Blog Archives
Those Old Onions
It happens to the best of us, you reach into the bag of onions and you find greens. Sometimes you can still use these onions but other times, well, they’re gross. Instead of tossing them in the garbage or compost heap, watch my video on how to plant them so you get more onions!
Foraging Garlic Mustard
Let me start off by saying I meant to blog this last week but I ended up with a sick kid and TWO emergency visits to the vet with my dog (that was an unexpected nearly $1000 bill!) and I’ve been making as much products for my business as I can to make up for the expense.
Anyways, garlic mustard grows nearly everywhere. It’s one of the first plants to come up in spring and most people think it’s just a weed. It’s all over my yard right now and the park we go to is full of it, it’s very easy to get lots of it.
The smell is obviously oniony/garlicky. I’ve seen people add it to salads but I personally like to make it into a pesto with lemon juice or just purée it. Then I put it in ice cube trays and freeze it, adding it to dishes as I need.
(My camera did well for this pic! I love it)
There’s a close up of the leaves and flowers, when the flowers open they are small and white. There’s lots of information around the web on garlic mustard so make sure you research before you forage!
Good luck finding it and I hope you like it!
Seed bombs!
Here’s a fun little project you can do with your little preppers! Seed bombs are little balls made of seeds and growing medium. The ones we made were clay, soil and seeds.
You need:
4 parts air dry clay (found here)
1 part potting soil
1 part seeds
Mix your clay so that its pliable, add in your soil and then add in your seeds. We made two types of seed bombs: one with local edible and medicinal herbs and the other with wild flowers.
Let them dry 24 hours and then spread them around! A great way to beautify (or make usable and an additional prep!) an empty space!
Here’s the ones the kids did!
Love the idea, don’t have the time? These things seem to be popular on etsy and you can find them there (including my shop soon!). Get out there and guerrilla garden!
Bee Plants
I believe it was Albert Einstein who said that without bees, the human species would go extinct within four years.
Honeybees are so essential to our entire food supply and they’re dying off in scary numbers. Between colony collapse and sheer lack of food, our honeybees are disappearing. In my city, we can’t own bees without a whole lot of paper work and fees and inspections etc, etc, so I decided to dedicate part of my garden to bee friendly plants.
Since I live in Canada, I can be somewhat limited to what plants will live here. This year the weather has been especially all over the place (to the point where several people I know had their furnaces on last night, almost a full week into June) and I’ve only seen two honeybees in my yard. But here’s a quick list of what I’ve planted that my local bees seem to love.
Lavender – I have several lavender plants that I used to use for my soap business but even when I harvest, I leave several stalks that are constantly visited by our bees.
Bee balm – (monarda) produces amazing spiky flowers and is always surrounded by bees.
Strawberries – although I don’t grow these specifically for the bees, the flowers bloom fairly early and give the bees something to pollinate before the other plants show up.
Clover – I have a small piece of the property that isn’t maintained and it is crawling with clover. Anytime I pull up clover from any other part of the lawn, I throw it there to help seed it. I’m sure we’ve all heard of clover honey?
Lilac – although this plant belongs to one of the neighbors and not me, I stay away from it because its surrounded by bees while in bloom.
Most of these plants are fairly hardy regardless of where you are in North America, so consider placing some of them on your land. We all need bees. Please try to avoid commercial insecticides as well and try a natural alternative such as companion planting, soapy water or manual pest removal.
Check out this book:100 Plants to Feed the Bees
BurroakBurrow 