Rivanna River Herbal

Too Busy For Words ...

I've been spending a good deal of my time in the garden.  Here are the potato pots I posted about last time.  I've already added soil 3 times and I think the next time will bring the soil line right up to the rim of the pots.  The amazing rain fall has been a huge benefit and though we've had almost 7 inches of rain in the last 4 to 5 weeks, we are still down about 5 inches for the year to date.

   

These are the "self-watering" containers that I'm experimenting with.  We have spinach, Swiss chard, mustard greens, sweet potatoes, beets, carrots and lettuces all doing wonderfully and giving me extra time and space to get the in-ground garden going with tomatoes, cukes,  broccoli, cauliflower and cabbage.  I've still got lots more to put in.  So far these containers are working out well.  There is a reservoir in the bottom of the pots which you fill with water from time to time.  The water is absorbed upwards into the pot and the plants are thriving.  I have used a 50/50 mix of organic potting soil and compost to fill the pots.  We've been eating the greens and they are as tasty as any I've had that have been grown in the ground.  I'm using much less water and it seems a great way to get the early spring garden going before the ground is ready. 

While visiting my grand kids in North Carolina this past weekend, I discovered the Western North Carolina Herb Festival and had a lovely hour or so to wander through rows and rows of potted herbs and vegetables and of course came home with more herbs to tuck in here and there.  I added Sweet Annie, Meadow sweet, Lobelia, Angelica and more.  There were lots of friendly folks with all sorts of growing tips and such.  

I've also been doing some tincturing and tonight put together some lemon balm tincture and also plantain.  Tomorrow I'll  do the cleavers that are covering the ground in the orchard.  

The season is just beginning and I'm having a wonderful time!  Hope you are too!!

Happy Ending ...

This is my little dog Molly!  She weighs 12 pounds and is a real sweetheart!  Yesterday she was attacked while I was walking her and Sam, by my neighbor's dogs.  My dogs were on leashes.  The attackers were not.  One was large, about the size of a lab, the other the same size as Molly.  After we broke up the attack, I took Molly to the vet, where they shaved her left shoulder and the back of her neck where there were bruises and a few puncture wounds, caused mainly by the larger of the dogs.  She hurt lots and spent the morning and early afternoon taking it very easy, not wanting to move much. When she did there were painful yips.  As per doctor's orders I iced the site and then started to think about what I could do with my herbal remedies to help her heal a bit.  I took out the solomon's seal and prickly ash salve the herb group made back in January and slathered some on the swollen shaved area.  Within minutes, she looked better.  Within hours she was moving around, though still limping and favoring her left front paw and a rear one.  By bedtime at about 10 PM, she went outside without no assistance to take care of doggie business and looked more perky but still very tired.  I put a bit more of the salve on her wounds.

This morning at 6 AM as per usual, she started yipping from the kitchen, where both dogs sleep at night, announcing that it was time for breakfast.  We  let both dogs into the bedroom where  every morning we all enjoy about an hour just drowsing away together, and there she was, her old self.  She had no problem jumping up on to the bed and later when she heard Bill opening a can, charged into the kitchen to get breakfast! 

She didn't speak to tell me how it felt after I applied the salve, but just from watching her body language, I know it helped her.  So don't just save this wonderful medicine for yourself.   Let your pets in on the magic!!  This afternoon, the shaved shoulder is the only evidence that something was amiss.  She is fine.

As for the other dogs, I told their owner that since this was the second episode in about 4 weeks time of off leash attacks, I would call animal control if it ever happened again.  I strongly suggested she take her dogs to a trainer and that she keep her dogs on leashes and control them when they are out of their electrically fenced yard!

In other happenings, I put broccoli and cauliflower plants in the garden this morning along with some spinach and arugula starts.  I have planted seeds for broccoli rob and more spinach and carrots too.  The farmer's market opens in just over a week.  Spring really is here!!

Whole Wheat No-Knead Bread And Healing With Onions ...

This is the monster that is growing in my refrigerator ... the no-knead whole wheat bread dough I put together on Friday.  I made one loaf yesterday and will get 2 more loaves out of this batch of dough.

The bread is Delicious.  There is very little of that bitter whole wheat taste you often get with 100% whole wheat bread because this recipe calls for some milk and honey.  The resulting loaf is dense with a sweet nutty flavor.  Bill had an egg salad sandwich for lunch today on it and it was really good.  I had some buttered with my soup and also loved it.

Recently I read on one of the blogs I follow (can't remember which one) that onion juice is good to put on burns.  Last night as I was preparing dinner I burned myself on a hot pot right out of the oven. It hurt and since there was a chunk of onion sitting on the counter that I was getting ready to cut up, I sliced a piece off and rubbed it all over the burned area of my finger.  Presto, the pain went away and there wasn't even a red mark!

Time Flies When You're Having Fun ...

I don't know where the time is going, but this coming weekend is the third weekend class in the series of nine for this year's herb class.

It's been a very busy month and in this photo you can see some of the fruits of my labors.  On the far left is Sauerkraut which I put together this morning.  It should be ready in a couple of weeks.  Besides cabbage, I added thin slices of onion and caraway seeds.  This like the brined garlic in the jar to the upper right of the sauerkraut is a fermented food and provides for a healthy digestive system.  That garlic has been fermenting for about 2 weeks and I've done some tasting but it's not ready yet. 

Below the garlic is a tincture of dry nettles with 80 proof vodka.  Now that fresh nettles are growing in the orchard, I wanted to use up some of the dried nettles from last year.  Tinctures will keep for 5 to 10 years so it never hurts to have a variety around for the things that ail you.  At this time of year I use a lot of nettles as they help with my seasonal allergies.  I drink lots of nettle tea which I love along with taking some capsules of nettle powder throughout the day when I get bothered by all that pollen flying through the air.

To the right of the garlic and nettles are two jars using ground ivy.  In the upper jar is the tincture I spoke about in a recent post.  For this tincture I chopped the plant material in the food processor.  In the lower jar is a vinegar made from the same plant, using cider vinegar as the menstrum or the liquid that pulls the medicine from the plant.  After 6 weeks of soaking the tinctures and vinegar will be strained, the plants placed in the compost and the tincture or vinegar will be bottled and stored in a cool, dark place until they are needed.  The vinegar can be used like a tincture with a number of drops added to some water and swallowed or it can be used as the vinegar in a salad dressing.  The vinegars are good for children or anyone who needs to avoid alcohol.  For the vinegar I chopped the ground ivy coarsely by hand instead of using the food processor.

I have also been making lots of tea from the fresh ground ivy and am finding it to be my favorite spring tea.  It has a lovely earthy flavor, a bit spicy and sweet.  I will be drying some more of it for winter teas when the sinuses get plugged up. When the cold winter wind is banging at the door it will be a sweet reminder that spring is just around the  corner.
                                                                
All of the herbs that I purchased are now all planted in the garden and I'm beginning to weed and thin the plants that are beginning to take over.  A few nights ago "somebody" ate the milk thistle that I had just planted. It could be the ground hog that lives down the hill or the young buck that I have to chase from the yard quite often.  I don't mind sharing but this critter took it all. 

As I weed around the garden I'm beginning to dig up the dandelions that are so easy to find.  I save the leaves for my salad of the day and dry the roots after I rinse the dirt off.  When they are dry I break them up and store them in a jar for later use. They can be used fresh, added to a stir fry or soup or when dried made into a vinegar or tincture.  Dandelions are rich in potassium, a powerful diuretic and an all around general wellness tonic.  All that I now have left to do before Saturday is to finish going through my notes from the last class and put them in order.

Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme ...

Welcome to Rivanna River Herbal. a blog in progress, following my studies in the use of plants as medicine.  The parsley, sage, sage, rosemary and thyme are already growing in my garden.  Now it's time to add some new herbs that will go beyond just adding flavor and spice to delicious meals.  The new herbs I'm planting and cooking up will help with a cold or flu, headaches, sleeplessness, bruises, burns and a host of other ailments.

I've always had an interest in plants.  As children, my parents taught my brothers and I about gardening, especially vegetables.  We foraged for wild foods, spending days gathering sun ripened blueberries, blackberries, mushrooms, the edible parts of poke weed, milkweed and cattails, among others. From the tiny cove just off Long Island Sound where we lived, we harvested clams, mussels, oysters and crabs.

Later as an adult and young mother, I became interested in weaving, the spinning of natural fibers into yarn and dyes made from plants.  We had a small flock of chickens, sheep, angora goats and a huge vegetable garden, from which I filled the pantry and freezer with organic delicacies to last us through cold Northern Vermont  winters.  I gathered plants from the garden, fields and roadsides to dye the yarns I was spinning ... plants like St. Johnswort, Mullien, Goldenrod and Queen Anne's Lace.

When I became interested in photography in my thirties, my first subjects were flowers ... up close and personal ... kind of on the Georgia O'keeffe idea ... so close you couldn't always  tell that the subject of the photo was a flower.  Many of my abstract paintings and much of my bead work is based on flowers and floral images often captured out of the corner of my eye as I wander through my garden.

Now in my mid sixties and ready for something new, I'm  taking my love for plants, health and gardening in a new direction.  Driven by my choice to depend on someone other than what I consider to be our unreliable pharmaceutical industry, I've started the first 9 month portion of a 3 year program in the study of herbs as medicine at Sacred Plant Traditions, here in Charlottesville, Virginia.  This is not to say I don't believe in or seek medical advice from doctors practicing modern medicine.  If I were to have a life threatening illness like cancer, I would certainly go to a doctor at once and seek the latest treatment that might give me a chance to extend my life.  However, I do believe that we are living in a drug driven society.  For myself and my family I am choosing a way to live life as naturally as possible and to rely on everyday, traditional remedies that go back through the ages ... the medicine of plants.

This blog will serve as my class project and will follow my studies as I go forward on this new adventure.  As the class meets one weekend a month for nine months, there is a huge gap of time between our meetings.  I  count on this blog and my posts to keep me constantly connected in those long in between times.  I plan on posting as least once a week but hopefully more often than that.

So again, welcome!  I hope you'll join me in discovering ways to move through everyday health issues using medicines we can grow in our gardens.