Rose Cottage

  It's exciting to watch the garden emerge and take shape!   I seeded more of my Homesteaders Kaleidoscopic Perennial kale Grex (Experimental Farm Network) - always fun to see the variety of plants which emerge.  Tomatoes, basil, kale seedlings on right I sketched various plans for each bed, then, go out to the garden and fine tune with the Devas, for the layout! We still don't have fences to the N or S, so the deer roam through.... tulle and binder clips provide night time protection!  Tomatillos and Monarda I enjoy planting a mix of old favorites and less standard greens - orach, new Zealand spinach, doucette (summer relative of corn salad/ maché) red celery, Alexanders, Magentaspreen, shiso ... and purslane transplanted from the lot.  Varieties of beans include Dragons Tongue, Red Swan, Edamame, runner beans, and Trail of Tears. There are Dragons egg and Persian cucumbers, bitter melon and okra ... a box divided into 4 sections for burdock... Morning vi...

   This winter has been lovely for my Bo Jo Hua Chrysanthemum tea plants!  I first saw them several years back, at my friend Melissa's Van Hevlingen Herb booth at the Farmers Market. She had two varieties, which bloom in the late fall like other Mums.  Bo Ju Hua (Chrysanthemum morifolium) doesn't set reliable seed, so is only available as plants - and I got one to try in my garden! When I moved across town, I brought it with me.  Bo Jo Hua and ginkgo on the drying rack Married to a botanist for 20 years, I've enjoyed herbal tea or tissues since the 70s, and growing up,  drank green and black tea with my mama. I grow many culinary herbs, and have tended a small Edible Landscaping  tea garden  for two years.   I found several blog posts about tea chrysanthemum, which support the liver, eye health, and are good for the heart, type 2 diabetes and easing headaches!  (Sage Garden Theory)  on a Growing Tradition, Thomas recounted his ...

 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 ...

 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...

  I *finally* got out to rework the garden bed Zander and I began summer of 22!  Matt tossed clover seed over the back several years ago as a ground cover. They have gardened on the back lot several times over the 15 years they've been here, and it's good soil, but more exposed to cold than near the houses.  Zander and his sis learned about food security and planted seeds each day at VBS '22 (vacation bible school), and we gave the marigolds, beans and sunflowers they started a home, along with tomatoes, peppers and pink celery. We used wood rounds and chicken wire around the bed to define it. Kale, chard and lots of clover When I moved across town last fall, I put in a couple of chard, Perennial kale, ( homesteaders kaleidoscope,  seed from Experimental Farm Network), plus garlic and Babington topset leeks. I've had the leeks a decade, after getting sets from Peace Seeds; whose founder Dr. Alan 'Mushroom' Kapuler recently passed.   Mushroom loved sha...

  As the fall cool weather and rains arrive, the tea camellia are in bloom - I never tire of seeing their pretty white flowers, and am excited to get the larger plants in the ground and growing on.  In Southern Yunnan province in China, there are wild tea trees  600 to 1800 years old, and 15 meters tall! My last tea camellia, at 15, was about 5×5'  Camellia sinensis, Sochi  And - here in the N, is time to plant garlic! My favorite garlic method (zone 8b, so fall planted, hardneck garlic): Forgotten garlic clump Look for some clumps you missed during harvest (since I plant mine in various beds, I usually miss some!) Ease them out of the earth Gently tease their roots apart Poke holes around the garden, drop in the bulb, add compost or soil, and top with a layer of leaves. Strawberry planter with garlic starts   One clump (seperated) went between plants in the cedar strawberry planter, the second into a long planter with more strawberries, and the last into t...

 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...

 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...