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Wild sage. Do you use it? How?
Wild sage (salvia pratensis) is in full blossom in our Alpine meadows. I collect it every year and use it in my herbal infusions, because of its mild taste, the deep purple colour of the blossoms, because it’s ethereal oils are so good for respiratory tract. Sometimes I add it to my summer wild flower lemonades. So far I…
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Sheds for Inspiration
Even if it's just a dream set up, these sheds are awesome. There are a couple that they could drop off in my backyard.
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Create you own backyard nursery
You may buy a lot of plants, find a great sale or have friends gift you plants, trees and shrubs, but all of a sudden you have too many plants and need to put them somewhere until you can get them in the ground. Having one area, close to water and in partial shade will help you care for the plants and help keep you on a…
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Ancient seeds found in Siberian Permafrost
I guess this could be considered seed saving. Definitely long term storage. Will be interesting to see.
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I love this time of year - Discovery time
There seems to be a very small time span where I live where plants just begin to sprout and suddenly they are buried alive with grass and other growth. Yesterday and today I see all kinds of plants coming up I thought I had lost or the marker broke. I have a lovely Queen of the Prairie plants that the ground hog and…
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Nutrition content of Herbs
I know there is plenty of information about food and it's nutritional value, does there happen to be a list of herbs and their vitamin, mineral, carb, etc contents anywhere?
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How to make newspaper seed starting containers, plus
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Daisy the beautiful
Daisy, the beautiful Spring. Every day brings new herbs for soup, salad, herbal butter, herbal cottage cheese... Today I noticed my first daisy blossoms. We have a saying here: if you see three daisy blossoms - spring is here and if you eat them, you will be healthy all year round. Guess, what I did with those three…
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Growing pollinators
Growing more pollinators on your property has many benefits. Your crops will grow better, you add color and versitility to your land and they can have many edible or medicinal uses. Here's a great link for pollinators: https://pollinator.org/guides I plan on adding a lot more pollinators to the property and a few insect…
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High Performance Garden Show: featuring Lynn and Marjory
Amazing program this link takes you to the first part which is free, featuring Lynn and Marjory.
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What is the best app to identify plants and trees
Is there a good app to identify plants or trees. I have not had any experience or education concerning the subject and figure this is the best way to start.
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Garden Memories
I was surfing you tube this morning and came upon how to start tomatoes. It reminded me of my grandfather. He started his tomato seeds in the basement (where I live now) by the one large window. The lighting was perfect and he had the most beautiful tomato plants. Tomatoes can be picky to grow where I live but he always…
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Nature fiction
Hey- are there any good fiction books full of nature stuff? Like plants, survival stuff, outdoorsy type fiction. Not interested in romance or horror at all.
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Create cord from nettles
Fun page for creating cord from nettles. My friend weaves using nettles. I was amazed how soft it was https://www.instructables.com/Making-survival-cord-from-nettles/
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Chickens and toxic plants
Do you have any of these 14 plants where your chickens range? Better safe than sorry.
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Growing large gourds
I absolutely love growing gourds! In my zone, 5B, the larger gourds that take 100 plus days can be challenging to grow. Add to that, many larger gourds take 21 days to germinate. If you plant the seeds outdoors and you have a cold dip they often rot. So I have my own method of germinating them. I am not fond of styrofoam…
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Rare and/or Exotic Edible Plant Sources
In CANADA 🇨🇦... Exotic Plants: Rare Seeds (not all edible): I will add more to my post as I run across them. I am sure that I listed more on the forum at one point long ago, but can't find the thread. Tags are our friends...😒 You can be sure I'm tagging this one! Feel free to add your own sources for rare plants or exotics…
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States and medicinal weeds
Here's a really cool listing of states/regions and what medicinal weeds are most common.
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Good Morning Officer
It was a beautiful sunny morning, 10 a.m., and it was already scorching hot. It would be a day to pace your work outdoors and enjoy tea whenever possible. I was looking forward to a relaxing day working outdoors. The phone rings and its my neighbor. "They have 80% off plants at the greenhouse up the road and last years…
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Your plants, plus carbon dioxide = AWESOME
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Sources for calcium besides milk
Did you know that these plants have this much calcium?
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Favorite garden?
I learn a lot from visiting gardens, When I was 10 my family went to Thomas Jeffersons "Monticello" Stunning non stop gardens and seeds galore in the gift shop. I think this is where I got my love for unique seeds and seed saving. I started doing a lot of research on jeffersons seed saving and his getting seeds from all…
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Testing seed germination
I don't test all my seeds germination rates, but for cranky seeds or older seeds I do. and that is if I have enough extra seeds. I take 5 seeds, wet a paper towel and lay the towel flat. Half a towel in plenty. Place the seeds on the paper towel and fold over the seeds one time. Place in a bag and put on top of the…
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Plants protecting themselves from humans
Came across this and thought it was interesting--a plant evolving to protect itself from human over-harvesting! This is in China, but I wonder if there are any comparable examples here?
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How do I know that I'm feeding enough?
Does anyone have any tips for how to know if you're feeding you're chickens enough food? Thanks!
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Hawaiian Purple Sweet Potato
I tried growing this for the first time from some cuttings I got on Baker Creek. I planted them late so they didn't get as big as I was hoping, but I think I still got a decent yield. I am still deciding how I want to use them, but what do you all think?
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November cleanup
Living in a zone 5B climate my cleanup and fall prep will be different from many. And as always I am behind, particularly on huge projects. My 15 by 45 foot greenhouse is sitting in a pile. The main hangup is getting land leveled to put it in. I had a place selected but is too close the the gas line right of way and any…
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Delicious decorative quince fruit (chaenomeles)
Quinces - treasure of the garden: beautiful blossoms in spring, delicious fruit in autumn Middle September. Every evening I cut quinces while watching TV. And it lasts for almost a week. One activity contributes to another: it is boring to watch TV and it is boring to cut quinces, but both together are a nice combination.…
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Another plant to identify
I am continuing to identify plants on this property. Any help would be appreciated. The flower had the cutest grasshopper I had even seen (see above), but I shooed it away.
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Natural dyes, anyone?
I love working with natural plant dyes and the fibers I spin and weave--animal fibers (sheep, alpaca, cat, dog, whatever), cotton, linen and silk. I was wondering if there are any other dyers who would like to share recipes, experiments and such, or folks who are just interested in plant dyes and would like to discuss…
