Green greetings to you all.
And isn't it green?!
As the days lengthen toward summer solstice, the leaves do their utmost to take in as much solar energy and light as they can. Where we could see blue sky but a few weeks ago is now totally covered over with leafy tree canopies.
Isn't it green?
The meadow that was easily walked through last month is now teeming with plants, especially clovers. Meet three of my favorites – red clover, white clover, and yellow sweet clover – on this week's weed walk. And a dozen more of my favorites in this week's recipe: Welcome-to-Summer-Solstice Salad.
Isn't it greener than green?
We are hustling to harvest the last of the nettle to dry for infusion before it goes to flower. Mentored students receive the first chapter of my Step-by-Step, Start-to-Finish, Making Nettle Infusion Photo Essay this week: Harvesting Nettle Barehanded. In weeks to come, they will read about and see photos of: Harvesting Nettle to Dry for Infusion, Hanging Nettle to Dry for Infusion, Storing Dried Nettle for Infusion, Cutting Dried Nettle for Infusion, Buying Dried Nettle for Infusion, Making Nettle Infusion in a Quart Jar, Making Nettle Infusion in a Pan, Using Nettle Infusion.
OOOOOh! Isn't it green?
Join me for our upcoming Father's Day work exchange weekend June 14-15 or for my lushest classes of the year: The Great Remedies, Hands-on on Saturday June 21, and Talking with Plants on Sunday. Wishing you a Blissful Summer Solstice !!
Green blessings are everywhere.
Weed Walk – June – Clovers
Here are three common clovers. And several uses for each. The clovers are part of the pea and bean family; they are legumes. Legumes bring fertility to the soil by fixing nitrogen out the air and making it available to the plants. Chemical fertilizers break a bond in ammonia to free nitrogen to give to the plants.
Red clover (
Trifolium pretense) is the clover we love best. Try the fresh blossoms in salads. Make an oil from the fresh flowers. Or try your hand at red clover wine. (Use the
dandelion flower wine recipe, or my rose wine recipe.) Tincture of red clover is sometimes used as a cancer treatment, alone or with drugs. Red clover infusion is my hedge against cancer.
White clover (
Trifolium repens) is the native clover. The leaves have the chevron, just like red clover. White clover can be used in exactly the same ways as red clover: in salads, as a softening oil, as a delicious vinegar, as a wonderful wine, tinctured as a medicine, or dried to use as infusion.
Yellow sweet clover (
Mellilotus officinalis) is the tallest of these three clovers. It is taller than Monica Jean. The sweetly-scented flowers are marvelous in potpourri. They make a heavenly oil that smells delicious. The root can be used, with caution, as a tincture to replace vanilla extract. All clovers contain blood-thinning compounds; but sweet clover has lots of coumadin. Great to help prevent strokes and heart attack, but problematic in quantity.
The Recipe Box
Welcome-to-Summer-Solstice Salad
Here's what was in our salad tonight, the first week of June:
Tender tops of Glechoma hederacea (creeping jenny, ground ivy), whole
First-year leaves of Alliaria officinalis (garlic mustard), torn in thirds
Leaves of Viola (violet), torn in quarters
Tender tops of Artemisia vulgaris (cronewort, mugwort), finely minced
Tops of Stelleria pubera (giant chickweed), whole
Non-flowering tops of Gallium mollugo (wild madder)
Leaves of Rumex acetosella (sheep sorrel, whalewort), whole
Leaves of Taraxacum off. (dandelion), cut small
Leaves of Parthenocissus quinqifolia (Virginia creeper, five-finger ivy), whole
Leaves of Sisymbrium officinale (hedge mustard), whole or torn in half
Leaves of Daucus carota (wild carrot), leaves removed from midrib and use whole
Leaves of Melissa off. (lemon balm), minced
Flowers of Hesperis matronalis (dame's rocket, Queen of the night)
Flowers of cultivated chives, torn into individual florets
Petals of Paeonia (peony) flowers
Petals of Rosa (rose) flowers
Arugula from the garden