Welcome to my g a r d e n !Welcome to my virtual garden! Let me introduce myself: I'm "Mistress Gardener". I call myself that because I'm a lapsed/former certified 'master gardener', originally certified in Arizona; but I've also gardened in temperate places (zone 5), and I currently work a bit of the Earth in SW MI, USA. I never really liked the term MASTER gardener...I thought it was *TOO* sexist, and also, for me, reminded of the master vs. slave relationship (but not in any good or saucy way) so I came up with my own, with a "twist": Mistress Gardener!
Welcome to my g a r d e n !
I will endeavour to write about green topics-either green, as in growing/plants OR green, as in ecological/sustainable. These support my philosophy of gardening: it's all about the plants, which should be grown easily, and healthily, for ourselves and our 'nest'.
I first became interested in gardening when I bought my first house...the responsibility and joy of my own yard took me over and I became OBSESSED! I started with vegetables, out of economic necessity, as a poor student, and then got into quickly into herbs and flowers, influenced by my Flora-loving mother; mostly annuals at first, then later perennials, and even trees, recently. My perspective as a young gardener was REALLY piqued and perplexed when I moved to the Sonoran Desert, and began gardening in and among the cacti! However, I soon figured out: in the desert the plants were different, but good gardening practices remained the same, whatever garden zone you're in, which led me to my own little rule- the "3 C's of Gardening"-compost, cultivation, and control...more on these in future posts.
Another interest of mine, literature*, is married (or at least shacking up with) gardening, in this blog:
as Voltaire said: "Il faut cultiver son jardin"
which I first translated, in jr. HS French: go dig (cultivate) your garden. Even then I knew it had multiple layers of meaning, to be explored, once I actually started "dig!"-ing gardens, later....
So anyway, today was all about welcoming spring, by weeding, or, as I prefer to think of it- *harvesting* dandelions. Yes I said DANDELIONS!
I have been pulling them up from the backyard every spring after the rainy period...ya get more of the root that way...I was pulling them just by hand, but sometimes I've used a tool like a long screwdriver, which brings me to another future topic-tools-but I digress...so I pulled them and then did a little research, on the website of Susun Weed, a reknowned weed herbalist, and the results are summarized here:
Thus, the lowly, yet lovely little dandelion, has uses in anti-cancer, liver, blood, female reproductive and immune system health! Tinctures, recipes, and uses to follow in a future post.
Well, that's it for now...again: Welcome to my g a r d e n ! Enjoy!!!
*English Lang. & Literature degree conferred at: http://www.lsa.umich.edu/english/
Yellow dandelion picture borrowed from: http://myverygaywedding.wordpress.com/2009/06/24/nurture-nature/
Blowing dandelion picture borrowed from: http://www.stacigrove.com/dandelion.html
and thanks to: http://stranzblog.blogspot.com/2008/09/il-faut-cultiver-son-jardin.html for interesting thoughts on divinity and gardening and the many levels of meaning in betwixt and between
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