My Vermont garden now includes flowers, vegetables, and herbs.
My journey with herbs began in the spring of 2008 when I visited a local greenhouse and just for fun I took home some parsley, sage, rosemary, thyme, mint, lemon balm, basil, chamomile, oregano, calendula and signet marigold. I research the qualities of each one but I go beyond research. In the beginning I didn’t have any special purpose in mind but over the next 12 years my relationship with those herbs and others became deeply rooted in my life.
How did this happen? One day I walked around the perimeter of the garden, touching the tops of the plants as I passed. I happened to complete the circuit 3 times. I suddenly felt the presence of lively intelligence, and my body dropped into a sweet sense of calm. As I spent more time with the herbs that year I began to realize that they are very interested in people and want to connect with us. I became more curious about what they offer and in the process I learned to grow, harvest, dry and store them motivated by a growing sense of joyful connection.
I still plant the herbs I found that first day, along with a few new ones every so often, such as varieties of tulsi, lavender, and anise. Every time I enter the garden, I try to do so with conscious respect and the intention to connect.
On this site, I provide several recipes for herbal teas, and one magical culinary blend using my home-grown herbs.
They are based on the values I described above.
I’ve also included recipes for healing salves (skin creams), massage oils, misters (air-fresheners), and a refreshing, stress-relieving tonic for use in roller bottles. These recipes use many essential oils and other ingredients such as rosa damascene buds and petals, lavender seeds, beeswax, and almond oil which I purchase because my desire to learn how to provide comforts for healing far outstrips my ability to grow everything myself.
- Culinary Herbal Magic
- Herbal Tea Blends
- Herbal Oxymels
- Misting Bottles (Air Fresheners)
- Salves, Massage Oils
- Stress Relieving Roll-on Tonic
I reach out with my own consciousness to ask which plants want my attention on any given day.
My hope is not to “manage” the plants so much as it is to respectfully enter a co-creative relationship with them. I fumble my way along. They’re very patient and I trust the garden to direct me in its own gentle ways. I know that each plant species has its own over-lighting diva (the Sanskrit word for angel) or energy presence. I attempt to consciously work with that presence. I ask what is needed, what tool I should use, what nutrient they want, how much water, how much space they want. I ask what I can do to help them.
Over the growing season, which in Vermont is from the end of May until frosts appear, often as early as mid-September, the energy of the garden grows very strong, and energies synchronize to the point where visitors feel quite a wallop as they come through the morning glory-covered arched gate to join me for a cup of tea under my big green umbrella. The recipes that follow here have emerged over the years but I don’t follow them with any rigidity. They are based on intuition and what the garden gives each year.
I hope you have fun exploring the links you find on this website and that your heart leads you just where you need to go. I never sell anything I make. Never. For me it is not appropriate, but visitors to my site are welcome to learn from and enjoy what I offer for you to read here. All information is offered with the best of intentions and is for educational purposes only. Nothing I offer here promises to cure any disease but only to offer possible comfort in everyday living.