Ohio Herbalist

For weeks this spring, on my daily hikes in the Metroparks, I pulled up garlic mustard.  I started this
quixotic quest when I lived for 5 years in Cincinnati.  Garlic mustard is an invasive species and does crowd out the natives, some of which are growing more and more rare.  So there are organized days for pulling the garlic mustard, and I just got in the habit of it.

Garlic mustard is a biennial.  That means that it comes up one year and sort of hangs around, being leafy and not especially tall,  maybe knee high at most.  Then it dies down in the winter, although I was able to find some  with green leaves nearly all winter.  Around the edges of the soccer fields at Chuckery Cascade Metropark is a good place to spot it.  Anyway, the 2nd year, it comes up early in the spring, before a lot of the natives are up and blooming.  It blooms white flowers, with the distinctive 4 petal mustard flowers.  And it goes to seed.  And does it ever.  Lots of mustard seeds that float on the spring rivers and along all the roads. 

Keep in mind that mustard is good to eat.  In winter, especially it is nice to find some healthy green leaves.  In late summer they get bitter, as most leafy greens do, but in spring they are quite tasty.  Many places around the midwestern USA have garlic mustard potlucks and creativity abounds.  Also, I recently read that the roots are rather like horseradish.  Most of the roots I have seen - and I have seen thousands - are really really small, but I will report back after I try some.  Horseradish is ridiculously easy to grow and is a beautiful plant in the yard or in a bucket of sand on the porch.  But garlic mustard roots would certainly do.  

snow, more snow, freezing rain, slush, snow.  It is full time winter and I can begin to understand why so many of my friends in Florida were "from Ohio."  But they had the sense to move to Florida.  However, I am enjoying the shades of grey and the types of snow for now.  Driving in it is a challenge like driving on a red clay road in Georgia summer rain. Slippery.

Now it is just one red leaf on the staghorn sumac, and one yellow sycamore leaf lying by the trail.  Oh, and the dozen yellowing leaves on the black walnut tree.  Winter is not so far off, though farther south I it blazing hot.  There are not as many flowers in the woods, though the goldenrods are doing their best to make up for it.  The goldenrod is glorious this summer.

 You can look around online and learn a lot more about the meteor showers.  The August ones have
been my favorites and years ago I would go someplace like Cumberland Island National Seashore for the week to view the meteors in true full darkness.  But I've watched them from various places around the planet, and it is always a memorable evening.  There is a magic in deciding to go outdoors after 11 at night on a clear night, maybe with friends, with your dog, whatever.  Maybe you sit on the back steps.  Maybe you drive out to the old road alongside a cow pasture.  Then you just stare at the sky.  And if you see shooting stars, so much the better.

http://stardate.org/nightsky/meteors/

The next meteor shower is the Perseids on August 12. This year there’s no moonlight to interfere. The best time to watch is from 11 p.m. August 12 until dawn the next morning. The best direction to watch is wherever your sky is darkest. If you have a dark sky, you may see a meteor once a minute on average. The shower is also active for several days before and after its peak.

This is also a great time to make some vibrational remedies.  You can go to a health food store and buy Bach flower remedies, or maybe even some other brand of flower, gem, plant remedies.  They are all considered vibrational. Some folks, including the Bach flower people, who are based in England, are pretty certain that only their way works.  But there are those of us who have been making our own remedies for decades and a lot of ours really work too!

Luna Evergreen Tea is Delicious

Luna Evergreen Teas

http://www.lunaev...

Luna Evergreen is a small, herbal tea business that believes in karma. We procure our herbs from conscious companies that support sustainable agriculture and, ultimately, conservation of the planet. We believe that the energy that goes into our teas is the energy that you consume. This means we n...

Ok, really I've been back to Top O the World park 3 times, but I didn't write about it until now.  I went back and again, did not have my map in hand and again, sort of remembered I thought the trail was a couple loops connected.  It was awful hot and muggy.  It was a nice hike around the trail, and not many people crazy enough to be out in that heat.  A lot of the trail is forest, but there is maybe 1/2 mile worth of open field.  The fields are fast being overtaken by young trees, cherry, hawthorn, oak, maple, and everyone else who can find a place.  Since the park department is not planning to mow any longer, those fields will be returning to woods, so hurry out there to see the open field wildflowers.
      There was a wildflower walk with a naturalist on Saturday, and it was along that open section of the trail from Top O the World.  I am learning the different sunflowers.  There are some nice woodland sunflowers along the trail. Also hawthorn, blackberry, deptford pinks, teasel, milkweed, Joe Pye Weed, boneset ( pronounced bone-set), yarrow,

crabapple and apple.  

blackberries ripening

teasel

boneset

spiderwort

                                                                              When I moved, I left  behind the herb garden.  The whole yard was the herb garden. I miss it, but I do have a lot more time to take walks in the woods and identify new wildflowers, herbs, trees.  I'm trying not to be gloomy about this, and the more great trees and plants I meet here in NE Ohio, the better I feel.

There are some who say that plants have their own connections among themselves.  David Winston says that if I am known to a particular yarrow plant that has grown for years by my front gate at the old house, then when I meet a new yarrow plant, say in a field in Cuyahoga Valley National Park,  that new plant will have some idea of me.  So while I wander this new-to-me land,  I can send thoughts to all those perennials, biennials and even annuals left behind farther south.  Pictures might be helpful here.  Most plants are in SW Ohio, that peculiar ecology of Appalachia meets Prairie, along steep hills of the mighty Ohio River.

Dead nettles

Yarrow

mullein blooming in front of monarda

Trees Whispering

Pines in Winter

trees

talk to one another

pines whisper back and forth among themselves

at midwinter

Of course the hardwoods are all asleep

so the pines can talk about them

maples and oaks mutter and mumble

amidst their dreams

I don't like to interrupt the pines in their conversations

unless it is to sing

the half remembered choruses

of old union songs of solidarity

marching-for-freedoms songs

' like-a- tree-planted-by-the-water' songs

move carefully through the woods

do not push so hard against boulders and sturdy trunks

do not value cleverness

but delight in endless mistakes

dry wit will shrivel and shred like last fall's fallen leaves

you won't miss it

And the outdoors and the indoors

will be one friends and enemies

will be the same people

listen

to the evergreens

whispering

mlWilliams  2006

Chuckery has some great hiking and a lot of wonderful herbs.  The first time I hiked past river, I had no map, and I sort of thought it was a loop, and 2.4 steamy miles later I was dragging.  There are some steep climbs, some rocky rooty hills, mud, and a lot of stairs.  Some of the stone steps were built by the CCC, and they are find workmanship. The combination of old forest, river bottom, open fields, high ground and transitional mowed to forest, offers a short (2.4 mile) course in local plant communities and ecosystems.

I had to go back today to look for Black Cohosh. There is an abundance of Bee Balm, which I usually call Monarda.  Monarda is a little past its prime for this year, but still blooming like crazy, light purple blossoms just swarming with bees. (We've seen the native white Monarda near the river at Oxbox, Cascade MetroPark, and also in the Cuyahoga Valley National Park along the towpath trail.  Blackberries are still ripening along the high parts of the Chuckery trail.  There is a huge stand of horsetail along the road in to the parking lots. Also along trails there is yellow dock, ground ivy, Thistle, willow, wild ginger, trillium, smooth sumac, burdock, milkweed, plantain, chickweed, teasel and 12 foot high Joe Pye weed.

 There is garlic mustard along many shady parts of the trail, and it is not something I want to see.  It is an invasive that is a biennial.  The first year it stays fairly small.  The second year it will come up well before most native forest plants and start blooming and going to seed.  I have volunteered in various parts of Ohio and always had a good time pulling it out.  Also a garlic mustard potluck can be fun if you have creative friends.  It is not bad to eat and has lots of minerals...makes a pretty tasty green,  not as good as nettles perhaps - you can tell it's a mustard, but not bad.