Rose Cottage

  This is the second year I've tended the Tea Garden bed, as part of our  Edible Landscapes of Yamhill  along project on Alpine Avenue. I love my garden box, with its well established perennials, which need little care beyond the watering. The lemon verbena came through winter, and i planted a few tended plants in spring.  Tea Garden in June Last year, our group officially 'adopted' the 8 block stretch  of Alpine Avenue, for periodic trash clean up. The city of McMinnville provides kits (vests, rubber gloves, grippers, signs and garbage bags) which make it easy for groups to tend the roadsides! I joined the cleanup last spring, and again this week, just before our Harvest Fair - Matthew and I gathered 2 1/2 bags of trash along the 6 block area! You can read about last year's harvest fair here .  Nadya and Matthew For the Harvest exchange, Members brought produce from their own gardens and boxes, gathered produce from local farmers at the end of the market, ...

 Recently, I used my little Cherokee Syllabary dictionary to record plant names in my garden journal, I needed to look up one of the wild greens, Sochani, and was delighted to find this article !  In winter, I ordered 'Golden glow' (Rudbeckia lanciniata) seed from Everwild, after finding the greens were a favorite food of the Cherokee. Sochan seed packe t In an article on his blog in 2019, edimental proponent Stephen Barstow wrote that Rudbeckia lanciniata "is documented as probably the most important spring vegetable of the Cherokee in the Southern Appalachians in Moerman’s Native American Ethnobotany, which is probably where I first noted its edibility.  "It’s missed in Cornucopia II. The Cherokee ate the tender young leaves and stems cooked alone or with other greens such as poke (Phytolacca americana), Ramps (Allium tricoccum), Rumex spp. (docks) and eggs. They were also fried with fat, were dried for later use and also eaten as a cooked spring salad or as celery ...

 Last Saturday, our Edible Landscapes of Yamhill  group met to discuss tending our  28 garden boxes this year! It was fun to see each other and meet the newest volunteers at Mac Market - I brought my own mug for a cuppa, and got a Mexican Mocha. Edible landscaping volunteers Last year, our group officially 'adopted' the 8 block stretch  of Alpine Avenue, and this year we've received a grant to expand the garden box project to several other areas.  The board members scheduled the quarterly clean up for after our meeting, and the city of McMinnville provides kits (vests, rubber gloves, grippers, signs and garbage bags) which make it easy for groups to tend the roadsides!  Clean up crew It felt so rewarding to gather those bags of litter along Alpine - and what a great reminder to attend to the areas near and around our garden boxes!  This is the second year I'll be tending the Tea Garden which I dearly love! It is ironic that the picnic tables (one nea...

 This morning I used my little Cherokee dictionary to record some of the traditional plant names in my garden journal. I needed to look up one of the wild greens, Sochani, and was delighted by this  article  highlighting that following recent changes to laws, the National Park service now allows Sochan and other traditional food and medicine to be harvested by tribal members! The service is cataloging and monitoring plant populations in harmony with this shift. Sochan is one of many traditional foods and medicines which were wild-harvested, and the people have had limited access for decades! Cherokee Syllabary and Feast of Days I first read about Sochan's use in an article on edimental proponent Stephen Barstow's blog . "Sochan is documented as probably the most important spring vegetable of the Cherokee in the Southern Appalachians in Moerman’s Native American Ethnobotany, which is probably where I first noted its edibility. It’s missed in Cornucopia II.  "The Cher...

 Shout out to the Edible landscape gardeners who joined the work party to tuck the beds in for winter! Tea Garden - winter ready I went down to the Tea Garden after a busy morning:  Qigong at the Grange with friends  quick stop at the Farmers Market  in house choir retreat, starting rehearsing Christmas music 🎶 🎄  Most of the plants in my garden box just S of the Grain Station are hardy perennials, and will overwinter without protection - but I added a few favorite tender herbs, that need to come inside!  Tender perennials So I dug up the pineapple sage and Tulsi basil, plus taking a start from the Oregon Tea (which had several long runners).  I clipped back the mint, and took a few minutes to tidy the box. I'll add a layer of leaves, and plant some fava beans and red clover on my next visit, as cover crops (and the cover can stay for tea!)  I decided to leave the lemon Verbena on the bed, as it's in a protected position - fingers crossed that i...

 I'm excited about the newest additions to the garden bookshelf!  The first is Edible - illustrated by our local artist/ author and farmer Katie Kulla, with writers Kevin Hobbs (England) and Artur Cisar-Erlach (Austria). We're invited to journey into the world's Botanical larder, and hope for a  sustainable future!  Edible - 70 sustainable plants Katie gave a wonderful talk yesterday on the inspiration and creation of this work at our library, co-sponsored by the wonderful Third Street Books. "More than half of most folks' diet is made up of three grains and a bean (wheat, maize (corn), rice and soy)"  - but there are thousands more that we can use to craft a healthier and more sustainable future.'  Edible highlights 70 of these - from all 7 continents (including seaweed from Antarctica) from baobab and carob to sweet potato leaves and Yangmei (Asian bayberry) Katie and her husband Casey offered produce and meat from their CSA for over a decade, and her ...

 Our last Edible Landscaping event was a Garden Fair in the spring, where we passed out over 3000 seedlings to eager gardeners, young and old! I loved watching Master Gardeners, who had a booth at our fair, perusing the offerings for unusual plants! Edible Landscaping Volunteers tend 28 box gardens along Alpine Street, on the North side of McMinnville (zone 8b)  The garden boxes all look great, and there's plenty of produce available to anyone for harvest! It's fun to stroll from 6th to 13th street with your bag or basket, and see what's available! You can sample things you haven't grown, see their habit,  and consider what to grow in your own garden! Saturday, we offered fresh pressed apple cider, free produce and seeds our fall Harvest festival! I stopped to snip some herbs from the Tea Garden box I tend, and my friend Miranda snapped this picture! Nadya at the Tea Garden Board members collected produce from venders at the Thursday Farmers market, Kramers Nursery do...

 For several years, I've enjoyed videos from a Japanese teacher Samurai Matcha (Aki-san). This week's offering on 7 Japanese habits  fits beautifully with my Reiki practice and good sense, and I grew up with many of them, in my rural Oregon home.  Hara Hachibi bun me  Respect and honor our ancestors - this is one of the Reiki principles, honor your parents and elders; Aki-san speaks of receiving the 'baton of Life' from our ancestors, to help us in our own lives! I grew up taking flowers to my grandparents' graves on Memorial Day, and hearing stories of their lives. Clean up public areas - pick up trash, leave things 'cleaner than you found them! In Oregon, private citizens 'adopt' sections of the highways and beaches, and do regular clean ups. Our Edible Landscaping group adopted the 6 block stretch along Alpine street where our raised gardens are located. My folks loved to camp, and again, cleaned up around the site before and after. Cities find that c...

 Several years ago, my friend Nikki invited me over for a  tea party , both teaching me how to process the leaves, and sharing cups of her beautiful tea and simple snacks.  After tea, went out to pick another flush from her 9 shrubs, and she sent me home with a basket of fresh leaves, which I augmented with leaves from my own tea camellia, making a batch at home the following day.  Camellia sinensis Sochi Nikki and I both grow the variety from Sochi Russia, which is on the Black Sea, and the "most Northern tea," which is very aromatic and frost Hardy. Sochi is especially suited to  our PNW zone 8b gardens.   While the flowers are small (about the size of a strawberry flower!) Sochi's leaves are about the size of those on our common ornamental Camellias.  The flowers can also be used for a light and fragrant tea, which i first tasted at the Dao of Tea in Portland.  Tea camellia in center of the Tea Garden High in antioxidants, especially catec...

 Our Edible landscape festival mid May was a lovely, well attended event, and we gave away most of the 3000+ starts we brought! It was Hot - I was so glad we had an event tent Edible Landscaping booth   A few weeks before, we weeded our beds along Alpine, and covered each with compost from EL founder, Ramsey McPhillips. He also had a booth at the festival, and was giving out coffee sacks with some of his black gold - I was tickled to take one home for my own poteger.  Garden gold - compost We volunteers took home our own curated caches of starts, and I planted some of mine in a galvanized trough I'd picked up from the feed store. I also got a Rosemary and several raspberry starts, which were donated by a local nursery.  We intend to set up a new raspberry patch in the back garden, so this gives us a start.  Salad garden and herbs in pots This week I headed back to the Tea Garden I'm tending on Alpine with a couple of watering cans - and it's growing beautifully...

 I'm so grateful to love in this beautiful blue green planet! The first Earth Day celebration was a year after Neil Armstrong saw the earth from the moon - and watched it disappear behind his thumb, when he extended his arm! At that moment,  he realized everything and everyone who was important to him was on that marble!  This year, I was invited to do ASL sign for the songs of the McMinnville Women's Choir at an Earth Day event.  The celebration was sponsored by Zero Waste, and held at the Presbyterian church - which is one of a coalition of local churches with Climate Action groups. Edible Landscapes is an offshoot of Zero Waste, providing food and education to the wider community.  Earth Day Banners - Earth from the Moon The event is a reminder that we make choices that have an impact Every Day, and encourages us to make Greener choices.  Speakers included City Council member Sal Peralta, who reminded us that Zero Waste Oregon started with our McMinnvill...