Wildflowers are blooming though we didn’t get much lupine this year. Instead our south meadow is inundated by star thistle, an unwelcome visitor. I’m learning how to eradicate this terrible, painful plant. It started in the lower part of the meadow a few years ago and now has taken over the entire area to be stopped only by a thick and well-established hedge of blackberry brambles.
The rapid spread of this plant shows how easily corruption spreads in our society. It doesn’t take much for a bad trend to infect the hearts of humankind. Once started, it is hard to control. I won’t go into examples here because I don’t want to focus on anything negative.
Instead I’m going to focus on doing whatever I can to eliminate star thistles from my life.
Today I had to pull up chicory that was threatening to overtake my tomatoes. I didn’t like doing it because I do love the little chicory flowers and I consider chicory more of a helpful herb than a weed. I am saving the usable parts of the plant, including the roots, for my herbal remedies collection.
This year I’ve been deeply into gardening. I’ve had to develop an attitude about weeds. Anything that isn’t intentionally planted by me — is now known as a weed, no matter how much I like it. Even if it blooms. Sometimes weeding the garden is a hard thing to do. I guess you can say I get emotional about plants… but I do want the ones I planted to grow.
I’ve been planting vegetables, herbs, and flowers. I’m especially fond of my herbs and am a bit of a herb collector once I get started. This year I’m also starting an online herbal. So far I’ve featured Rosemary, Sage, Chives, and Lemon Balm. I’ve also got four varieties of mint, thyme, bacopa, lobelia, yerba buena, and nasturtiums. Maybe a few more I’ve forgotten. I am so glad I’m not working outside of my home this summer and have time for gardening again. Rescuing my yard from weeds has been a major focus for me this year… and I love the flowers that are blooming all around my house now!
Do you have a Twitter account? My books/writing/content writing Twitter account is here: Linda Jo Martin.
Beautiful chicory:
Chicory growing near the Klamath River:
Linda, I’m envious of your gardening time. Good luck with the herbals. I LOVE bacopa, I didn’t realize it was an herbal. What are its attributes?
Paula,
Bacopa is for stress relief, energy, and enhanced memory. I ordered some online a while back, in capsule form. I was thrilled to see it on sale at Lowes when we went to Medford! It is commonly used in Aryurvedic medicine.
That’s me just followed you on Twitter. 🙂
David — see you at Twitter!