Sweet buttery brown sugar and fragrant spicebush berries simmered together with slices of apple make for a delicious autumnal dessert (or snack!). (Don’t know what spicebush is? Check out this video at 5:18!) A quick note The spicebush flavor in this recipe is very subtle- it’s more there to add just a hint of depth…
These two plants have the same common name, but are very different! One plantain (Plantago spp.) is a leafy weed used to make things like a lovely first aid salve, while the other (Musa × paradisiaca) is a starchy fruit that looks like a banana. At a Glance Don’t want to read through the whole…
It is hot, I am suffering, and I have many alpine strawberries. Clearly the only thing to do here is to make ice cream! This recipe is a custard-style one, which means there will be much stirring of a pot over a stove and a considerable amount of chill-time required. It’s also gluten free, and…
Rosewater’s an easy enough project if you have a bunch of roses to spare and just a little patience. And since the method to make it’s the same for any number of fragrant plants, why not indulge in a little experimentation? Rosewater Rosewater (or the closest one can get without having specialized equipment) is pretty…
Learn how to make your own celery salt – it’s super easy! Do you need some things to do with extra celery? Here’s a way to use up a lot of it- celery shrinks pretty dramatically when it’s dried, and even more when it’s rendered into a fine powder, so you can fit a lot…
(Raphanus sativus) Radishes: you love them or you hate them. Either way, these spicy little roots are one of the quickest growing vegetables you can plant in your garden, some varieties ready to harvest in as few as three weeks! Basics Plant your radishes in a location that gets at least 6 hours of sun…
Learn how to make beautiful redbud jelly using foraged redbud flowers, reduced sugar pectin, sugar, and lemon juice! Redbud flowers bloom for a very short time each year in early spring, so if you want to make redbud jelly, you’ve got a narrow little window to do it! Collecting & Preparing Redbuds This recipe uses…
Hear me, ye who be blighted by the heavy gloom of winter’s passing; there be four things you must find to lift your curse most foul- Just kidding. No curses being cleaned here, just faces. You will need: Violets Thyme A few sprigs of sage Forsythia flowers (if you don’t have access to forsythia, dandelion…
I love my cats dearly, but the last thing I need is for them to be trying to eat my tomato seedlings as I’m trying to transplant them. Since I generally don’t feel like constantly removing cat faces from my planting trays, out the catnip comes! My greedy little gremlins can and will eat every…
The Hypnos bedtime balm was born from the overwhelming desire to find something heavy and whack my insomnia over the head with it. That’s about it, really. Will this balm physically fist-fight your insomnia? Sadly, no. It makes for a pretty relaxing (and very fragrant) pre-bedtime massage balm, though! Some links on this site are…
Want a tall, bushy green plant loaded with tons of ruffled white flowers that the pollinators absolutely adore? Kilimanjaro white marigolds might be just what you’re looking for! The 2″ creamy flowers have open centers, unlike many marigolds, where the petals are so strongly ruffled that the pollen of the flowers is simply inaccessible to…
(Impatiens balsamina) An annual flower that thrives in the heat, these plants have seed pods that burst open with just a gentle squeeze when fully mature. This sends them off to join the ranks of plants that go by the nickname ‘Touch-Me-Not’, which, conversely, usually means that people go out of their way to touch…