Vick’s Plant (Plectranthus hadiensis var. tomentosus) – unrooted cuttings
Please note: While we have PLENTY! of Turmeric and Zedoary to share, they are currently dormant so all you can see is the past season’s dried leaves. The tubers are in there, waiting for spring.
Tradition-carrying Caribbean ethnobotanist and friend of the Garden Aleya Fraser is in the area just long enough to share some plant medicine love with our community, and we don’t want to wait til the monthly update to give folks time to plan. Join us to learn about this rich and diverse herbal tradition by meeting some of the plants in their indoor winter homes and sampling herbal infusions & chocolate, in addition to tradition-carrier Aleya’s training and personal experience!
Aleya will share some of the tradition of plant usage in Trinidad and Tobago which are shared throughout the Caribbean. You will learn how you can incorporate bush teas and bush baths into your life.
Learn how Trinidadians and Caribbeans at large understand herb energetics like bitter, cooling, and warming. Samples of several infusions will be prepared & shared. We’ll be discussing how to make the herbal infusions, as well as the medicine, folklore, and cultural considerations for each herb. All participants will be given a PDF detailing 4 indigenous Trinidad herbs as well as a chocolate product made by the presenter from Trinidadian Cacao beans.
The growing season’s ending in glory here at The Green Farmacy Garden, with plenty of late bloomers showing out against the backdrop of changing leaves. Wildlife sightings have plummeted as most of our friends lay low in the cooler temps, though there’ve been a few dragonflies darting about, a dramatically devilish looking large red pupa, and a cohort of little birds too fast to identify rioting in the Slippery Elm.
An unidentified nibbler shredded several leaves of the toxic Brugmansia (pictured blooming below) and deer have stripped whole (also toxic, raw, to humans) poke plants, but the last figs to ripen are doing so unmolested by yellow jackets. Black walnuts litter the ground, and almost all of the Hardy Oranges fell before the first frost. A small team of volunteers joined us to bring the tropicals out of the garden, and they’ve all moved inside for the winter!
Angel’s Trumpet (Brugmansia spp) sounding her callNative Anise Hyssop had a scant year at the GFG but refused to miss the whole seasonFrilly Purple shiso (Perilla frutescens)
Tagetes minuta (Huacatay) towering in bloom
Late season harvest of two Asian species: Hardy Oranges (Citrus trifoliata) smell amazing, and adaptogenic Jiaogulan’s (Gynostemma pentaphyllum) flavor profile surprises most everyone. Tastes like chocolate cucumber to me.
Oyster mushrooms (Pleurotus ostreata) fruiting from last year’s Inoculation workshopVibrant berries of native Schisandra glabraStrawberry guava’s (Psidium cattleyanum) first fruits!Wintergreen (Gaultheria procumbens) has settled in beautifully after joining the collection last season!
Tropical Removal Team – pulled every frost-tender plant from the Garden for winter safety
We’re looking forward to hosting more community events over the winter, including our Eco-Game nights and Climate Cafes. If you’ve got other ways you’d like to stay connected with the Garden and our eco-loving community, feel free to reach out to us at greenfarmacygarden@gmail.com! This month, you can join us for our continuing Herbal Medicine-Making series, and for Mushroom Log Inoculation.
In the past month, while Figs, Autum Olives, and PawPaws ripen and Black Walnuts and Acorns begin to drop, gardeners have observed a juvenile Black Rat Snake climbing our largest beech, hawks screeching above, blue-tailed skinks hugging sun-warmed brick and rocks, and the local feral cat slinking in the barn.
Here are some friends* we’ve managed to snap to share with you:
Chicken of the Woods (Laetiporus sulphureus) fruiting in the woodsPawPaw (Asimina triloba) harvestKudzu’s (Pueraria montana var. lobata) flowers smell like grape soda
Turkey Tail (Trametes versicolor) mushrooms fruiting on garden border log
Black-throated Green Warbler (Setophaga virens) briefly waylaid in the garden en route to Central AmericaImperial Moth (Eacles imperialis) caterpillarImperial Moth (Eacles imperialis) caterpillar
Polistes sp. Paper Wasps guarding their nest built inside our display turtle shell
As the plants near completion of their annual cycle, so too do all the animals whose lives are linked to theirs. This past month in the garden we’ve witnessed a cicada killer seizing a cicada; a tiger swallowtail butterfly escape an attacking bald-faced hornet; a European hornet doing a curious ritual with ants on the picnic table; the annual cobweb-entangled baby ringneck snakes in the basement; and these cool buggers* among many more:
Purple-Crested Slug Moth Caterpillar (Adoneta spimuloides), a generalist we initially mistook for a young Saddleback (Acharia stimulea), found on a Wild Yam (Dioscorea villosa) leaf.
Monarch (Danaus plexippus) Caterpillar on our wee baby milkweeds (Asclepias spp), providing anecdotal evidence supporting the inherited insight that monarch babies prefer tender new growth, and thus harvesting the top of some stalks in a stand while they’re in bud (and eating the buds yourself!) can actually help support this milkweed-dependent species!
Orb Weaver (Arineidae family) wrapping up a honey bee (Apis mellifera).. I’ll try to figure out how to get better macro shots in midair from my phone camera – this is the best I could do!
Goofy Planthopper (maybe family Flatidae?) parading around the picnic table
Clavate Tortoise Beetle (Plagiometriona clavata) Larvae — with incredible defensive adaptation, they wear poop on their backs on “fecal forks,” and I initially thought they WERE caterpillar frass til I looked closer! — on Jimson Weed (Datura stramonium)
Leaf-footed Bug (Piezogaster sp.) sucking on Sweet Annie (Artemisia annua)
There’s so much to see here!
* Please note: many of these insect IDs are largely amateur, tech-assisted best guesses. We’d love to hear from you if you can share more accurate IDs!
Happy Spring, friends!! We’ll be adding April events within the next week, but don’t want to wait that long to help you embark on some new culinary explorations with the many plants already sharing their gifts!
Pop-up Foraging Walk
Sunday, March 26, 2023, 1-3pm
Reconnect with your habitat by getting to know wild plants, learning to identify and harvest them for edible, medicinal, and other uses.
Meet common wild edibles of Springtime already in their prime, as well as many about to flush into their moment, including those pictured and many more.
This walk will introduce plants that grow commonly in a variety of ecological niches in our region — exploring where to find them, what portion of the plant to harvest throughout the season, and how to align your foraging choices with responsible and interdependent ecological stewardship. Develop your knowledge of and relationship with local ecosystems to reclaim your place as full and worthy participant in – not alienated from – the dance of nature.
**Blessed Solstice**, dear Friends of The Green Farmacy Garden!
Today we’re thrilled to share with our community that local non-profit The Community Ecology Institute (CEI) has purchased The Green Farmacy Garden and committed to stewarding Jim and Peggy Duke’s legacy at their former home for the foreseeable future!!
Everyone who’s stewarded the Garden to date is so grateful and excited for the Garden’s longevity and impact to expand under CEI’s management. You can read about CEI’s Mission, Staff and Board, and Programs on their website, as well as their purchase of the Duke property.
And tomorrow morning around 9:30am, you can catch the live rebroadcast of NBC Today Show‘s uplifting segment about CEI, which first aired earlier this year!
Wishing you and yours the Happiest of Holidays, and looking forward to seeing you at the Garden again in the New Year!
Our first Inoculation Workshop in September sold out so we’re offering an encore – join us this Sunday to learn about growing edible mushrooms at home and take home a log that will produce delicious food for you for years to come!
Mushroom Log Inoculation Workshop
Sunday, November 6, 2022, 1-3:30pm
Learn about fungi and inoculate your own log.
This two-part workshop will begin with information-sharing about the life cycle of some commonly grown mushroom species participants may want to learn to work with, and culminate with participants practicing the skill of inoculating a log with fungal spawn, to take home and harvest later.
Come bask in the glory of Dr. and Mrs. Duke’s lovingly curated global plant collection and lush grounds. Learn about the garden, its founders, its treasures, & experience a sampling of our herbal programming.
**edit:: the medicine making harvest & demonstration will be immediately after the garden tour, at 4:15**
Bring snacks, drinks, or a dish if you feel called to share in the community potluck at 6pm down by the big gazebo where Mountain Spring will be performing & the big wood fire chimney will be lit. Or just bring a picnic for your party to enjoy wherever you feel called on the land! The evening is yours.
This is a family friendly event & we love children to attend! There will be no child care or child-specific programming, but kids are welcome to use the art supplies and encouraged to participate in community activities.
Follow this link for more information & registration!
We’ve got a fun assortment of public events this month, but first a pop-up workshop weaving baskets with all the wisteria that’s just been removed. Got a few hours to explore pragmatic plant uses before your cookout? Join us!
Learn to forage plant materials to create your own baskets in a pre-cookout Pop-Up Workshop
In this workshop, students will:
Receive an introduction to some regionally common plant species useful for weaving baskets
Explore the landscape to select and harvest their own skeleton material
Receive instruction in 2 beginner basket styles, and
Use pre-harvested wisteria, or harvest additional material, with which to weave their own basket
The Green Farmacy Garden, care of CEI 