Drought

It is hard to be inspired to write anything on the blog during this record-breaking drought. I have no beautiful photo to grace this entry. A photo of the gardens would only be depressing. Sometimes we boast about an impressive statistic. But this one leaves only a dismal and hopeless feeling. In mid-summer the gardens and fields are usually lush with produce here. Yet today when you walk outside, the grass crackles and breaks under foot, the plants are shriveled and stunted. And each time clouds cover the sky, you wait, hoping, praying for rain. It has been so long since it rained that it is hard to remember that beautiful sound on the roof, on the trees. Surely it will rain again, but when the clouds have passed us by so many times, one begins to wonder if this absence of life-giving water will ever end. The last prediction I heard was that it will be October before we get real rain, far too late to rescue any crops. Can the trees survive this, I wonder? Do they have ways of hunkering down, preserving energy, minimizing output? I imagine that Nature does have  a wealth of strategies when it responds to a crisis such as this. And I would like to learn those ways.

If this is a trend, if we are looking at a shift in the climate here, our lives are going to change in dramatic ways very soon. Conservation will become a necessity. Simplicity will allow survival. Even though I am grieving for the plants, for all of nature outside, I hope I have space in myself to also learn from this experience so that I can be better prepared for the future.

Weeders needed!

I have been doing trades all year: weeding for massage sessions or plants. And now that it has rained (hooray), there is more weeding to be done. If you are interested and live nearby, please send me an email at nanjfawcett@gmail.com and we can set up a time. It is fun to weed together. Good conversation can happen and more gets done!

Rain!

I had given up offering another tincture workshop this summer because of the drought. Although the second and third year perennials were holding their own, they were vulnerable because of the lack of rainfall for the last two or three months. And the new plantings were just hanging in there, those of them that survived. But hallelujah, we had a good rain on Saturday evening and it has given everything a new lease on life. Although there is no rain in the forecast for awhile, I am hopeful that the gardens will recover now. And so I've scheduled another tincture workshop for July 8th. The post immediately before this has a notice about this workshop, though I don't know why it is in color. I hope you can read it.

Making tinctures is so satisfying! And the wonderful thing about tinctures, once they're made, is that they last for years. So you can have a set of various remedies that wait in your medicine cabinet until you  need them.

Here's your chance to make some plant medicine!

Tincture-Making Workshop

Sunday, May 27, 1-5:00 p.m.

Wapsinonoc Farm, West Branch, IA

At this workshop you will:

•         Learn about healing properties of medicinal plants growing in Wapsinonoc Gardens

•         Choose one or more plants that you would like to tincture

•         Tour the medicinal gardens

•         Harvest your chosen plants, clean, prepare, and fill tincture jars to take home

Provided:

•         Handouts of medicinal plant descriptions and uses, & instructions on tincturing

•         Lots of individual attention as you choose your plants and make your tinctures

•         Medicinal plants

•         Large and small jars for tincturing

•         One small dosage dropper bottle

•         100 proof vodka

•         Snack

Cost: $50 per person. Please register early as workshop is limited to ten people

Contact info: Nan Fawcett, 2039 Eureka Avenue, West Branch, IA 52358
nanjfawcett@gmail.com or 319-643-3342.

Medicinals Planted in 2012

Here is a list of the seeds that I planted this winter and spring here at Wapsinonoc Gardens. At this point, they are in various stages of their growth. As long as numbers last, most if not all of them will be available for purchase this year. And many more medicinals already growing in the gardens here are available for harvest during tincture workshops. The first tincture workshop this spring will be on May 27th. More about this in a separate post.

Medicinal Herbs Planted in 2012:

• Lomatium dissectum
• Wild Geranium
• Rhodeola, Scandinavian
• Rhodiola, Russian
• Rhodiola, Alps
• Devil's Club
• Shining Angelica
• Garden Myrrh
• Giant Solomon's Seal
• Agrimony
• Bearsfoot
• Cowslip
• False Unicorn (Helonias Root)
• Black Cohosh
• Schisandra (Wa-wei-zi)
• Zhi-mu
• Japanese Angelica Tree
• Black Elderberry
• Hawthorne, Wild Form
• Spicebush
• Witch Hazel
• St. Johnswort, Topas
• Horehound
• Purple Foxglove
• Pennyroyal
• Betony
• Lady's Mantle
• Vincenza Blue Lavender
• Silver Sagebrush
• White Sage
• Rosemary
• Lemonbalm
• Blue Vervain
• Broadleaf Sage
• Ashwaganda
• Blue Flax
• Anise Hyssop
• Balloon Flower
• Andrographis
• Lovage
• Chaste Tree
• Empress Tree
• Costmary
• Figwort
• White Yarrow
• Catnip
• Boneset
• Gayfeather
• Meadowsweet
• Maralroot
• Siberian Motherwort
• Rupturewort
• Bugleweed
• Wormwood
• Tansy
• Hyssop
• Feverfew
• Celandine
• Codonopsis (Dang-shen)
• Dianthus, Fringed Pink
• Self-Heal
• Indian Lemongrass
• Rue
• Ox-Eye Daisy
• Giant Purple Angelica
• Alum Root
• Wood Betony
• Sacred Basil
• Beach Silvertop (Glennia liltoralis)
• Valerian
• Chinese Hawthorne
• Sweet Woodrull
• Turkey Rhubarb
• Great Blue Lobelia
• Navajo Tea
• Kashmir Sage
• Nirgundi (Vitex negundo)
• Fireweed
• Greek Mullein
• Chinese Motherwort
• Mexican Tarragon
• Lyre Leaf Sage
• Sheep Sorrel
• Wald Dagga
• Elecampane
• High Desert Four O'Clock
• Japanese Catnip
• Maiden's Tears
• Ku Shen
• Gogi
• Resina Calendula
• German Chamomile
• Borage
• Nigella

Ready for next Iowa City Farmers Market

Many 4-pack seedlings of herbs and veggies will be for sale at the next Iowa City Farmers Market at Grant Wood School. 4-packs are $3 (since these are all organically grown, this is a good deal indeed!):

Culinary Herbs:
Sweet Basil
Curly Parsley
Italian Parsley
Cilantro
Bouquet Dill
Mammoth Dill
Curled Chervil
Sacred Basil
German Chamomile

Veggies:
Redbor Kale
Champion Collards
Baby Bok Choy
Bloomsdale Spinach
Zefa Fino Fennel
Winterbor Kale
Blushed Butter Cos Lettuce
Arugula
Red-earred Butterheart Lettuce
Speckled Amish Bibb Lettuce
Buttercrunch Bibb Lettuce
Gardiner's Delight Cherry Tomato
Oxheart Giantissimo Tomato
Argenta Swiss Chard
Peacevine Cherry Tomato
Jubilee Tomato
Principe Borghese Tomato
Ida Gold Yellow Tomato
Pink Brandywine Tomato
Soldacki Tomato
Amish Paste Tomato
Ruby Gold Bicolor Tomato
Blues Chinese Cabbage
Slicing Cucumbers
Pickline Cucumbers

All the above plants are annuals, and therefore are quick to grow and need to be planted in good time this spring. In addition, I will always have an assortment of perennial medicinal herbs which can be planted ANY time and will be with you for years to come!

Two Miracle Workers

I learned about plantain and comfrey many years ago when my children were small. Our family was homesteading in the mountains of North Carolina, and there were others like us living nearby, often people who had escaped from the ratrace of the city and were looking for a quiet and natural lifestyle. The community included quite a few people skilled in healing herbs, and I was an avid learner. It was from Susun Weed's books that I learned how to make plantain salve, and it soon became a popular item with some of my friends. Over the years I've experimented with different additions to the salve: comfrey, calendula and chamomile. And though these good medicinals lend their own great qualities to the mix, the truth is that plantain is the real miracle-worker. It is a humble plant, growing at our feet, especially where we walk frequently. It seems to prefer compacted soil, and Indians used to call it "white man's footsteps" (it was inadvertantly brought over from Europe with the first settlers). The seed head is the psyllium seed that we so commonly use in preparations for "regularity". But it is the leaves that I treasure. You can use them if you're on a walk in the woods and get stung by a bee, or by nettle: just pick a leaf, chew it up a little, and then put the mushy paste on the sore spot. Or if you get a cut or scratch, do the same. I use it in the salve pictured above, and it is by far my best-seller at farmers markets. People come to the market just to buy this! I am so proud of the plantain when this happens; it is like the Frodo of the plant world, small and humble yet so very important to us.

The last time I bought labels for my salves, my doctor recommended that I put something like "for external use only" on it somewhere. So I thought this is what I had included in my order. How surprising to notice, when the labels came in the mail, that I had writen "for internal use only!"  I got a chuckle imagining people buying these jars, getting home with them, reading the label, and beginning to eat the salve! So I put a dark mark through the ridiculous misprint. Next I'll have to think of a snappier name than Herbal Healing Salve. Any suggestions?

With all this praise for plantain, I should not forget comfrey. It is a regular ingredient in my salves because it is a master healer. Just recently I tore the miniscus in my left knee, and nothing seemed to be helping it. I finally realized that I should try a comfrey poultice. I picked several comfrey leaves (comfrey is quite large by now, as you can see from the above picture taken a few minutes ago), put them in the blender for a few seconds with a bit of water, and then put the mush into a washcloth and held it on my knee while I watched Miss Marple on TV. Although I didn't feel much difference that evening, by the next day my knee was almost back to normal, and it has stayed that way unless I give it too much of a workout. Comfrey is famous for knitting tissues and even bones at a rapid rate, and now it would seem that I have personal experience of this.