There’re three yellow flowers in there that I count. This was yesterday, last day of April. The tomatoes were planted the day after the last frost here in the mountains. I’m hoping that this is a good sign of things to come.
It’s not illegal to grow your own food yet, is it? Someone told me that collecting rain water with the intention of drinking it is illegal unless you get, say, an ultraviolet water purification system. Sounds smart. Any good brand for a stand alone unit not hooked up to city way that you can recommend?
Anyway, I figure that flowers aren’t about Pachamama “Mother Earth” (a demon) being nice to those who offer human sacrifice, but rather about dearest Jesus, Divine Son of the Immaculate Conception, creating the universe such that He could give flowers to His dearest Mother. He might even permit us to do the same.
The flowers, or their fruit, can be good to eat as well. Jesus thinks of everything. This year, in the (yet) uncultivated part of the garden, there are some very healthy “red” clover plants volunteering, with the flower and leaves being good to eat, so sweet. Eat fresh, lest it ferment, which can bring problems.
And… fleabane are also volunteering. I’m sure they’re appreciated by Shadow-dog and Laudy-dog. These are also edible, some saying these kinds of daisies taste like chicken, um… spinach when cooked, though you can eat them raw as well.
Jasminum officinale is the only kind of Jasmine you can eat. The rest are poisonous. Mine are the officinale type. You can put the leaves in tea while the flowers with their huge seed can go into salads. I cut the plants at ground level every year and every year they grow enormously. Already they are some eight feet tall. They then come down to grow along the top of the fence. The plants at the rectory have white flowers with mostly four thin petals like crosses, but sometimes five petals. Of course, these aren’t yet in bloom. So tall!
Jasmine grows like kudzu. I don’t dare plant any kudzu, or bamboo for that matter. There’s a superabundance everywhere in the mountains here. The fresh, tender, leading shoots are great in salads. You can collect bushels in minutes. Just sayin’.
White clover, everywhere in the lawn of the rectory, is edible if a bit is tossed fresh into salads, but in any abundance (high source of protein) it might be good to boil for 5-10 minutes to make them easier to digest.
The dandelion is perhaps the most edible plant in every way, roots for coffee, flowers for wine, leaves for salad. Lots of medicinal purposes…
Meanwhile, not in bloom yet (but these have purple snap-dragon type flowers), ground-ivy is everywhere in WNC, and everywhere in the rectory lawn. A member of the mint family, it’s great for salads. It has fantastic wide ranging, effective medicinal properties. People think of them as being the very definition of weeds, but they’re good for you in about every way.
What the blooms look like, from W:
In contrast – yikes! – the azalea rhododendron, everywhere in the mountains here, including at the rectory, is extremely toxic, bringing about organ failure, laryngeal swelling (particularly deadly for me) and death for both pets and humans. Go ahead and put a bouquet next to a statue of Our Lady in Church or on a home altar, but NOT in a black vase however nice, as an azalea in a black vase is traditionally a death threat. Don’t threaten dearest Mary! This morning early, out front of the rectory:
Leaves of three, leave them be! Here’s some poison ivy which I just now pulled up. I have a super-abundance this year both in the garden, around the house, and around the perimeter-fence, dozens of plants, some already quite large and bushy. I pulled them all out by hand yesterday, mostly by the deep roots. But today I noticed I missed some, big ones too. Grrr. I’m super susceptible to urushiol. According to the county health dept., I had the worst case they had ever seen, ever. This is NOT what you want in a salad. That would about kill you. Don’t touch!
I finally found a good use for the left-overs of a box of Venom Steel heavy duty double-layer nitrile gloves that I used as a police chaplain when my health was better. It’s best to wear gloves when assisting in a situation in which there is an abundance of drugs around just about anything you might touch, much of which is mixed with fentanyl, nitazenes, even carfentanil. These rip resistant gloves work great for pulling up poison ivy. While tossing the poison ivy in the trash bin, I tossed the gloves as well. No poison ivy!
ARISE! LET US BE GOING! 