Tristans Unkraut

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…