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...

 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...