As the weather warms up after a month or so of cold I feel my shoulders finally start to creep down my back away from my ears. The sun is warm on my face as it pours through the kitchen window, and my thoughts turn to spring and the arrival of the first newly sprouted greens in my yard. Just as I’m beginning to wonder about what I might be planting and growing this year, the seed catalogues start to arrive!
Along with the brilliantly colored covers of the fruit, vegetable, and flower catalogues, there are some rather drab half sized catalogues of herbs, medicinal plants, and (Holy Cow) weeds! In these booklets dandelions are not to be scourged and poisoned, they have seeds for sale! Plantain, burdock, chickweed and mullein are all valuable here. I can turn my whole yard into a ‘weed heaven’ if I want to!
Our fore Fathers and Mothers knew what they were doing when they insisted on bringing some of these plants with them when they crossed ‘the Pond’ several centuries ago. Since they are both survival foods and medicines, the early settlers knew they would make it on these plants alone – no matter what was (or wasn’t) found here! How lovely this information has survived with these plants. Now they just may save us again…should we need them to…
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