The Herbalist Blog
This is the Herbalist Web Log. As the seasons change and our love for the land deepens Linda will attempt to capture her thoughts and observations here.
The Month of May
Spring is now in full swing! This is a fertile time of year for plants as evidenced by the riot of color seen over the last week. Wild geranium, waterleaf, phlox and nettle are just a few of the plants that I saw on a walk this afternoon. Starting to flower are the brambles wineberry and blackberry, Lyre leaf and garden sages, buttercups, mustards, and the nutritious early spring greens such as nettle and lamb’s quarters. Too late for nettle as the plants start to concentrate particles that are urinary irritants as they get closer...
read morePainted leaves: Artwork of spring
A walk through the hoophouse and around the farm today reminds me of the beauty of so many of our medicinal plants. Here are a few that stood out to me. Dandelion, California Poppy, Comfrey, Milk Thistle, and our common but lovely and health promoting Dandelion.
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What’s blooming today?
On a walk along the Tohickon creek today, Eric and I saw many of our early spring wildflowers starting to wake up from winter slumber. Keep your eyes open for the following plants, but please just enjoy them without taking any home with you. They have little by way of refuge in our increasingly urbanized world and need as many in the wild to provide for recovery of native plant populations, if that’s even possible. Sadly, my camera battery was dead so I couldn’t take pictures. Next time I’ll remember to charge the...
read moreSigns of Spring
Heading back from the farm on Sunday I spotted one of the early native plants of spring. Skunk Cabbage, otherwise referred to as Symplocarpus foetidus, is a beautiful spring wetland plant that starts to emerge in late February to early March, often popping through snow and ice to reach the dappled sunlight filtering through the still bare decidous trees. Skunk cabbage’s flowering stalk (which appears before the leaves start to emerge) creates enough heat to melt the snow immediately surrounding it, creating a small microclimate of...
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- Linda in the Flowers
