Thursday, September 17, 2009

Frickin' Medicinal Plants Everywhere!

Pun fully intended on that one of course... :-P

Tonight I went on the Venture Outdoors-sponsored Medicinal Plant Walk at Frick Park! Hope you're up for a slightly far-out analogy, cause I'm about to throw one... Having an actual teacher pointing things out, to me, was like taking an airplane to California! You know, instead of a 3-4 day drive, it's like *boop* and it plops you back down on the ground, 9 or so states away from when you boarded, in 3-hours' time. OK, so it felt the same way having a
teacher, because I didn't have to do so much legwork! It was an instant thing; as soon as I saw the intended plant, I had a name to it and some specs about it! A very nice luxury.

It really was a great time, and I learned so much! The cool thing is, I learned about all the things on my current Question list. I wanted to find coltsfoot without the flower, I wanted to find dandelion without the flower. I see the flowers in the spring and summer, then they lose the flowers and just their base leaves are left and not always easy to spot (coltsfoot leaves can get BIG through the summer!)

I wanted to find them in the fall, because the fall is a good time to harvest roots. Through the spring and summer, all the nutrients the plants are taking in are whisked around to flowers and foliage, and though the roots would still be helpful, they're even more nutritious in the fall once the nutrients are stored more in the roots. The same is true about the spring, before the plants flower! The roots have collected nutrients through the fall and winter months, and come spring, they're loaded once again! I'll be adding some pics soon, but I can only stay online til 11 tonight, cause I've got some other things to do...

We identified the following, and potentially more that I don't remember just yet. Please stop back soon to see pics and any additional things I may've forgotten!

-Coltsfoot



-Dandelion
-Plantain



-Yellowdock



-Burdock



-Queen Anne's Lace (Wild Carrot)
-Pokeroot



-Jewelweed



-Stinging Nettle



-Sassafras
-Jerusalem Artichoke



-Pennsylvania Smartweed



-Ragweed
-Sweet Goldenrod



-Spicebush
-Lamb's Quarters



-More I'm sure!! Please check back soon!

As always, thanks for reeeeaddinnnngg!


Seeds That Feed!

What a rush! This new blog has been pretty fun so far! Only issue I've had so far is that I cannot seem to understand html to the extent of making my "Posts" area wider! It shrinks my pics to 400px, and I can make them 700px, but then it only shows the first 400px, leaving the other 300px hanging off the page, unviewable... any html help out there??

So I researched online a bit and found a way to harvest basil seeds! I knew I would have to let my basil plant go to flower and that eventually seeds would be there, of course. But I wasn't sure of the details. You have to understand that one of my OCD-type qualities is that when I want to know something, I want to know as many details as are possible to know...

But I found that when the seed pods turn brown, that is supposed to be when the seeds themselves are ripe to be plucked. And my info. source said that a mature seed is plump-ish and black (instead of small and green, even though they're still tiny when they're mature.) So I ran out to my plant and noticed that half of a long flowered stem had turned brown, and I picked the pods off by hand and brought them inside. Sure enough, when I pulled a pod apart (say that 3 times fast) 4 little black seeds popped out. For anyone who's planted basil from seed, you too can use that knowledge of what the seeds look like. The 4 seeds that popped out looked just like the seeds of basil that I've planted before. So I assume they are ready! And now I'm letting them dry for a couple days before packing them into a small envelope or paper bag. Here are some pics of the seedpods and seeds!

And hey! This blog lets me post pictures straight from my hard drive! No photobucket-man-in-the-middle to deal with! Sweet mana from heaven!








Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Could this be a new blog format for mee?

So this is a test run here, to see if this is a good blog format for myself and I... Look! It dates it for me, so I don't have to date it myself!

Pardon the construction as I attempt to acquaint myself with the system here and get the show on the world-wide-road.

Coming soon!:
-Recipes
-Natural Health Info.
-Everything Nature (wildlife info, environment info, experiences in nature, and infinitely more!)
-Concert reviews/experiences (hopefully at least mildly entertaining!)
-Random Musings




Website Hit Counters


Hit Counter