Beans, Beans the Magical Fruit
I grow lots of beans. Yes, waxy green, yellow and purple pods that wink out at me through summer’s thick vegetation, to be eaten fresh. And yes, a few different types of climbers for the corn, as an essential part of the “three sisters”. Among these, the proto North American bean Scarlet Runners. But I…
The Accidental Herbalist – Yarrow, St.John’s Wort, Wild Lettuce & Scullcap
The last time I wrote an “Accidental Herbalist” article was a long time ago. Which, considering I There’s a double meaning hidden in this title. The first is fairly obvious because it’s about a herbalist treating his own accidents. But the second you could never know, which is that I never intended to be a…
The Herbalist’s Dilemma: “To be sick or not to be sick, that is the question.”
It’s a funny thing, when I was growing up in the 1970’s, something we all heard over and over is “they can put a man on the moon but can’t cure the common cold”. This is not true now and it wasn’t true then. It is true, that antibiotics weren’t used for colds back then,…
Plantain: Traveller’s Talisman
I’ve been reading Martin Shaw’s “Scatterlings” this winter. The message is a wise old one, that “what we’re searching far and wide for, turns out to be actually right where we live”. What I resonate with in Martin’s book is, because we’re in a cultural/technological trance we can’t see or access this deep, nourishing relationship…
The Venerable Hazelnut, Generous & Versatile
By far the quickest growing, and easiest going nut trees are Hazels. In my area we have the wild Beaked Hazelnut and we plant a Filbert type. Within a few years you can have nuts! Hazelnuts, like most trees, will grow like crazy and produce nuts if they’re in a spot they like. And as…
Seeding a Future of Beauty, Fecundity and Healing
Don’t underestimate the power of the seed. They are very, very small but without them life as we know it would end on the planet. The late fall is an excellent time of year for seed collecting and for starting to picture a richer, more diverse ecology. This dream, this vision of earthly fecundity is…
35 years of seeding earth wisdom
