Cultivating and Foraging: Your Resource Guide

Scouting my garden for the smallest of clues, I can feel the soil moving with the growing of roots, the latent energies beginning to move underneath my feet. On-line seed catalogs are becoming the standard yet the delivery of the print-based spring seed catalogs in late December and early January bring a smile and a sense of reassurance of Spring’s return.  In these icy and chilly days, I venture out into my shed to take stock of the items I need to begin gearing up for the start of a new growing season. Anticipation, hopes, joy, and possibilities abound. Underestimating my energy and time and overestimating my ability to do it all every year, I over plant and over order seeds. Every year I promise myself to exert more control and still end up with too many un-planted seedlings and too many un-opened seed packets. My initial plan for who goes where gets overwhelmed by the sheer number of plants I'm now cramming into every available centimeter of space.  I can't let them go, even the ones looking less than thriving because you never know how some plants will turn out. I’ve been pleasantly surprised so many times, I can’t bear to dump them in the compost bin!

More seed companies are coming into existence and bringing intention, mindfulness, and community into the seed market. Their focus ranges from preserving heirlooms to discovering old cultivators that fell out of favor when GMO enhancements became popular. The difference between hybridization and GMO is hybridization or the crossing of compatible varieties, happens naturally in the wild; plant breeders basically steer the process to control the outcome using natural, low-tech methods.  GMO varieties are created in the lab using gene splicing and can include genes from several species-a phenomenon that almost never occurs in nature.

What Are Some Good Sources for Medicinal Plant Seeds?

Here’s a link to a fabulous resource from Chestnut School of Herbal Medicine in Asheville, North Carolina: Ethical Sources for Medicinal Seeds & Plants. It lists resources all across the country and some in Canada.

Virginia is home to two seed companies. One is listed in her article and one is not as it specializes more in veggies. Southern Seed Exchange is located between Richmond and Charlottesville and contains some medicinal herbs in addition to veggies. Commonwealth Seeds, located in Louisa County, is focused on vegetables that grow well in our climate.

For both medicinal and vegetable seedlings, a great place to shop is Forrest Green Farm in Louisa County. This is their 2021 listing with approximate dates of availability. Gathered Threads in Nelson County is owned by Katherine Herman, fellow herb school alumni, who grows and sells an expanding seedling (veggies and medicinal) and dried herb selection. Another good source of seedlings in Virginia is Goose Creek Farm near Roanoke.

 You’ve Got the Seeds, How Do You Start Them?

For medicinal plants it involves a bit more investment in time and energy. This article is a great resource for anyone wanting to grow their own herbs and addresses these issues in a clear and useful manner.

Supporting Components

To create your own herbal apothecary you need equipment to harvest, process, and store your bounty. In my humble opinion, here is a list of items required to harvest, process, and cook with your herbal abundance:

1.      Good seed starting medium. Forrest Green makes their own seed starting mix. Ideally you want it to be a blend of compost, absorbing medium, fungi and low  on fertilizers. Organic is best.

2.    Glass jars with matching lids. Glass is better to store your herbs and herbal products than plastic or paper. This is where repurposing the honey jar or cool looking jelly jar can result in a cupboard full of glassware and mismatched lids. But hey, you never know when you might need to use a 2-ounce jar to gift some of your infused honey! Make sure some of the lids are leakproof. This is essential when making extracts and vinegars. In addition to being leakproof, the caps must be nonmetal when exposed to vinegar to prevent corrosion. If you don’t have a nonmetal lid, you can place a layer of parchment or wax paper between the lid and the jar.

3.      Labels.  Mystery extracts/herbs/oils anyone? How old is that stuff in the bottle? You think you’ll remember but somehow it never works out that way.

4.      Muslin or cheesecloth for straining. Coffee filters can be used for some herbal products, but it may take longer to strain.

5.      Metal strainer: Either bowl-like or handheld

6.      Yogurt maker/crockpot/Instapot/double boiler/ to make infused oils.

7.      Wooden chopsticks: Great to poke down plant bits and get rid of air bubbles in jars.

8.      Measuring tools such as measuring cups, small kitchen scale, a shot glass marked with milliliters (always helpful).

9.      Bags for gathering herbs or holding herbs while awaiting processing. Brown paper grocery bags can be used repeatedly to hold freshly harvested herbs or as a container in which to dry them.

10.     A place to store your herbs and homemade goodies. An abundance of herbs  means lots of dried potential. Preferred storage locations are cool, with low light  levels, and low humidity.

11.       A place/method to dry them. Popular options are dehydrator, rack with a fan,  hanging in paper bags from the rafters, a hot car on a sunny day (have to be careful on this one because it can get hot very quickly over dry the herbs). Unless you have a gas oven with a pilot light, using the oven to dry herbs is difficult to control the temperature and cause over drying.

12.      Garden diary. This can be an Excel spreadsheet, a loose-leaf notebook - anything you can use to record the varieties you planted, when planted, how many sprouted, what the weather was like, when you first noticed flowers, when fruits were harvested. You want to keep track of where you planted various herbs and veggies so as to rotate their placement year to year to prevent soil depletion and help with disease control.  This gives you information about what did well on your garden and how much effort went into growing it.  

What About Those Who Want to Forage?

For those more interested in foraging rather than growing herbs, here is an excellent article to assist with plant identification and wild crafting in general along with recommended books. I use the following two websites to help with botanical identification and recipes for use: Dina Falconi and Grow Forage Cook  by Colleen Codekas.

Planning is half the battle and helps manage the overwhelm that can occur if the weather is either especially good or bad. Gardening attunes you to the natural cycles and forces you to focus in the moment. The joy you get from tending a plant from seed to harvesting its bounty enables you to appreciate the small things and your connection to the Earth.  

Happy dreaming and gardening!