(no subject)
Sep. 25th, 2012 11:41 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bloodyrosemccoyDad got me a nice little garden tools kit for my birthday! All the garden stores were snotty about the fact that it’s, y’know, autumn and gardening is ostensibly over, but he figured it’d be a great start for next year, and we’ve been having a good time gardening together.
Plus, I’ve already started planning for next year anyway. I was less pleased with The Farm this year for a number of reasons. Some I can control, like weeding, watering regularly, use of space, soil, and some bunny activity;* some is out of my control, like the weather, the rest of the bunny activity, and Dad’s inability to distinguish weeds from chard when he’s weed-whacking. So I’m working out a plan of attack for next year, armed with my nice new gardening equipment!
I want to start growing more herbs for tea. It’d be fun to have a few herbal remedies on hand,** though mostly I just want to try making my own tisanes. I did make one discovery while looking through herb books, though—apparently the little daisy-looking flowers that keep popping up in my garden are feverfew. I’m off to a better start than I thought!
Anyway, I may have gotten a somewhat lackluster yield this year,*** but I can always look forward to fixing it up for next year. Meanwhile, I’ve got some more tomatoes to pick.
*I’m still terribly pleased that the bunnies are enjoying my garden, but I’m still putting most of my beans in cages next year.
**Although learning herbal remedies is complicated by the fact that there’s no end of bullshit surrounding herb lore. It’s hard to sift through the latest fads in everything from love potion to cancer to find the science.
***Cherry tomatoes notwithstanding. THEY’RE EVERYWHERE.
Plus, I’ve already started planning for next year anyway. I was less pleased with The Farm this year for a number of reasons. Some I can control, like weeding, watering regularly, use of space, soil, and some bunny activity;* some is out of my control, like the weather, the rest of the bunny activity, and Dad’s inability to distinguish weeds from chard when he’s weed-whacking. So I’m working out a plan of attack for next year, armed with my nice new gardening equipment!
I want to start growing more herbs for tea. It’d be fun to have a few herbal remedies on hand,** though mostly I just want to try making my own tisanes. I did make one discovery while looking through herb books, though—apparently the little daisy-looking flowers that keep popping up in my garden are feverfew. I’m off to a better start than I thought!
Anyway, I may have gotten a somewhat lackluster yield this year,*** but I can always look forward to fixing it up for next year. Meanwhile, I’ve got some more tomatoes to pick.
*I’m still terribly pleased that the bunnies are enjoying my garden, but I’m still putting most of my beans in cages next year.
**Although learning herbal remedies is complicated by the fact that there’s no end of bullshit surrounding herb lore. It’s hard to sift through the latest fads in everything from love potion to cancer to find the science.
***Cherry tomatoes notwithstanding. THEY’RE EVERYWHERE.
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no subject
Date: 2012-09-25 06:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-09-25 06:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-09-25 07:09 pm (UTC)I found that I went back to very old herbals, and then compared them to modern "research" and very carefully weeded out the poisonous herbs, and then tried out different dosages - even for things like horehound that are routinely acknowledged as good for colds. (Horehound tastes horrible, and I found that it worked much better with hyssop for coughs, but that neither worked for me when used alone to any extent that made it worth the taste for example).
no subject
Date: 2012-09-26 05:52 am (UTC)I was fascinated by herbs and herbals when I was about 14; a friend and I played at being magic gypsy apothecary witches (or something along those rather muddy lines) and bottled and dried stuff from my garden.
The only thing I really remember is that just about everything was listed as good for 'flatulence and halitosis.' At 14 we got a LOT of laugh mileage out of that.
no subject
Date: 2012-09-26 06:42 am (UTC)Man, 14-year-olds are hilarious. Did you learn anything, or were you more like me and just made all the "lore" up yourself?