Volume 8, Issue 1, June 1999
The Black Swamp Herb Socity, with Gardens at the Wood County Historical Center
Catch up on the news
The pressures of gardening, at home and at the Historical Center was just too much for your editor, and the newsletter in May appeared as two (highly) informative postcards. Those can be addicting to do. Let me know if you like the idea of an occasional “For Your Refrigerator” card with date summaries and reminders.
April Notes
Election of officers took place. See side-bar for exciting results. Treasurer’s report noted $3,752 in account.
Library Chair reported Backyard Herb Garden is newest selection. Videos have been organized and are available for checkout.
Chris MacDonald, vice-president for Gardening requested “adoptive gardeners” to take on some of the smaller side gardens and plantings. We have somehow (and beautifully) expanded beyond the four formal gardens which are the heart of our efforts. To date we have:
Adoption List
Sometimes an individual or a pair of friends, or any grouping at all can take responsibility for a particular area or job that becomes their pet. It can be worked on “as needed” and spreads the tasks around. Some ideas – and I feel sure you will come up with more – about pet projects.
- Compost bins – Angela Bair, Loni Ahl
- White garden by chicken coop – Jan Bingham & Jody Carroll Roses – Jean Gamble, Dorothy Golden, Chris MacDonald.
- Native Ohio garden – Karen Wallack, Frances Brent
- Semi wildflower garden along north fence – HELP
- Garden along the slaughter house – Jo Sipes, Harriet Rosebrock
- Thyme gardens flanking four main gardens – Lois Alexander
- Weekly mowings around the gardens – Jim Alexander
- Keeping chicken coop in some order – Angela Bair
- “Mother” of the signs – Marna Conner
- Path leading into garden – Nancy Seifert, Sandy Hayden
- Butterfly Bush Garden – HELP
Site Plan
A copy of the Site Plan proposal made to the Wood County Park District and the Historical Society was included in the April newsletter. This is a living document and suggestions and ideas are always welcome.
Cooking with Herbs
Companion Cooking with Herbs
Soups
Bay, chervil, tarragon, marjoram, parsley, rosemary, summer savory
Poultry
Garlic, oregano, rosemary, sage, savory
Beef
Bay, chives, cloves, cumin, garlic, hot pepper, marjoram, rosemary, savory
Cheese
Basil, chervil, chives, curry, dill, fennel, garlic, marjoram, oregano, parsley, sage, thyme
Fish
Chervil, dill, fennel, garlic, parsley, tarragon, thyme
Fruit
Anise, cinnamon, coriander, cloves, ginger, lemon verbena, mint, rose geranium, sweet cicely
Bread
Caraway, marjoram, oregano, poppy seed, rosemary, thyme
Vegetables
Basil, burnet, chervil, chives, dill, marjoram, mint, parsley, pepper, tarragon, thyme
Salads
Basil, borage, burnet, chives garlic, parsley, sorrel, tarragon We could spend a winter evening modifying and debating this list and getting more specific.
An Evil Bunny Fantasy
Our head gardener, Chris MacDonald calls them lawn rodents. Those with big lawns and no flowers call them adorable. What I call them is not for these decorous pages.
With leash laws and laws creating generations of indoor cats the rabbits are breeding like rabbits. However the ingenious gardener armed with a list and determination can wean the little darlings back to either eating grass or suffering death by poisoning. The following list is supposed to be deadly to rabbits that want to gormandize. It explains why somethings in our garden survive when all else fails. Don’t think about HOW http://home.stinet.com/ mlhenson/rabbits-398.htm arrived at their deadly recommendations.
Aconite – all parts; Amaryllis bulbs; Anemone; Anthurium; Asparagus fern; Autumn crocus corms; Azalea – all parts; Belladonna and Belladonna lily; Bird of paradise seeds; Bittersweet berries; Black locust; Bleeding heart roots, Bloodroot; all varieties of Delphiniums and Lupines; Buckeye; Butterfly weed; Calendula, Calla lily, Cardinal flower (Lobelia cardinals – all parts); Caster beans; Century plant; Horse Chestnut, Christmas rose; Cineraria; Clematis; Columbine; Cotoneaster; Cowslip; Crown-of Thorns; Crown vetch; Daffodil bulbs, Daisy; Daphne berries; Deadly nightshade; Dianthus – all parts; Dogwood fruit; Dutchman’s breeches, Eggplant (except fruit); Elderberry; Elephant’s ear; English ivy; English laurel; Four o’clock; Foxglove; Garden sorrel (Rumex acetosa); German ivy; Gladiola; Glory lily; Gold dieffenbachia; Ground ivy; Hedge apples; Holly; Iris (rhizomes and leaves); Jack-in-the Pulpit; Jimson weed; Lady slipper; Laurel; Lily of the valley; Marijuana!; Morning Glory; Mustards; Peony; Periwinkle (Vinca); Dianthus; Poison ivy; Pokeberry roots.
Maybe someday we will design and plant a rabbit proof garden.
Work Sheets
Sign in and out worksheets are on a clipboard kept in the Chicken Coop. This a valuable record to help us keep track of what is happening in and out of the garden. The sheets are filed (we have full access) by the Historical Center staff and make a impressive record of the time and devotion lavished on the gardens in many forms of time and labor.
The second Saturday of gardening months is a special “drop by” work session to encourage the “irregular” gardeners to stop by and get into the dirt (or compost) anytime between 11-3. Regulars will be on hand. The May “drop by” day had eleven individual workers. June 12 is the next scheduled date. Be there!
May Notes
May 17 was the day of our truly exciting plant auction. We had everything short of tornado warnings that evening, but still the plants and the members came. Auctioneer Valerie Trudeau’s four year old tried flying from a second story window, landing unharmed in a peony bush. However, medical checkups seemed prudent and thanks to Marjory Kinney, assisted by Jean Coffield, for taking over.
After all the high drama this year, and thinking ahead to next, we will not gamble again with the weather. The auction will be held in our regular meeting room, with plants being carried in and out from the covered porch. (The Museum has a very powerful vacuum cleaner.) Seed exchanges will be added.
We are thinking about starting early, taking a break for a simple catered meal, and then finishing the auction with a new burst of energy. Reactions encouraged.
This seems to be the year of the amendments. We have added hundreds of pounds of “well composted” manure, humus, compost and discreet amounts of green sand, bonemeal and fertilizer. Jean Gamble and Dorothy Golden contributed sacks and sacks of their own beautiful compost. Gardeners have taken up and reset stepping stones and even cleaned out the terribly heavy clay pipes “containing” the mints. Any ideas how to contain the Gallium family?
Check out the new “Prairie Flowers and Oak Savannah” bed on the East. Harriet Rosebrock and Jo Sipes have started a herbal butterfly garden behind the slaughterhouse.
An unpleasant native
Pokeweed (Phytolacca americanis) is a many branched, perennial herb that bears rather spectacular clusters of dark purple, almost black, berries. The plant is a wayside weed from New England to Texas.
Pokeweed, also known as pokeroot, could well be included in our new native plant garden, after all it is a Native American. Actually it is on the edges of our garden as I learned to my sorrow when, venturing to the otherside of the fence while waging war with the grapevine I didn’t look carefully enough and pokeweed branches brushed my face. A few hours later it looked as though I had been attacked with a branding iron. Contact allergic dermatitis reaction to pokeweed. With strong steroid medications I am healed a week later.
All lists of poisonous plants include pokeweed, as I found when I searched the nasty thing on the web. Yet I also found sites that said, “Used in small doses as a blood and lymphatic cleanser. A good poultice for breast tumors and caked breasts. Contains toxic substances and should not be used in excess. Although it is an excellent herb it should be used with caution. Properties – Alterative, Emetic, Laxative.” Not a responsible website.
The Honest Herbal points out it is an emetic because it is so toxic. People, particularly children, can and do die.
The recent “Herb Companion” has the author’s grandmother remembering “poke greens” from her youth, and that people concocted an arthritis medicine from pokeweed. In early days ink was made from the purple berries. Birds love the berries which ferment, and if you see a bird stagger in flight next fall, think POKEWEED.
A note to all our gardeners. Be stout of heart, but do wear gloves, watch out for ticks and if you’re an allergic type shower immediately when you get home with Dial or Fels Naptha . Throw gardening clothes into the washing machine immediately. That helps get rid of pollen too.
After my “branding” I called Andrew Kalmar of the Wood County Park District and he had the area cleared several feet back. Thank you.
However, there is a gorgeous pokeweed speciman near the pond, on the other side of the fence near the roses and peony. Sniff cautiously.
Thank you
Thanks to our many friends: Lavender Blue Farm for winter storage and innumerable gifts and kindnesses; Calico Sage & Thyme for annual donation of plants; Klotz Flower Farm for winter storage. Thanks to the many members who make donations of time, plants, gadgets, ingenuity, trellises and heaven knows what else because they do, but don’t always tell.
The Seed Shop
Here in a quiet and dusty room they lie,
Faded as crumbled stone or shifting sand,
Forlorn as ashes, shrivelled, scentless, dry-
Meadows and gardens running through my hand.
Dead that shall quicken at the call of Spring,
Sleepers to stir beneath June’s magic kiss,
Though birds pass over, unremembering,
And no bee seeks here roses that were his.
In this brown husk, a dale of hawthorn dreams;
A cedar in this narrow cell is thrust
That will drink deeply of century’s streams.
These lilies shall make summer on my dust.
Here in their safe and simple house of death,
Sealed in their shells, a million roses leap;
There I can blow a garden with my breath,
And in my hands a forest lies asleep.
– Muriel Stuart
