“Bee Tree”

Thursday, June 29, 2023 – While out walking this morning, I noticed an American Basswood tree (a.k.a. “Bee Tree”) in bloom. I took a small branch home to do some nature drawing. The leaves look like lopsided hearts, and the flowers look like bursting stars.

Using the ruler on my magnifying glass, I sketched out the proportional structure of my drawing. I examined my live sample closely from different angles and drew in the details of the bract, flowers and leaves. Then I searched for botanical descriptions of plant details in a couple reference books and added some botany terminology (ie., broadly ovate, palmately veined) to my drawing. The America Basswood tree is a pollinator attracting tree that bee use to produce honey. This is a wonderful tree to use in the overstory layer of a food forest garden.

I am a Nature Drawing instructor, a food forest gardener and an Abundance Ambassador for Food Forest Abundance. Follow my journey through this blog and through the Story Walking Radio Hour.

Beneficial Garlic

Friday, April 22, 2023 (Earth Day) – I am in the process of digging up two large beds of garlic, so that I can rebuild the beds and plant them with vegetables. But, what will I do with all this garlic?

I’ll relocate some to serve as companion plants for select fruits and vegetables. Garlic has a strong odor that deters garden pests. It can repel cabbage worms, Japanese beetles, moths and aphids away from cabbage and kale. It can even help deter rabbits and deer.

In addition, garlic bulbs release sulfur into the soil, which helps to reduce fungal infections in nearby plants and fruit trees. For example, garlic is known to reduce potato blight and apple scab.

Garlic is an essential perennial plant for both permaculture and medicinal gardening.

Among its many health benefits for people, garlic is anti-viral, anti-bacterial, anti-inflammatory and anti-cancer. Garlic also a natural blood thinner, however, people should avoid it before surgery, and people on blood thinner medication also need to be cautious.

Garlic provides the culinary benefits of distinct flavor and versatility, and it stores well.

I use a lot of garlic in my cooking. For example, I harvest Rosemary buds and Garlic scapes in July to infuse with olive oil. After pouring the olive oil into a double boiler, I add the flowers, rolling the rosemary between my palms to release the oils and crumbling the garlic scape flowers with my fingers.

Then I heat the oil and flower/bud mixture in the double boiler for ten minutes, turn off the heat, and let the mixture sit for an hour, before straining out the herbs and decanting the oil into a clean bottle.

Still, I have far more garlic than needed, and I am ready to share the abundance with interested neighbors.

Raspberry & Rosemary

Thursday, July 7, 2022 – I’ve been waiting patiently, and, lo’ and behold, the first wild raspberry of the season popped out today, with a promise of culinary abundance to come.

What’s more, my Rosemary is in flower. Raspberry and Rosemary, sweet and savory, pair well together. I found recipes online for Raspberry-Rosemary Lemonade, Raspberry-Rosemary Scones and Raspberry-Rosemary Jam Bars. While awaiting the fruition of this years raspberry harvest, I decided to infuse some olive oil with rosemary flowers and buds. And, since my garlic scapes are also in flower, I added some of those.

After pouring olive oil in a double boiler, I added the flowers, rolling the rosemary between my palms to release the oils and crumbling the garlic scape flowers apart with my fingers. I heated the oil and flower/bud mixture for ten minutes, and then turned off the heat and to let it all sit for an hour. Then I strained out the herbs and decanted the infusion into a clean bottle. Once I can gather a cup of raspberries, I will use them to make raspberry vinegar from scratch. The ultimate goal here is Raspberry-Rosemary Salad Dressing.

Besides being a versatile culinary ingredient, rosemary is a natural insect repellent, making it valuable for food forest and organic gardening. Aromatic plants are a safer alternative than chemical pesticides. They are better for health and better for the environment.

Raspberry and Rosemary are only the beginning of my Food Forest Adventure. I am an Abundance Ambassador for Food Forest Abundance. This week we received our blueprint to replace our front lawn with forest full of natural culinary abundance, and THAT is just the beginning. I invite you to follow my journey around and into the forest, here and through my Story Walking Radio Hour.