When the days are bright and warming but it’s not quite time yet for fiddling around in the garden, it might just be time to focus on edible and medicinal weeds. On one such day, I came across some beautiful dandelion roots – and it is a perfect time to start...
I know we’re often fed up about all the food rules — eat this, don’t eat that, only eat that in relation to this, alternate all the thises and thatses to maximize the something elses… But in the last few weeks I’ve stumbled upon a new rule you...
I spent unfortunate number of my gardening years dismissing the idea of planting flowers. There were some exceptions: Calendula, rose, lavender — because those are all medicinal, too. But flowers just for pretty? What gardener has enough room for that? As you know,...
When I was a tiny baby, I’m told that one of my uncles decided to be mischievous with me. “I’m going to make the baby make a face,“ he determinedly said. He cut a lemon and put it in my mouth. Defying expectations, I just smiled. And thus began a life-long love affair...
Over the last weekend in January, I spent some quality time in mine, doing winter-garden things like clearing blackberries, mulching paths, trimming branches of my olive tree, marveling at the green that’s surviving the season and the new life starting to think about...
In late July 2020, a friend invited me to pick newly ripened elderberries in her Portland yard. She’s got two — just two! — of the shrubs growing, and she can’t keep up. Knowing how coveted they are as medicine, she didn’t want them going to waste. I eagerly...
