Last fall was excellent for seed gathering. The rain stayed away at just the right times to secure the various and sundry pods, calyxes, and puffs holding the seeds each plant offers for such a brief moment. Over forty varieties of seeds were collected, cleaned, and packaged from the gardens at RavenCroft for this season. Maintaining open-pollinated stock of several hundred herbs and heirloom flowers, we are cultivating diversity in these times of standardization: healing from the ground up. Both exotic and common herbs find the Northwest agreeable. Black lovage, motherwort, skullcap, and black cohosh nestle in with plantain, mint, chives, and nettle. Our temperate climate allows species from around the world a comfortable home. Chinese herbs such as Baikal skullcap, astragalus, Codonopsis, and Allium tuberosum all do well here. I like to use herbs that I can grow. I like to use herbs I can add to the food I eat, thereby adding diversity to my diet. I enjoy feeding immunity by selecting herbs to grow in the garden that build health through daily or seasonal use. If you haven’t saved seed but enjoy gardening, try keeping seed from dill, caraway, or nasturtiums. These mature in one season and make ample seed for the kitchen and the garden. Be sure to buy open-pollinated varieties so the seed comes true when you plant it next year. Hybridized seed will revert to one of its parents or something entirely different. Human hybridization of seed is a relatively new phenomenon. Plants have been doing it for eons to adapt to changing conditions. Hybridization introduces new varieties with vigor and desired qualities, but there are trade-offs. One is the inability to perpetuate seed stocks, creating a dependence on technology for basic needs. Another trade-off is what I call the vast ignorance that befalls technological societies where a few people are experts and the rest fall into a stupor of inability. Another important loss is in genetic diversity and varieties of place, those plants that adapt themselves over centuries to particular environmental influences. Much of the hybridized seed finding its way around the world today can only grow in high-tech scenarios where water, fertilizer, pesticides, and herbicides reign. I’m beginning to notice the same kind of environment being required to maintain people raised on such food, but we call it medicine! While we’re contemplating next year’s garden from the armchair point of view, life still goes on around us. Kali, our beautiful calico cat friend, came in this morning with an oozing abscess on her back just beside her tail. She’d been "touchy" the past few days, and today the reason was evident. Treating cats is tricky at best, even those of longstanding affection, so a dose of valerian tincture is wise to administer before treatment. Kali took the tincture with disdain, although she has been seen chewing the root before giving birth to a litter of kittens! Valerian officinalis is an excellent antispasmodic and muscle relaxant. We had lunch to give the tincture time to work and then proceeded. We fixed a poultice with plantain and a little comfrey scrounged from a sheltered part of the garden. First we minced the herb, then added a splash of hot water and a dash of plantain tincture and a teaspoon of powdered marshmallow root to stick it all together, and the remedy was gooey and ready to apply. After cleaning the wound with hydrogen peroxide, well gloved of course, we applied the poultice to draw out the infection. The valerian tincture turned the fierce Kali into a noodle, but leather gloves are still sensible equipment when working with injured cats. Kali then fell into a deep and sound sleep. When she awoke, she was eager to be petted. The puncture wound was clean and draining well. By putting the poultice on without a bandage, we ensured that she was able to lick off the herbs while cleaning the wound, administering a dose internally without a fight and enabling the healing enzymes in her saliva to do their work. Tonight she is more herself. Another treatment with the poultice before bed and some echinacea in her milk, and she will be well on her way to healing. By turning to technology in medicine, we lose experiences like this in the common story. People forget how to treat simple wounds with common herbs, and soon the common plants are weeds to kill with herbicides and the wounds need the attention of an expert. Kali is a living example of natural rearing. She is the third generation in a line of cats I’ve raised for 16 years. None of these cats has been vaccinated for anything. They eat table scraps, flaked grain, raw milk, meat, and herbs. They live 12 years or more and rarely have any health problems, even though they are free to roam and have ample contact with other animals. If they are injured, they heal quickly with herbal and homeopathic treatment. This is due to the daily inclusion of tonic health-building foods and herbs in their diet. This is one way herbal maintenance pays off, whether it’s a garden, animal, child, or yourself. That’s the beauty of herbs: they’re for every body and have a place in every garden! But it is February, with the promise of spring hidden in every moment and the memory of winter too fresh to forget. With the slowly increasing daylight, hints of crocus and daffodil emerge, only to be covered by an unexpected snow or frost. It is the time for patience, planning, and dreaming. We cultivate patience. We sharpen tools, sand and oil handles, and remember to breathe, for this too shall pass! We plan new beds: what to plant when, where, and how. Learn to use one new plant or a dozen in your herbal repertoire. And dream. That quiet place still holds us in its envelope for a bit longer. Remember to dream about the garden and the plants. Invite them into your nightly journey. See what stories they have for you. Dream big; dream your garden for the coming summer; dream your neighborhood for the coming century. What would you like the surrounding landscape to look like in the future? What will you do to help? This is the last month before light quickens the pace, leaving little dark time for inner work, but remember: dreams dreamed work us. This fantasy of spring will appease us until the soft warmth of the sun mellows the earth to receive our first offering of seed. May all of your seeds find the nourishment they need to come to fruition in this New Year. Be well. EagleSong, C.C.H., director of RavenCroft Garden in Monroe, WA, is a nationally recognized herbal educator. She is dedicated to keeping herbal wisdom within reach of all people and connected to the healing wisdom of nature. See "Community News" in this issue for information about EagleSong’s participation in the Northwest Flower and Garden Show. P.O. Box 229, Startup, WA 98293; (360) 794-2938; <ravencroft@earthlink.net>. |
New Year’s Day 2001: the bright glare of sunlight is welcome. I stand on the porch softly blowing seeds and chaff around the pie tin. In an act as ancient as humankind’s adoption of agriculture, I provide the gentle breeze to winnow the chaff from the seed. As a child, I watched my mother collect her sweet pea and other favorite seeds from year to year. At one point last summer when there was not an inch of room for the new irises, I anguished over the seeding rainbow chard crowding the only apparent place. My mother consoled me when she heard my lack of "reason" for keeping four square feet of garden space tied up to save the seed of a plant that is inexpensive and easy to get. She said simply, "It’s just what we do!" And so it is, today we have iris and rainbow chard seed to boot, held in the story of preserving one generation to the next.