Tristans Unkraut

Opium Poppy (Papaver somiferum) is one of the most widely used medicinal plants in the world and has a very interesting history. opium, the sap that oozes from the plant when cut, was widely used in Chinese culture as a hedonistic ritual to an extend…

After a day in Chicago we headed out to Red Fern Farm in Iowa just west of the Mississippi on July 16th. I stayed for three days and never learned so much in such a short time. Tom and Kathy Wahl have been planting Chestnut trees there about 30 years…

At the 14th of July we made a short 3 hour stop at Salamander Springs Farm on our way to Chicago. Susana Lein is living there off-grid and grows mainly beans and corn as staple crops. She used to grow all kinds of vegetables and sell them but as she has…

The following plants are ones I discovered growing here at Mountain Gardens in the Appalachian Mountains of North Carolina at 1.000 m height in USDA hardiness zone 6b. Many of these plants are said in the literature to not be hardy enough or are…

Grape Vines are just such vigorous and beautiful plants and they are one of the best perennial vegetables. It is together with Goji, Saltbush, Toona and Mulberry one of Eric Toensmeiers "Fabulous Five" temperate woody perennial vegetables that can…

Since the Asparagus and Solomons Seal season is over i was very happy to discover that the Hosta flower stalks that are popping up everywhere at the moment are quite abundant, tender and taste almost like Solomons Seal. Also we finished one of the jars…

Making honey pills is a nice way to make a sweet and edible treat out of any herb or herb formula that can be ground into a powder. Of course it only makes sense with herbs that release their medicinal compounds without being tinctured in alcohol but…

A percolation has a few advantages and disadvantages compared to a maceration. A Percolation is much faster, taking only about 2 days to the finished tincture, while a maceration can take several weeks. A percolation also ends up with a more potent…

Shi Chang Pu, the rhizome of the species Acorus gramineus and A. tatarinowii, is widely used in traditional chinese medicine. It is closely related to Calamus / Sweetflag (A. calamus) which has somewhat similar medicinal properties. Shi Chang Pu is used…

Because of the fire at Mountain Gardens, we had to fell some burned trees and ended up with a lot of wood. The trunks went into lumber production, the small branches are drying to be used as firewood and the medium sized branches and tree stumps are…

So the tea bush at Mountain Gardens sent up new shoots for harvest that I harvested at the last days of May. The second flush of tea leaves ended up being less than the first flush and also not as tender. This time I wanted to try and make some black…

The green seeds of Oat (Avena sativa) can be harvested in their milky stage to make a medicinal tincture. The milky stage of the seeds can be easily missed so the right time of harvest ist crucial. To test if the oat-seeds are in the milky stage just…

Spiderwort (Tradescantia virginiana) may turn out to be another good perennial vegetable. In April the young shoots and leaves can be eaten raw or in soups and in May, when many perennial vegetables grow out of their tender state and turn fibrous and…

We were saving a lot of seeds of true Wasabi (Eutrema japonicum) the last days. The seeds develop the first half of May and have to be harvested before they fully ripen because the seed pods open and they seeds fall out. Wasabi is in the Brassicaceae…

As I just started this blog and had to deal with all these website-configurations this post is a little bit late, as almost all the Solomons Seal shoots are too big and fibrous by now. At least here in the Appalachian Mountains. Giant Solomons Seal…

Tea (Camellia sinensis) probably originated in the triangle of upland Myanmar, Assam in India and Yunnan in China which roughly accords to USDA zone 9 - 10. After a long history of tea being brought to different countries and continents, cultivars were…