Wholesome Wednesdays: Wildflowers

Watch out, Texas.... wildflower season is coming! Watch out for those wild super-corgis, too!

I like a bit of silliness now and then.
Wildflowers really are essential to our native ecosystem. They nourish bees and beneficial insects with their nectar and pollen, as well as birds and small critters when they go to seed. Many of the wild 'flowers' are also healthful herbs. Echinacea (or purple cone flower), chickweed, cleavers and more are all weedy, flowering herbs with powerful health benefits. Not to mention honey: my husband is especially partial to wildflower honey, i prefer clover honey. Honey is full of nutrients and is nature's anti-allergy tonic: the bees do the work of gathering all those pesky allergens together and processing them into a delicious elixer that will boost your immune system and help you cope with the pollen that floats through the air.

This website can get you started with identifying the useful wildflowers from the pretty, but best left alone varieties. In this day and age of bottled, packaged, pilled, and sprayed medicines we often forget that most of those medications are just man made variations on nature's  remedies. Take a few moments to ponder those 'weeds' before you pull them and toss them into the compost. They may have some wonderful and nurturing quality. Some common weeds and wildflowers with the best bang for their bloom are:

• Dandelion greens: digestive and liver tonic
• Chickweed: too many benefits to list! High in fatty acids, healing, weight loss. Can be eaten or used as a poultice
• St. Johns Wort: mood leveller and more
• Echinacea: Harvest that precious root of the purple coneflower to reap the benefits of this miraculous herb. All around immune system booster

There are too many beneficial herbs and flowers to list. Wildflowers are beautiful and delight us every Spring with their miraculous colors, they hold the dry late Winter soil down during Spring rains, they nourish wild creatures and our an essential component to our ecosystem. Wildflowers aren't all necessarily native. We can thank Lady Bird Johnson for contributing to the beautification of Texas' roadsides and the eventual spread of so many wildflowers across our state. They certainly fit nicely into our vast landscape.

What's your favorite wildflower? (I'm partial to these little coreopsis). 

Oh, Oregano.

So, lately i've been doing a lot of things that are soon followed by expletives and 'why did i just do that's.
The other day this was caused by pulling out this massive oregano plant. My long raised bed used to be only herbs - in the summer it was used as a massive basil colony. I made pesto about 20 times last year and still have a few cubes of it in the freezer, so i figured i'd change the strategy of the bed a bit and plant some peppers in it while also starting a medicinal herb garden that will eventually take over the bed. Basil is destined for the containers in which the onions are presently inhabiting. And not bulbing. And in the way. Sigh. It's the end of April and i haven't planted basil yet!?!?!?
I'm fine with it.
i hope.

Oregano replaced with Stevia herb and a jalapeno plant.

 

Anyway. Last year i pulled out 3 other huge oreganos from this bed: oregano takes over. It spreads, it mounds, i hack it back to a nubbins and it's back to being huge in a week. I left this one plant in the bed because it makes beautiful flowers in the late summer - flowers i used in my wedding and have dried around my house. That is what i forgot. Dangit. First thing in the morning and in dream state, after pulling up the plant the previous day, i sighed a long "nooooooooo, i shouldn't have pulled it up." Luckily, i put it in a bucket of water intended to pass it on to someone else. Sorry to all those i offered it to, i changed my mind. Trouble is, i have nowhere to put it. Seriously - can't put it in the back: not enough sun and the chickens like to destroy everything i put back there (except the onions hopefully). All the other nooks and crannies in the front are spoken for. EXCEPT - the wildflower area. Which is meant for wildflowers.

Hanging out in a bucket of water.

 

I planted a little compact sage plant there last fall, it is currently overshadowed by gallardia, coriander, toadflax and poppies.... but i think it wouldn't mind an oregano friend, as long as i'm diligent and keep it well trimmed.

Here's my spicy oregano happy in the xeric bed (happy because it's been raining gangbusters and flowered and spread a ton last fall - it's usually kind of pitiful looking). It responds decently to being trimmed and focused in the directions i want it to be. For now.

So here is where i put the transplanted oregano. We'll see if it makes it. The soil out here is none too great, usually not a problem for herbs. But this guy was ripped out to bare roots and kept in a bucket of water for 2 days: not ideal. So wish it luck! Or else we'll be drying a lot of oregano. I feel pizzas in my future.

That's that. We'll see if it takes. I clearly need to do some trimming of it: it is used to sprawling out and over the edge of the planter and will now need to transform into ground cover instead of bed hanger outer. I'll give it a chance to recuperate first before i hack at it any more.

Have you had success in transplanting plants from one place to another in your garden? Ever pull something out only to realize you actually really liked and wish life had an 'undo' button?

On The Road

The husband and I had quite the little adventure this Saturday. I woke up early to make some homemade tortillas (a mixture of whole wheat and masa: delicious!) for breakfast tacos while the hubby slept in a bit. Soon he was up and adam and we had a most delightful breakfast:

• Homemade tortillas (whole wheat flower, masa, drizzle olive oil, cold water, mixed and pressed and heated on medium for 1 minute per side)
• Scrambled eggs (plus a little baking soda for fluff) with salt, pepper, chilly powder, and turkey bacon
• Cheese
• Hot sauce

So tasty!  As soon as i watered the garden and the hubby moved the chicken coop and put the girls away, we were off! To San Saba. But not as directly as we'd have liked.

Our plan was to take 71 to 281 north to Colorado Bend State Park for a hike and some fishing then back west to San Saba. Unfortunately when we were just about to Spicewood on 71, traffic halted. An ambulance rushed by. A helicopter touched down up ahead! Things were not looking good. Then we heard the radio dj mention a bad wreck on 71 that would be a few hours in the cleanup. We turned around. Ha.

Back down 71 to a little ranch road that would connect us to Dripping Springs to another little ranch road back up to 71 and... well you get the point. We went out of our way. About a few hours out of our way: but it was worth it! Because THIS (and actually much more beautiful, but it's hard to capture something so magical with a camera, as you wiz past it in a car)  is what we saw:

These photos really barely do the flowers justice. But I hope you get the idea. It's days like this that bring my joy in my life, my marriage, the place i live. A day that could have been 'a bust' became a great adventure. We made it to the park, just briefly but with time enough for a short walk and good conversation. San Saba was fruitful (we were in search of gourds for my husband's artistic ventures) and the voyage was long but enjoyed by us both. These are the good days!

Have you made 'lemonade from lemons' recently?