Giant Purple Angelica — Angelica atropurpurea

(it’s native to eastern north America)

Angelica — Angelica archangelica

Family: Apiacea (related to the Carrot)

Parts Used: Root, Leaf, and Seed used medicinally; stalks used for confectionery.

Actions: Carminative (combats flatulence), stimulant, emmenagogue (stimulates blood flow in the pelvic area and uterus), antispasmodic (relaxes smooth muscle which controls intestinal function), antirheumatic, antiseptic, expectorant, diuretic (makes you pee), diaphoretic (causes sweating). 

Systems Affected: Respiratory, circulatory, digestive, musculoskeletal, genitourinary.

Specific Indications: Expectorant for coughs, pluerisy, and most other lung conditions, especially when the condition is fluish or feverish or accompanying a cold. It induces sweating in fevers, cooling the skin. Angelica’s warming properties and high carminative bitter essential oil content act as an antispasmodic to help relieve stomach and intestinal cramps (colic) and nausea as well as flatulence. It aids digestion and promotes appetite, and has an affinity for the urinary system as an anti septic for bladder and urethra inflammations. as it improves circulation and warms the body when taken internally and applied as a poultice or a liniment, it has been used to ease rheumatic inflammation and peripheral vascular deficiency (In PVD, I guess blood flow outside the heart weakens). Due to these warming circulatory properties, it also acts as a menstrual stimulant to help promote and regulate menstrual flow and as an antispasmodic to relieve menstrual cramps.

(the Male Herbal. James Green, Herbalist.)

Those with diabetes should not take Angelica as it increases sugar in the urine.

(botanical.com)

Russian Comfrey — Symphytum Uplandica

Mammoth melting snow pea

Dinosaur Kale.

Jerusalem Artichoke — Helianthus Tuberosus

Grape and trellis.

This is a rather indistinct photo of the garden. I wish I could show you guys what I’m seeing but I can’t seem to make the camera do it.

Hello, all and welcome to Garden Update number three. This post is going to be a simple run-down of what’s been happening since the last post but I may have to upload pictures separately because Tumblr doesn’t like cooperating with me, lately.

So, now that the threat of a frost is nearly over, things have started heating up; It’s supposed to get up to seventy-eight degrees fahrenheit today. Hurray! My winter luxury Pumpkins have started sprouting which is exciting on its own but I’m really excited to try a recipe my boss gave to me the other day. It’s called dinner in a pumpkin (if you want to google it) and it sounds delicious regardless of my reservations about eating squash. I’m still waiting for the white pumpkins and the birdhouse gourds to break through the surface. The Swiss Chard, Kale, Broccoli, and peas have sprouted as well as the garlic, and my potatoes are valiantly recovering from the last frost. I’m really impressed by the Jerusalem Artichokes. The frost seemed to have no affect on them whatsoever; they’re growing slow and steady but you can tell they mean business. The black raspberry is doing alright, it could be better but it’ll survive. The thornless blackberry isn’t doing so hot. It grows in segments which seem to break off pretty easily and because the wind gusts so powerfully from the north-west here, it looks like it’s been chewed up, spit out and curb stomped. I really hope it makes it. It’s really a very nice plant.

Last night I bought some red onion sets and a red grape vine. Initially I planted the red onions in the raised beds but when I had planted enough and I still had half the bag left I started digging holes just anywhere in the garden and chucking a couple sets each wherever, lol. Also, I was going to make a regular horizontal trellis for the grape vine but then I got to thinking, “Y’know, grapes naturally grow in trees and things, not in neat orderly rows. If I’m gonna use dead wood for a trellis why not find something as close to the real thing as I can?” so, I found some dead trees and pulled them down, then, I stuck those upright in the ground and planted my grape vine next to the thickest one. We’ll see if this was a good idea later on I suppose.

I’ve got an order of herbs on the way and I’ve transplanted all of the potted herbs that came with me from my mother’s house. In the next week or two I’ll have more Valerian (hopefully this time because it’ll be planted outside it’ll do better) and Elecampane; there’ll be new arrivals including: Goldenseal, Meadowsweet, and Cowslip. Two herbs that were transplanted recently that I’m most anxious to see do well are, Comfrey and Angelica. I was a little worried about the comfrey for a moment because it looked like only one would survive for quite a while but I should have known better. Comfrey is a fucking-badass-motherfucker. If you suck at growing plants, get some comfrey, it’s physically impossible to kill it if you stick it in or near soil. I now have four plants all started from pieces of root taken from one. There was no previous vegetative growth on the roots before planting and now I have four plants. CRAZY. The Angelica started out doing well, it had three leaves when I got it in the mail and then the spidermite shenanagance happened and I thought I had lost it several times. It now has two leaves and is smaller than a dime but is doing very well outside (it even survived some frost C: ) I’ll be doing a herb segment on Angelica soon.

Thanks for reading, guys. I’ll keep you updated.

EDIT: *RAGE* Tumblr why you no let me upload pictures!? Sorry, guys it doesn’t look like Tumblr will allow me to upload photos >:/

EDIT: I lied. But it took forever and out of the two that I uploaded it only uploaded one. We’ll figure this out…eventually.

~Liam

localme:

Making your own jam enables you to move beyond the expected, like mixing rhubarb with ginger, lavender, or even balsamic vinegar. Here are four simple rhubarb preserves recipes interspersed with scenes from the heather garden in Fort Tryon Park.


Lavender Rhubarb
6 cups of…

I’ve almost got all of my planting done; I just need to remove the grasses and a few undesirable weed plants that have popped up with the warm weather. I’ll be updating with pictures as soon as things start coming up (I also lent my camera out again, lol) C:

Things that have already begun are my root crops (potato and sunchokes) the potato kept dieing back because of the frost but it’s about an inch and a half tall now and the sunchokes are just poking out of their mounds, I transplanted some escaped strawberries that were growing feral on the property (why spend money when you don’t have to, right?), the peas that I planted a while back are down to one but going strong (I think the hay that I used to shelter them from frost smothered two of them after the rains started), and my ruebarb is putting out new leaves pretty consistently. I’ve been transplanting herbs like I’m hording them for the end of the world but there are just so many growing wild right here, right outside the door. I’m astounded at the sheer variety and I’m sure that there are more that A) I don’t see and B) that I haven’t been able to identify as anything because of my limited knowledge. (I really need to get a good plant identification book, or two, lol) I’ve found: burdock, st. johns wort, dock, yarrow, pepper mint, black berry, winter green, cleavers, dandy lion, plantain, elder berry, may apple, golden rod, boneset, catnep, motherwort, birch, three types of willow that I know of, sassafras, common mallow, and these are just the plants that I know of. These are exciting times my friends. Very exciting. You don’t even know. (I wish I had someone to nerd out with SO BAD!)

That’s it for now, guys. Happy planting.

~Liam