Urban Foraging, Wild Garlic

This morning I planted the wild garlic that I foraged from the garden spot we have downtown. You can find wild garlic and onion growing all over your yard usually. Have you ever been mowing or weed eating and you hit something and smell onions? Thats either wild garlic or onions and they are edible. I am keeping this post short and sweet and posted a link to the my youtube channel. I laugh every time I watch my videos. I wonder how long it will take me to look like I actually know what I am doing? If you are like me and are a hot mess I hope you enjoy them. If you are one of those perfect people who can do everything, I apologize and I hope to grow up to be like you some day. Have a great day friends.    

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9wvnI5whvRk                                                                                                                                                                                                ,

The rosemary rooted!

I hope you can see the little roots on the bottom of the glass. All three of the rosemary shoots we clipped have starting sprouting little roots. I will leave them in the cup until they are longer and we will plant them.

We recently got a plot in a community garden you have no idea how this excites me. I am a simple girl and it doesnt take much. We noticed some barbels growing where an old fence use to be and we asked a professor who was tending her garden if she knew anything about them. She told us that they were raspberries and that we could dig some up if we wanted. We dug up two because we really had no idea where we were going to put them when we got home. One of them came up nice with a big clod of dirt and the other did not. All the dirt fell off but we took it anyway. We got them home found a sunny spot and planted. the next day they looked like this.

As you can see the one that the dirt fell away from the roots looks as if its dying and the one that looks healthy is the one that stayed in tact.  Now that we found the perfect spot we plan on getting a few more. So excited to find free food!

In the community garden there was this awesome grapevine. I asked the professor if she knew how old it was. She told us there had been three houses on that property and when they had torn them down the vine had been saved and one of the grounds keepers at the university had saved the grape vine. From the size she guessed it was 30-40 years old. Does that give you goosebumps? I wonder if the wild raspberries we dug up had such a history.

Gardening is a lot of trial and error. It makes me  so sad when someone feels they have failed at trying to grow something and they just stop. If Mr Ladybug and I did that we would still have a yard full of grass. Its very important to talk to people who you know are successful at gardening. We only pay attention to youtube videos where they are showing their harvest and how it got there. We took a mushroom log class and we saw a video a few days later and the person was doing all the things they told us not to do in class. There was also no follow up video showing us all his mushrooms later either.
If gardening is something that you have always wanted to do please try it. You dont have to dig up your yard to get started. Just get a container and fill it with good dirt.  Tomorrow I will show you how I plan on starting some wild garlic I found at the garden plot in a cottage cheese container. Its really that easy and cheap! 

Stumbling around in the sage

I am a little clumsy. We have these trees in the yard with roots that are above the ground and I trip on them all the time especially when I am wearing flip flops. Do not lecture me on flip flops I love them and wont give them up even if they will be the cause of my demise.  So the other day Mr Ladybug and I were in the garden and I of course stumbled and it was like watching myself in slow motion. He was too far away and had he tried to jump up would not have made it to me in time anyway. I think I went 5-6 feet before I finally hit the ground on my hands and knees. It was actually quite comical and since I wasnt hurt with the exception of my pride I can laugh about it. When I finished falling I stood up and said "ta-da" like it was all planned, He went back to planting carrots ignoring me.  In his defense I do my best to drive him crazy. If he paid attention to everything weird I did he would really be crazy.

The lesson here is life is messy and crazy and filled with many things to make us stumble. Some of our own doing and some beyond our control. How we handle the situation is up to us. We can fall down and stay there or we can jump up and say "ta-da".

I am trying something new and my little video was too big to put on my blog so I added it to youtube,  I really hope it works I did it all by myself and tried not to have to ask my son to do it. If it doesnt work I will just jump up scream "ta-da" and call in a professional who is my 19 year old.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rk70KVgrkn8&feature=youtu.be

Goldenrod, ragweed and poison ivy.

GOLDENROD

Last year I fell in love with goldenrod. I made a tincture and dried some for tea. It is a very interesting plant. Lots of people think that it causes their allergies when its actually ragweed that also grows with it that causes the allergies. Ragweed gets  pollinated by the wind where as goldenrod is pollinated by bees. I do actually know a few people who are allergic to goldenrod so if you have allergy issues you may want to make sure you are not before picking it.

I read that poison ivy and golden rod are seen growing together sometimes and that its pretty interesting because golden rod is something that can help with the itching of poison ivy, eczema, bug bites and other skin irritations. Since I do enjoy picking golden rod I am always cautious of poison ivy since its something I am extremely allergic to.

To make an astringent with goldenrod just place a hand full of goldenrod flowers and leaves into boiling water then turn the water off and let cool. Then you just put the water on your rash or bug bite and apply as needed. Store the rest of the astringent in the fridge for about a week.

Here is some more facts about goldenrod if you are interested. It is not a herb I would take every day for several days but as needed for mild allergies and to enjoy from time to time as a hot tea.

http://pennstatehershey.adam.com/content.aspx?productId=107&pid=33&gid=000251

RAGWEED

POISON IVY

Tomorrow we will try our hand at propagating sage. 

Get more from your rosemary.

I love rosemary. I think I could just carry a sprig around with me all day and just sniff it. Is that weird? I dont even care if it is. With the crazy winter we had here in Kentucky my rosemary didnt make it. Its partly my fault . I have been growing it long enough to know to clip some in the fall and get it sprouting to plant in the spring just in case something happens to the outside plant over the winter. So I had to go buy a plant the other day and thought I would share this handy tip with any of you who love this herb as much as I do.

Pick out a plant with  lots of shoots on it. You are going to cut a few off. I think I paid $4 for this one at Lowes. Cut off at least 3 of the shoots sticking out sideways. We are hoping to have at least one sprout and if they all do then we will be ecstatic! cut about 4-5 inches long.  Then you are just going to place them in a little glass and sit them in a sunny window or anywhere that you wont forget about them. You will need to make sure that it doesnt run our of water and that the ends are always in the water. When you start to see little roots you know you are on your way. I normally dont transplant until my roots are over an inch long. I will keep you updated on how they look. If all 3 of mine take root that will give me 4 plants total for $4. Thats not a bad price at all. I already put a reminder in my calendar for later this fall to not forget to do this again.

I was out cutting dandelions to infuse more oil with and I was picking those little violets that those lawn companies want  you to think they are weeds but can be dried and used in teas or sugared to put on top of cakes. I also saw some other purple flowers that I have not taken the time to identify and some little wild daisy like flowers that I let grow and I was just in awe of the colors and the beauty of them all in there little area. Like the picture says no one was competing they were just doing what they do, bloom. When I look into the yards of others on my street some have beautiful flower gardens they tend to all the time. Others just mow their grass and dont want any flowers. Some really need to mow their grass or they are going to lose their dog or small children in it. All so different but none really wrong. You can zoom out and look from street to street, neighborhood to neighborhood. city to city and see so many different yard with so many different people blooming the way that is best for them. None wrong just different. If only we could learn from our little flowers in our yard and learn to exist in the same way. Tomorrow I will tell you something about ragweed, golden rod and poison ivy and why they like to exist together.

When life gives you lemons....

Yesterday morning Mr Ladybug took the bathtub fixtures apart so we could get new pieces to fix the drippy tub. Went to Lowes only fo find out they only had one that was for our fixture and it had been opened with pieces removed. No worries we found the same piece on Amazon, it will arrive on Sunday and it was cheaper. You would think that was the end of the story. This morning after a great nights sleep I wake up around 6 and get up to start making a birthday cake for our daughter who is turning 21. As I am wasshing dishes I smell something like sewage and notice the sink is draining slow. I turn off the water and when I go down the hallway I step into a puddle of water. There is a clog and it came up through the drain where they washing machine drains, over flowed and ran behind the washer, dryer and through the wall. Honestly it wasnt that much water but still, yuck! Mr Ladybug gets his drain snake thingy and its not working properly, a quick trip back to Lowes and we have a new one and its even several feet longer but not long enough to reach the clog. We have plans to leave the house at noon, take the birthday girl to a winery stop by our other girls house to celebrate with a birthday lunch. The clog has to wait.

I remember not too many years ago this would have had me in tears which really makes no sense because there are all things that we can fix ourselves. We could even do it faster if stores had the parts. Its not the end of the world. So I had to pull all the linens out from the bottom of the closet to get to the turn off valves to the shower fixtures. I needed to go through them and get rid of some. Having them in the hallway in baskets to trip over makes me do  it faster and when the leak is fixed tomorrow my linen closet will be more tidy, Mark that off the spring cleaning list. If I run the water pretty slow while I wash the dishes it will not back up. If I do them in a dish pan and take the dirty dish water outside to dump it wont back up at all. I may be inconvenienced twice doing dishes. I think I will survive. So when life gave us a few lemons this weekend we went to a winery.

We did make jelly this weekend and both turned out great! Strawberry and dandelion and here are the links to both recipes

https://www.freshpreserving.com/strawberry-jam-%7C-making-strawberry-jam-%7C-ball-fresh-preserving-br1265.html

https://teaspoonofspice.com/make-dandelion-jelly/

Biscuits with homemade strawberry jelly for breakfast makes all the morning mishaps seem like nothing!

Last night we were able to pick enough greens for a salad and even had a few radishes to throw in there. We made our little greenhouse out of windows I picked up off the curb. Mr Ladybug just built a shallow box and we hinged the window on top. This really gets your started early and you can grow salad fixings later in the year as well. We were able to get our 25 green bean plants in the ground in hope of a few weeks of an early crop.

Friday Adventures

I would like to encourage you to do something just for yourself today. What you do depends on you. I learned that I did many things that made me happy over the years but they were always tied into other people. All the little league games. band concerts, even watching Mr Ladybug play baseball. Thats great but I had no idea what I liked and it important to get away even if its 15 minutes to read a book just for fun, even if you like those really racy ones, I am more of a mystery girl myself. Color something, draw something decorate cookies and cupcakes that are tasty but look a little ugly, start a blog. Make a list of things that you use to want to do when you were younger or even something you have thought about doing recently and slowly start trying them. I think you will be surprised how relaxing it can be. Its great to love everyone else but dont forget to love yourself.

From not until July Mr Ladybug is off on Fridays. I see lots of gardening and other adventures in our futre. Today will have is doing some planting, fixing a dripping bathtub and a trip to Lowes. We are so exciting.

Yesterday I was on the phone with my sister and we were both doing laundry and were speaking with the same enthusiasm for our clothesline, When you find another weirdo that loves the simple things like you, dont lose them! As I was folding my laundry last night as I brought in I was taking on that fresh scent of sunshine and happiness.

We have to get these green beans in the ground today. This was a little experiment of mine to get beans earlier this year. You arent suppose to plant seeds in the ground until the first Saturday in May or Derby Day if you are a Kentuckian. I am hoping no evenings below 30 and I think these things will be okay.

I also make steeped my dandelions the other night and need to get the jelly made, I could not figure out why it looked kind of green then realized there was a little jar of pickles behind it. If the new recipe we are trying works out I will share it with your later today.