i hope you eat good food, grow beautiful things, and have more love than you know what to do with.
Mint, of the genus mentha, is one of the herbs that I always have on hand. Several different species exist, although I usually only keep one or two (currently, I have peppermint and chocolate mint.) It’s probably the least picky herb I have had the …
I love having an extensive herb garden because I can just go outside and pinch some off, without having to worry about where to store large quantities of it (and, if I don’t use it up soon enough, the flavors may fade.) Oregano (Origanum Vulgare) …
Goosefoot, lambsquarter, and fat-hen all refer to the edible weeds of the genus Chenopodium. This is one weed I don’t pull, as it is an edible and mild flavored dark green, used anywhere you would use spinach (and, like spinach, is high in oxalic acid …
Haskaps, or Honeyberry, or Edible Honeysuckle (lonicera caerulea) is part of the honeysuckle family (and not all honeysuckles are edible) that produces fruit very similar to blueberries. It’s cold hardy as hell (some are hardy all the way to zone 2!) and unlike blueberries, tolerate …
I was always curious about the taste of gooseberries (ribes uva-crispa syn. ribes grossularia) but had never had the opportunity to try one. It seem financially irresponsible to buy a pie or a jar of jam of something that I wasn’t sure I’d like (and …
I bought two different types of peppercorn trees (no relation to black pepper) this year: The Sansho peppercorn (zanthoxylum piperitum) and the Szechuan peppercorn (zanthoxylum simulans) for my food forest. The sansho peppercorn is the main flavor you would find in Togarashi Ichimi-Shichimi powder, the …
Ostrich fern (Matteuccia struthiopteris) has been somewhat of a bane to me–I love it. I want it. But in previous years, I had no luck with it until the one I planted last fall took. I don’t know how it’s possible to do so poorly …
I tried to come up with a clever pun for the title of this post, but failed miserably. It’s sad because this is such an awesome plant that I managed to get a hold of here in the United States. Japanese Spikenard (Aralia Cordata), also …
Raspberries (rubus idaeus) belong to the rubus family which includes blackberries, thimbleberries, brambleberries, tayberries, etc. and can readily cross breed with them, so new varieties are constantly coming out. Some people find them invasive–but honestly, what’s so bad about a fruit that vigorously propagates itself? …
I hate ornamentals that have no utility other than looking pretty. I’m sorry, but in the event of the zombie apocalypse, everything on my property better have a use so that myself and my family can survive, and tulips and daffodils definitely won’t help on …