Happenings in the Garden

After surviving (cross fingers!) two exams today, I wandered out into the garden to clear my head late this afternoon. Here are some of the things happening . . .

Here is the first purple asparagus spear of the season. It may just find itself being eaten tomorrow night! This is the fourth season for the purple asparagus in our garden. Given how much it produced last year, I'm already thinking of preserving some.


And here is the first Greenfeast pea flower of the season. The Red Flowering Peas are yet to produce any blossoms, but when they do, I'll post a pic.
Some beautiful broad bean flowers . . .


And the first of the Solomon's Seal rhizomes that I planted a while ago is off and running.

Solomon's Seal (Polygonatum multiflorum) is a magic herb. Its tincture, made from the root, can be used to heal ligaments and tendons. Somehow, this amazing plant knows how to shorten stretched ligaments and tendons and lengthen short ones, bringing the body part (eg, ankles) back into perfect alignment.

Some people refer to Solomon's Seal as the "herbal chiropractor". Matthew Wood calls it the Indispensible Muscular and Skeletal Remedy.

Some blackcurrant cuttings I took a few weeks ago (from the prunings off the blackcurrant) now have little roots attached to them. I'm hoping they'll develop further and I can obtain some more big blackcurrant bushes.

Marshmallow seeds I planted back in Autumn have sprouted when I had almost given up on them (shame on me!). Here are some of the little darlings I hope will soon grow into rampant plants.

Marshmallow (Malva sylvestra) is great for treating dry irritating coughs and as a mild astringent for gastroenteritis.

Happy Gardening!

love and light
naturewitch

Another Fun Day in the Garden

Today was another productive day in the garden. I dug over a neglected area of the garden to plant my red pear and put the mattock through a dock. I decided to try to identify what sort of dock it was and I think it may be yellow dock or Rumex crispus, which is the medicinal dock. Before getting too excited, though, I'm going to confirm with my herb teacher tomorrow.

Yellow dock is great for a host of ailments such as liver congestion, gall stones, spleen and lymphatic conditions, psoriasis and constipation, as well as promoting the flow of bile and cleansing the blood. (As always, this information is intended for interest only and any treatment of these conditions should be done under the supervision of a qualified herbalist.)

Apart from the great find, I planted a few things today:

• 20 Lily of the Valley pips
• 40 Solomon's Seal tubers
• the red pear
• a female and a male kiwi fruit

It started to rain at that point, so I had to come inside, but the rain will water everything in nicely. Don't you just love the way that nature provides us with what we need?

love and light
naturewitch