Red Veined Sorrel

Red Veined Sorrel is easy, beautiful, and edible too!

This showy sorrel is often grown as an ornamental, however it is totally edible cooked or raw. The younger leaves are tender, and in certain seasons they are choice; however it is always wise to give them the taste test if you are hoping to use the lovely leaves in a salad, because they have a tendency to become strong flavored and slightly bitter. Simmering or braising does tenderize them and sweeten them up. In addition to using them in salads and as a garnish, they are great added to soups and as part of the mix in an old fashioned 'mess of greens.'

Red Veined Sorrel from Growing Together Community Gardens.

Red Veined Sorrel is easy to grow and plants and seeds are often available at nurseries, garden centers, and through mail order catalogs and on-line sellers. They are offered under a number of different names, including red sorrel, blood sorrel, and unicorn plant.  Once established they will return each year and their clumps will slowly increase in size and they can be divided to share with friends or to get them established in a few spots in the garden.

When you notice that they start shooting up tall stems, you will want to cut them back to the ground. They are vigorous self sowers and those tall stems are getting ready to make thousands of seeds!  A few of these striking plants are often welcome in the garden, but thousands are definitely too many!

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This post started out as a photo description on Growing Together Community Gardens' page, where I have gardened for the last 3 years, and where I have been the coordinator for the past 2 years.

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Copyright, 2016, Harvest McCampbell.  Please feel free to share using the buttons below.  All other rights reserved.

Lemon Balm

Lemon Balm is a very adaptable ancient herb that is found in gardens everywhere!

It is in the mint family, as are many culinary and medicinal herbs. Many mint family plants go dormant over the winter in our area. In our garden, Lemon Balm is first to greet spring with new green leaves. Sometimes it even stays green and lush through most of the winter.

Lemon Balm has a pleasant mild lemony-mint flavor. It makes a great cup of tea, and the young tender leaves can also be added to all kinds of salads. It is sometimes used in spring rolls, stir fry, curry, and Thai dishes as well. Any recipe that calls for basil can be given a new taste sensation by substituting Lemon Balm.

Lemon Balm also has a long history of use in cosmetics and as a gentle medicinal plant. It is a great carbon fixer, and when mature produces lots of organic matter that us useful in making compost or adding to mulch.

In addition the flowers (which are inconspicuous) attract bees--especially mason bees--and other pollinators and beneficial insects as well.  Providing for and attracting pollinators and beneficial insects is part of the important and necessary work of every gardener.

Here are some links to everything you need to know to get started using Lemon Balm for tea, flavoring, cosmetics, or as a gentle herbal remedy:

If you have never made tea from fresh herbs before, check out this link: http://www.doityourself.com/stry/how-to-make-lemon-balm-tea

Tips for using Lemon Balm in cooking can be found here: http://www.lemonbalmcream.com/

Here are some great recipes to try: http://www.farmflavor.com/tag/lemon-balm/
/culinary_uses.html

You can treat yourself to a home spa day with a Lemon Balm bath and home made Lemon Balm toners and astringents: http://www.lemonbalm.org/lemon-balm-cosmetic-skin-care-uses/

If you want to explore its medicinal properties check out this link: http://umm.edu/health/medical/altmed/herb/lemon-balm

For more fun things to do with Lemon Balm see: https://thenerdyfarmwife.com/12-things-to-do-with-lemon-balm/

Lemon balm is easy to grow from seeds.  Plants can be found through local plant sales, nurseries, and on-line herb specialists.  Many gardeners receive their first plants from other gardeners and then pass along the offspring.  Lemon balm is a reliable self sower to the extent that some people consider it a pest.  If it gets pesky in your garden, cut it back to the ground about midway through its first flush of tiny flowers, before they set seed.  Mature clumps can also be divided with a shovel, to reduce their size and share with friends.

Most of the text posted here originally appeared on Growing Together Community Garden's Facebook Page, where I have been gardening for the last three years and where I have been the coordinator for the last 2 years.  

Please feel free to link, share, or pin, this or any content on my blog.  Repost or republish only with written permission.  Copyright 2015, text and photos, Harvest McCampbell, all rights reserved. 

 

The Thing About The Garden . . .

One can go to the garden a little grumpy or in pain, with a headache or a resentment—and work one’s self back into peace.

That happened to me yesterday, suddenly, in the rhubarb.  Suddenly everything else was just gone and there I was sitting on the cool earth, enmeshed in the jewel tones of rhubarb, entranced by the beginning of autumn glimmerings on blueberry leaves, and the glory of the Jerusalem artichoke's crown of fall flowers.  I was suddenly just there, the sweet brisk fall air tickling my skin.  I was just there with Creation and rhubarb.  No more grumpiness, no more pain, no more headache, no more resentment.  I was back into peace.

Our first frost had visited the night before and these lovely stalks of rhubarb were tugged and twisted loose for the food bank.  Each stalk a gift.  A gift to me, in their simple beauty.  A gift to the food bank, and from there a gift to the precious people who depend on the food bank, who look to the food bank for something sweet they would otherwise never have.  My thoughts went to these precious people, some of them elderly, some of them disabled, some of them working long hours for low pay—supporting our economy and our elite yet not able to make ends meet.  My thought went to these precious people.

Rhubarb is seldom available in our stores and when it is, it is very expensive.  And here was this gift, fresh picked, organic, and loved.  Grown with love.  Given with love.  There certainly is not enough for everyone.  But not everyone loves rhubarb.  Our food bank is very special.  Customers get ‘points’ which they spend, they get to make choices.  And for some people that choice, today, will be rhubarb.  Sometimes rhubarb is more important than tuna fish or eggs.  Sometime the memory of the treat made from grandma’s garden is more nourishing than anything else can be.  And for some people, that is the gift that rhubarb can bring.

In many of our old cultures, our wealth was not counted by what we hoarded.  Our wealth was counted by what we gave.  Creation is the gift to us, which nurtures us.  Before we made up all this extraneous stuff, before people owned and controlled land, before they developed monetary systems that impoverished many and enriched few, before all that, everything we needed was a gift from Nature, from Creation, and the labor of our own hands.

Photo-- Shelia Rickers.  Me pulling weeds at Growing Together Community Gardens, completely oblivious to the camera.

My hands are not as young as they used to be.  But there are still a few hours of labor left in this aging body.  I can still weave myself back in to Creation, back into the garden, and I can still count myself wealthy as I find that I, and the garden, have something to give.  

10.12.16

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If you would like to join us at Growing Together Community Gardens, we have a very few available garden beds; and we always welcome volunteers.