver, according to James Duke, against damage from alcohol and hepatitus, and can even regenerate damaged liver cells!  It protects the liver from industrial toxins, solvents, muchroom toxins, etc.

According to David Hoffmann in Medical Herbalism, milk thistle has no reportsd side effects or counterindications, and is considered safe for us by lactating Moms; hence the name. Dosage: up to 600/mg day of extract or (Commission E) 12 -15 grams seed.

Another corner of the garden holds a vibrant stand of Black Cohosh, formerly known as Cimicifuga racemosa, now, I think, reclassified as Actea.

I remember planting these.

Going through the archives, I discovered this Master List for the Kitchen Garden, as well as a selection of pictures of happy days in period clothing with my girls....so many wonderful memories.

 

Xina in her first period clothing;
 a reproduction of the Clive House Mantua  from 1688

Dory with a new lamby

Distilling roses as a demonstration for school children, June 1998

Gillyflowers in pots on the dipping well, 1998.
Dory and Nick Fritz cleaning out the dipping well, always a favorite activity (money!)

Dory 1998
Perfect afternoon light 

Xina, airborne, in the Clive House Matua, 1994

Spring Arrives!

Solomon's Seal in glory by the side of the porch.

Lovely hanging bells of Solomon Seal

Solomon's Seal has always been one of my favorite woodland wildflowers.  It seems to spring from the ground in the course of a week to appear fully blown with its dangling bells hidden beneath the twisted stalks.  This early drawing from my archives, (probably 2006) and the accompanying commentary transcribed from Tis Mal Crow's wonderful book: Native Plants, Native Healing.

At Bowman's Hill Wildflower Preserve these plants were a favorite of the occasional deer interloper -- so much so that one year they ate them right out of the rows of pots set up on tables for the Spring Plant Sale. I never understood the allure until once, when extras from a weeding binge thinned the population in the display garden, I chomped on them raw as suggested here:  delicious!

Mostly, however, I have made a root tincture of the older roots when thinning the beds...for solomon's seal can be an enthusiastic spreader, and thus requires to be lifted and thinned in the fall, from time to time. I have not used it as a poultice herb.

Its always interesting to note when the same uses for a plant surface in wide-spread cultures, in this case, the classic Herbal of John Gerard's from 1633 in London, and contemporary use among the Cherokee, as well.

Because this is such a favorite with the overabundant deer population here in Bucks County, it is rarely found in the wild, much less in quantities great enough to allow for sustainable harvesting. Fortunately, it doesn't mind being domesticated.

The Studio Sale: December 2011

Despite the fact that I neglected my blog,  I did have a very productive season in the stillroom, preparing for the annual Studio Sale that my husband and I hold in our barn every Christmas.


This year, the long warm autumn allows me to continue harvesting late into the fall, gathering huge bundles of Sage and Marjoram and Lemon balm, bundling them to string across the beams above the wood stove, piling them in chaotic heaps on the drying rack frames.

 

We buy a cord of wood and settle into a rhythm of spending the evenings compounding mixtures for baths and dream pillows, steeping, straining, bottling and labeling, framing and matting.
We take turns choosing the music.

Gloria keeps an eye on the proceedings.

Teas and tinctures, herbal baths and organic catnip cat toys, all arranged for the sale.

Winter Recap

The Ides of March are almost upon us, and I am just now finding time to update this blog with the activities of the winter....well, of the fall and winter actually. So this will be a sort of highlights reel, a quick tour with images of some of the highlights of the seasons past.

I am not one of those people who likes to rush through winter, joining the headlong surge towards spring. The quiet and enforced interior life of the cold months, the luxurious length of the nights, the fires, the cozy post-holiday hybernation: I love all these.  Not that there was much Winter to speak of this year, here in Philadelphia, where an unexpected Halloween snow was just about the only wintery bit we got.

In day-to-day practice, this experience, another "warmest winter" on record, is quite lovely, but one cannot help but wonder, and perhaps even to feel that something is slipping, askew.

a field of valerian, escaped from some early garden

On a boat ride to this island, off the coast of Maine, we hike to the seaward side in search of sweet fat mussels for dinner.  The remnant fields are filled with St Johnswort, heavy with a late bloom of yellow flowers, and i am glad I've tucked a small gathering bag in my pack.

Here I have the luxury of just stripping the blooms themselves (I take only about 1/3 from any individual plant, and, again, only harvest from 1/3 of the population.I steep half in alcohol (100 proof Vodka) and the other half in olive oil.

After just a few hours, the characteristic red color is already intense!

The hardy proliferation of these two European plants throughout these cold northern islands seems like a special gift, attuned to the needs of the 'settlers'

It provides an aid to the depression and light- deprivation of these long dark months, in the case of St Johnswort, and a sovereign pain medicine, in the case of Valerian.  How necessary and fortuitously hardy they must have seemed to these early herbalists!


Modern herbalism tends to pigeonhole plants into a fame based on one use (depression in the case of St Johnswort) whereas a reading of the early texts reveal that this is good, as well, for burns and for the deep nerve damage that accompany 2nd and 3rd burns ---

This deep red colored oil is strained and compounded into a deep healing salve, with the addition of beeswax and 12,000 units of Vitamin E  (d-alpha tocopherol: natural)

The finished products

In the stillroom...