Harvesting

And so begins the long season of harvest here at Boline. I have posted previously about wildcrafting (which will continue all summer and autumn long) and today I am posting about harvesting cultivated things.

Today, I went to a friends house who grows a lot of medicinal and culinary herbs as well as edibles and she let me pick some of her suplus that I can use. She treated me to a tasting of at least 5 different kinds of strawberries, some shiso leaf, some heirloom radishes, and lots of oregano.

For Boline, I got stinging nettles, red clover, and lime balm. Nettles are wonderfully nutritious and they are the basis of my Allergy Tea, my Preggers Tea, and my Menopause Tea. Rec Clover will be going into a Cold and Flu Tea that is in the works. Lime balm will supplement my lemon balm in formulas like Tummy Tamer Tea (but I think it is even more tasty than lemon balm!)

Some lovely radishes. I ate a few tonight in my salad!

Apologies for the dark pic- this is red clover on a drying rack.

When I got home from picking, I discovered the back mulberry tree had a few choice morsels on it.
Rowan will love these on his breakfast cereal!

Washed sorrel, for the potluck salad this week.

Red Shiso. Yum.

This is the herb basket for my personal stash in the kitchen.
It always has thyme and rosemary, and now it also has savory, oregano, and sage.

Rue. I am making some Witchy oil with this!

Nettles, placed on a rack for drying.

Even though I personally don't get stung, I wear gloves anyway. I recommend that you do the same.

I got quite the haul!

I had to remove the orange and tangerine peels from the rack to make room for the nettles.
Orange peel is for my chocolate orange body scrub.
Tangerine peel will make a tincture.
It will be paired with St. John's Wort and a few other things for a Mood Tonic.

My dryer has been quite busy lately! I have lots of dandelion and plantain as a result.