What's growing in the garden? March 2010

The garden is really beginning to show her green. All of the plants featured in the "Blizzard of '10" post made through the long cold winter and have come back strong! This photos were taken on March 26. With each plant is a brief description and it's uses (edible, medicinal, supports native species).


Medicinals

This bed of catnip (Nepeta cataria) has continued to thrive since it was planted from seeds and transplants at the beginning of last year. Catnip is most well known for its effect on cats, but few people are aware of its medicinal uses for people. Catnip, brewed into a tea is good for an upset tummy, anxiety of sleeplessness. It is a pleasant, minty tea that is good with chamomile. 

Also in this bed in the lower right hand corner is a mullein (Verbascum thapsus) also known as lamb's ear. The leaves of this plant are good for coughs and congestion and respiratory problems. The flowers are used in a preparation for certain ear infections.

This is a stinging nettle (Urtica dioica)  transplant that is the relative of a nettle start I brought back after my apprenticeship at Red Moon Herbs. This plant is used as a general tonic beverage that supports many of the body's systems. 

This patch of pennyroyal (Hedeoma pulegiodes) seems to thrive more outside its bed in it! Pennyroyal as a mosquito, tick, flea and ant repellent. It is a very aromatic plant with delicate purple puffball flowers in the early summer. It can also be made into a tea for upset stomach, but it should not be consumed during pregnancy.

Motherwort (Leonarus cardiaca) is another one of my favorite plants. Its name in latin means "lion-hearted" and it is beneficial to soothing frazzled nerves and emotions. 

Here we have a few small lemonbalm (melissa officinale) plants. It has a zesty lemony smell and is soothing, safe and easy to grow. 

This bed has more catnip and mullein, but it also has chickweed (Stellaria medica) and St. Joan's Wort (Hypericum perforatum). The chickweed, above the catnip on the left hand side, is an excellent spring green that is high in minerals. It can be eaten raw or made into an herbal preparation.

St. Joan's Wort is a very well known plant for its soothing, mood stabalizing properties. An oil can also be made from the flowers that is good for burns, including sunburn. 

This is a small wormwood (Artemesia absinthum) shrub. The flowers are used as an anti-parasitic.

This bed has mostly chickweed growing in it, the light green small leafed plant. The plant with the larger darker green leaves are volunteer mystery potatoes from the compost pile. 

A volunteer chamomile (Anthemis nobilis) from last year's starts. There are maybe ten or twelve volunteers just in a small radius around this plant. We had a great harvest from chamomile last year and I hope it to increase this year. There will be chamomile tea in a the next couple of months for the members of the garden. Chamomile is a safe, effective soothing tea.

This is one of several purple coneflowers (Echinacea augustofolia, purpurea) growing in the front flower bed. There is a difference in the flower petal shape that can help determine the specific variety. Echinacea is most well known for it's immune system boosting properties. Many different parts of the plant can be used. It also attracts beneficial pollinators to the garden. Echinacea is a perennial that grows through runners and by self-seeding. 

Here we have three pictures of the dozen or so milkweed plants my friend Matt donated to CSCG. According to him these are tropical milkweeds (Asclepias curassavica) and monarch larva actually prefer it to the native milkweed because its leaves are softer. The importance of plants like milkweeds is that they provide larval food for moths and butterflies. For every one hundred eggs that hatch, only one butterfly reaches adult hood. All the rest provide food for other animals.  You can check out more information on supporting native species at this website, based on the book Bringing Nature Home by Doug Tallamy. Or you can check out Airlie Gardens new exhibit - the Butterfly House - hopefully being opened up the end of May. 

Our waterer catchment system has been working really well. These are three rain barrels that store water that has been drained off of the roof. We have had such frequent rain that we have not had to use tap water to water the garden for a while now. The rain water is free of chlorine, a chemical that kills beneficial bacteria in the soil. It may contain other contaminants that have been washed out of the atmosphere.

Veggies and Fruit

These strawberries (Fragaria spp) are transplants from the Tidal Creek Community Garden. Strawberries don't always flower (produce fruit) their first year, but it looks like we are going to have at least a few to munch on this spring! I don't know if these are everbearing, which produce fruit all season or the kind that only have one flower and fruit producing season. I guess we will find out!

This is the same "broccoli in disguise" that was features in the "Blizzard of '10" post. You can see she is a little spindly, but we have 12 new broccoli that we will be able to harvest if it doesn't get too hot too soon. We harvested several small floret bunches off this plant after the big snowstorm.

Here we have collards, broccoli and parsley that all overwintered. The collards are tiny partially because we harvested individual leaves off of it in the fall instead of waiting for the whole plant to get bigger. The parsley has been delicious all winter.

"Star Wars Vegetation" is the children's garden at Castle Street Community Gardens. The design utilizes Square Foot Gardening that helps children learn about plant spacing. The white PVC piping you see is the frame for our mini-greenhouse. We have a two sheets of landscape fabric that when secured down over the frame protect the plants from too-cold temperatures.

These milkweed plants were donated by my friend Matt and provide larval food and habitat to native species of butterflies and moths. Butterflies and moths are a significant source of prey in the local food chain. The loss of native plant species has been hurting native moths and butterflies which is in turn bad for the species that prey on these insects. 

From here on through the season, the garden is only going to get greener!