Herbalicious! I Eat Flowers.

So now that gardening season is upon us, let's think about eating some of those delicious flowers that you are thinking about planting. While you are at it, think about using these glorious lovelies on your skin to cleanse, scent, tone and moisturize and in your house to clean and beautify. The beauty of using herbs and edible flowers for these purposes is that you can plant a grand bounty in a front yard, a community garden plot, that secret guerrilla garden spot that you cultivated, on your building's rooftop or just enough in your grandma's garden patch, on your balcony or in a sunny windowsill. Since I've become familiar with permaculture principals (mindful, practical planting), I've become more interested in planting edibles and to my delight, have discovered that some of the beautiful flowers in my perennial garden are actually edible! (Not all flowers are edible, some are poisonous, so do your research) See how God works it out?

Thyme and Savory, below, Lavendar, Chamomile, Oregano, Pansies

 As such, I've been investing in books about edible gardens, crops in pots, edible flower cookbooks and the like. I happened upon the magazine "MaryJanesFarm" last summer and found some nice recipes and picked up a special "Nature Knows Best" issue yesterday. It is filled with ideas and recipes for using flowers, herbs and oils to create medicines, delicious breads and ice cream, soaps, cleaners, dream pillows and good stuff for mama and baby.I think I will even send a copy to my son, who has started a backyard garden with his roommates. I recommend that you make the $5.99 investment and pick up an issue, even if you are an urbanista like me or a manly man. You can pick up your supplies for your edible garden and toxic free personal care and home products from the herb and organic seed section of your garden center/nursery, an organic farm (for edible perennials like roses, daylilies and bee balm) or a wonderful, green, amazing award winning website specializing in bulk materials for your inventory like Mountain Rose Herbs. This year, I'm planting some of the following edible flowers and herbs:

• Lavender (delicious added to tea, cookies and smoothies)
• Chamomile (cancer fighter)
• Savory
• Oregano
• Borage (will complement my Morrocan themed patio)
• Dill
• Fennel (more of it)
• Thyme
• Calendula
• Geranium
• Nasturtium
• Organic Roses

So are you inspired to grow and eat some delicious flowers? Tell me about it!

Great Green Gardening Books: Have Your Flowers and Eat Them Too

Since "permaculture" became a part of my vocabulary, I have felt some guilt about the wealth of flowers in my garden. I have over the past few years made efforts to increase the number of edible plants that my sun restricted garden will allow, so imagine my delight when I discovered that many of the flowers in my garden are actually edible! Recipes include,  zucchini blossom fritters, lavender shortbread, rose sorbet, stir fry daylily buds. Hallelujah! Want to learn more about edible landscaping and gardening? I recommend the books presented in this post. I read all but the Edible Wild Plants book, which will be my next acquistion, of course.

Back to the Garden with Free People Clothing Boutique

Ahh! Spring is finally here, though for some in not such a pleasant way. I would like to extend my prayers and blessings to the families and individuals affected by the tornados recently. Some are suspecting that our warmer climate may be the culprit, but that is a topic for another post. In addition to a maddening need to get out in the dirt and plant everything that I can think of, I also get the urge to checkout warm weather fashions. Alas, the two interests merge in the Free People "Vintage Loves" collection - Back to the Garden. As most of you know, I try to spend at least 20% of my clothing budget on vintage, thrift, fair trade and/or organic fashions, so I'm always on the hunt for unique and awesome items in these categories. The two items pictured are only what I was able to save as a photo from the website, there were some really cute dresses and a cool shoe rack, if you want to see the entire collection (warning - a little pricey), then you have to click on the link here.

The good news is that you don't have to pay a million dollars for these types of finds, check out your local thrift or consignment shop for more affordable goodies like this. Your wallet and your planet will thank you.

Happy Spring!

This Week In The Mid-Spring Garden

A Gulf Coast shrimper stated that this time of the year his body gets the urge to go out into the gulf and catch shrimp. I can completely relate, as each spring I feel an incredible urge to get out into the garden and plant it up! I can't help myself, really. Gardening at any cost is how I feel sometimes. God put it in me and I'm going with it, since only adds value. Anyway, here is what we have in the May garden in Cleveland this time of the year. 1 and 2) Petunias had an amazing sweet and spicy fragrance to the garden and a punch of color 3) Dianthus or Pinks are fragrant and drought tolerant, so I added them to my newest curbside garden 4-7) Bearded irises are tough, fragrant, drought tolerant and have interesting foilage, these are in a curbside bed 8) A gorgeous butterfly ornament that I picked up at a wonderful N. High Street garden center in Columbus, I have a smaller yellow and pink one too 9-10) Peonies, tough and flamboyant beauties 11) Succulents, Hens and Chicks, Sedum, daylillies and a Leo the Lion remnant from a broken pot 12) Allium, an ornamental onion that animals won't eat and that retain their form after the purple flowers dry out 13) My newest bearded iris beatuy, smells awesome, placed in the new curbside bed 14) Another peony (it's hard to kill these tough beauties-not that I'm trying) 15) Another hanging basket - the name escapes me now, but it is also fragrant and butterflies love it, those are two allium next to it 16) A fig tree for the curbside garden

This Week In The Fall Garden

This vibrant red dahlia greets passersby with it's pop of color.

This trumpet vine is a native plant and is sought after by hummingbirds. Try to plant as many natives as you can. They are hardy, drought resistant, low maintenance and the birds love 'em. The plan is to train this over an arbor that I will place in the front garden. I can't wait! I can just imagine hummingbird fiestas in my garden. Fiesta, fiesta!

This Week In The Garden: A Few Bright Spots

Coleus - A leafy shade plant

Sedum - Great color and leaf texture

Hibiscus - Tropical looking beauty, winter hardy

Black Eye Susan - Native and long flowering

This Week In The Garden: Oriental Lily Peach Butterflies

How can you not buy a flower called Peach Butterfly? I like this flower, because it is unique with its peachy complexion and its freckles remind me of my personal array of freckles! Smells great too! It is positioned right next to one of my sitting areas to take advantage of its wonderful characteristics.

This Week In The Garden: I'm Ready For My Close Up!

My beautiful ebony daylily up close and personal.

This Week In The Garden: Daylily Favorites

Since I haven't posted in over a week, I figured I would ease into things by posting this week's garden photos. Pictured is a wonderful black daylily that I just love and a lovely, crinkly daylily that greets me on the way to the backyard.