Garden Time: Temptingly Tart Sorrel Part I

By Jill Henderson – Show Me Oz

Spring had barely arrived before we were filling our salads and sandwiches with the crisp, lemony leaves of sorrel; one of our favorite perennial vegetables.  Once used extensively in North America as a flavorful green and medicinal herb, sorrel is rarely found in herb or vegetable gardens today.  If rare in the herb and vegetable garden, sorrel is almost entirely overlooked as an ornamental, where it easily adds visual zip and vertical structure to perennial flower gardens with its verdant green leaves and small but lovely reddish-brown flowers.  If you’ve never grown sorrel, or worse yet, have never eaten sorrel, then you are truly in for a mouth-watering treat.

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ACRES USA: Seed Saving Begins in Spring

Seed Saving Begins in Spring – Jill Henderson – Acres USA May 2014

Check out this PDF of my latest article for ACRES USA magazine;  The Voice of Eco-Agriculture.  This is a great read for anyone who wants to grow crops or raise livestock in a natural and sustainable way!

 

 

Wild Walk: Spring Beauties

It’s been a busy spring here on Turtle Ridge.  We finally got the warm up we’ve been waiting for to really get the spring garden growing.  While we were waiting for sunny days and spring showers to germinate our seeds, I took a little time to go wild.

10 Easy Steps to Using Herbs Wisely

By Jill Henderson – Show Me Oz

With a growing distrust of big pharmaceutical companies and a government that seems to approve new drugs with lightening speed, it is no wonder that millions of Americans are turning to herbs to treat everything from the common cold to cancer.  Should you decide to dive in to a self-prescribed herbal remedy there are 10 easy steps to using herbs as safely and wisely as possible.

Songkran: A Thai New Year Celebration – Part II

By Jill Henderson – Show Me Oz –

As mentioned in Part I, Songkran is often called the Water Festival because it ushers in the rainy season so crucial for growing rice, the main staple in the Thai diet.  Naturally, water has always played an important role in the celebration, but modern participants have taken the tradition and turned it up a notch…or ten.  Today’s festivities often begin days before the ‘official’ holiday, which is around April 13th, and can last for several days after Songkran ends on the 15th.  One can feel the tension building as the holiday nears.  Locals and visitors alike have a wary look in their eyes and a rare alertness to their steps.

Songkran: The Water Festival – Part I

By Jill Henderson – Show Me Oz –

As we walked down a narrow lane in the Thai city of Chiang Mai, some unseen person standing in the shadows shouted “Sa-wat-dee pee mai!” just as a cascading sheet of water hit me in the side of the head.  Water was dripping into my sandals, my hair was plastered to my face, and my sunglasses dangled somewhere behind my neck.  I turned to see the laughing, smiling faces of a group of eight year olds.  My face said all there was that needed to be said as I resigned myself to my fate and laughed with them.  “I’ll be back!” I said teasingly, sending them into new fits of joyous laughter.  Today is the beginning of Songkran, the Thai New Year, and my birthday – and my only regret in being out on the streets at all today is that I didn’t have my own bucket of water.