Plants being our first love, there are extensive gardens on the farm. Of course we grown an annual vegetable garden, directly in our native soil, well amended with sheep and rabbit manure but we also have 9 raised beds where we grow tender annual vegetables as well as many dye plants, and our extensive decorative beds are interspersed with medicinals and of course copious flowers
VEGGIES: Every year we grow a large crop of garlic and a multitude of sweet and hot peppers for canning, dehydrating, roasting, freezing and making mole and tamales. We also grow copious basil for making pesto, carrots and beans for vinegar pickles and tomatoes for making sauce and dehydration. We also love to grow a variety of winter squash and pumpkins, melons, potatoes, onions and corn.
MEDICINALS: There are a host of medicinal plants on site, including some we grow and some that are naturalized here. Medicinals are harvested and dried for tea or processed into tinctures and salves. Some of the plants we grow are arnica, angelica, valerian, calendula, asarum(wild ginger), yerba mansa, catnip, holy basil, lemon balm, skullcap, echinacea, horehound and motherwort. Some of the plants that are naturalized here or that we can wildcraft nearby are st john’s wort, self-heal, usnea, mugwort and pennyroyal. We also generally grow a small amount of cannabis for making low cost tinctures and salves available under the monniker Simple Green.
woad & indigo
DYE GARDEN: After realizing that I was growing more food than I could possibly eat or process, I decided to grow a dedicated dye garden. These are plants that are traditionally used to dye natural fibers–such as wool. The first year I grew everything I could get seeds for and quickly realized there is only so much yellow that I need. My favorite yellows turned out to be marigold and Dyer’s chamomile. I also enjoy the yellow from safflower and this plant also yields pink from the same petals with some special processing. I enjoy growing and utilizing both woad and indigo for the blues and for reds I grow madder and pokeweed. Coreopsis offers a rich gold.