This year I am learning to rely more than ever on "wild" plants. I did plant a little spinach but since we didn't move here to mid-June it isn't near ready yet so we have been making good use of the lamb's quarter here. There is loads of it and I think I will even pop some in the freezer for winter use.
The other day I made a simple pasta sauce with a jar of last year's tomatoes simmered with garlic, herbs and lots of chopped lambs quarter. A drizzle of olive oil and a little Romano on top finished it off nicely.
The next night we had new potatoes fried up as hash browns, some fried mushrooms and scrambled eggs with lots of chopped, steamed lamb's quarter in them. Delicious. The boys thought we should have that for dinner Every Night. And since we are enjoying all that green goodness it seems only right that my tomatoes should get some too. This year is going to be quite a lesson for me on gardening in "difficult" conditions. I really want to do all I can to encourage my tomatoes to get growing since I am anticipating an early frost up here. I also have some sad, pathetic, shrimpy sweet little tomatoes planted in town which are in serious need of encouragement as they were started from seed late and planted out late. I don't want to try transporting my buckets of aged nettle or manure tea into town so I needed to come up with something else. I picked some nettle and blended it with some water and am pouring it right around the tomato stems in the hope that each time it rains they will soak up some of the nettle goodness. We'll see if it helps at all. I am a huge fan of nettle and its amazing properties and so I expect good things. 
We're still enjoying the wild strawberries. E had noted the difference between wild strawberry and wood strawberry plants and has had fun taste testing to see which he prefers. ;-) I've been collecting the leaves to use as a sore throat gargle in the winter.
E also came across a new-to-us plant called Self-heal. With a name like that, it seems like an herb worth getting to know. 
Love your blog, makes me happy to look at it,thanks!!
ReplyDeleteI wonder if snakes make a good fertilizer? I've got Toffee out back right now, poking around the garden. He's under strict orders not to come back in unless he's captured something...
ReplyDeleteSelf heal has all sorts of interesting abilities, apparently. I've never used it, though. It looks related to mint- has it got a square stem?
I came across something from Carolyn Herriot's book, it was billed as a rose tonic but I use it for my poor, yellowed tomatoes right now (the ones I planted too early and so are really struggling with our weird summer weather): kelp meal, bone meal, alfalfa pellets. We live right near a feed store so it's easy to find these things, although the alfalfa pellets are from poor dead Henry the guinea pig's stash. It's sort of shocking what an amazing feed this mixture is.
Ooooh! What a fantastic perk to living in the wild -- learning to eat wild! Good on ya! Can't wait to hear more about it...
ReplyDeleteThanks for the tomato tonic recipe, Shelia. My mom uses alfalfa pellets on her house plants too, she just sprinkles some right on top of the dirt and then as she waters they eventually break down into the soil.
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