Showing posts with label Rue. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Rue. Show all posts

Wednesday, March 6, 2013

Planting for Spring

Spring has sprung even if the plant store is a little more wary. We've already got plants in the ground and seeds from last year are already popping up and saying hi.

Among the returnnig plants are the dill, which has come up in a carpet in the area it was in last year and is already attracting the black swallow tail butterflies, and the cilantro or chinese parsley, which again doesn't want to grow in the planting beds but likes to stretch out and grow in the rocks.  I think this is partly due to the birds eating most of the seed they can see on the dirt and when they're in the rocks it's harder for the birds to get to them and swallow them up.

From the plants that come back from the root we have the purple cone flower, hollyhock, a wide variety of iris, daylily, ferns, a basil plant that just didn't want to die, lemongrass, fennel, and onion.

The survivors who stayed green and happy all winter were oregano, thyme, lavender, green onion, rosemary, the monster beet, and of course the live oak.

We've planted seeds, starting from north to south, for corn, bush beans, beets, carrots, onion, and radishes.

Plants we've put in as plants are tomato, thyme, and rue (near our rose bush out front).  So far everything seems to be acclimating well.  the tomatoes, which usually droop a little at first, never even tipped a leaf.  We actually planted two thyme plants, a lemon thyme next to the one that's finally acclimating well and a yellow leaf thyme out near the fennel.

Tuesday, October 6, 2009

Skullcap

We have a little skullcap plant in the front but I really had no idea what to do with it. At first I thought it looked a little scraggly but it turns out that it's supposed to look that way. No wonder most people don't like planting it. It's not a showy plant or even lush. If I didn't know better I would have pulled it up and tossed it into the weeds.



I may be making a tea out of it soon to see if it helps my wife sleep, I still need to do a little more research just to make sure there are no calamitous side effects. So far as I can tell an overdose may lead to confusion, giddiness, and possible liver damage over a long time, then again so do a LOT of things. I love those commercials that end in the disclosure, "Side effects vary and may include, nose bleeds, liver damage, eyes bleeding, skin peeling off and possibly death." Ok, so I exaggerate, but everything has a side effect that's usually why something is taken.

Skullcap is also listed in a tea for arthritis which includes rue, angelica, black cohosh, colombo, valerian root, and gentain root.

Rue is another thing I don't currently have much of an idea of what to do with but that will be another day and probably after I get another plant of it, the last one died, I think....