Purple Archangel Dead Nettle Recipe

There are two occasions when eating, for me, a forgotten hole in my body is filled. The first when I ate digitata seaweed from this place>> Digitata seaweed and also after eating the first soupy Purple archangel of the season.  Ahhh how I forget what spring tonics do to your overall feeling of well being. The minerals and "something other" that we can't get in decently domestic garden and grocery foods.  There is a wildness that fills you and makes your lymphatic river run clear and cool. I love the aftertaste of life between my teeth and a release of the winter heaviness. Does anyone else hear and feel their gallbladder making a little squirt of joy after eating something like this? I love them.

My ridiculous healthy & delicious recipe for Purple Archangel, Dead Nettle, Lamium purpureum.  

* Harvest about 10% of each patch, leave the rest for the bees. If you allow Purple Archangel to be your garden's cover crop, you will never be without this plant.  However in the spring, with its new growth and violet flowers full of scarlet pollen carried in the clear pollen sack of the bees, I enjoy the harvest the most.

*Also Trim the new growth of the garlic chives that are now surely unfurling in your beds.

* In a second bowl, harvest the chickweed that is coming to life in your deliciously weedy garden.

* Loosely chop archangel. Saute in deep pan with coconut oil or lard, little pepper, onions and garlic chives (or ginger maybe?).

* 1/2 cover ingredients with a liquid.  I used the pasta water that I saved from yesterday (perfect as a soup starter, nice viscosity). Salt with tamari.

* Simmer with lid 1/2 cocked to thicken for 20 plus minutes.  The minerals are released into the broth, make sure to drink! Before serving, splash several times with homemade garlic or other herbal infused raw unpasteurized apple cider vinegar.

* In another pan, saute onions & garlic in 1/4 c local pasture raised butter and 1/4 tamari. When onions start to caramelize, turn pan off.

* chop chickweed.

*Serve cooked greens in a bowl with broth, top with caramelized onion glaze and fresh chopped chickweed.

Rose facial bliss

I use wild rose hips in the Missouri Herbs Facial Bliss butter.  Here is a video of one of our super stars.  

Ashwagandha growing journey

We are starting our journey with ashwagandha and have found, like with many plants, there are few seedling photos online.  So here are ours.  I'll document our journey here as we walk with this plant.  

 

ashwagandha seedling, photo by Richard Herman

ashwagandha seedling, photo by Richard Herman

06/24/17 Our Ashwagandha in the ground didn't make it, the left over plants in the bucket are looking good.

Ashwagandha 06/24/17

Worst post on trap plants ... ever

Datura and potatoes.  Datura took all the flea beetle damage. 

Gardening season is coming and I know you have the itch to pull the weeds that will be sprouting up.  But, you might be pulling some serious helpers. 

Don't forget to let (or plant) Lady's thumb or other SmartWeeds in the garden. They are much lower to the ground than other Japanese beetle trap plants (wild rose, wild grape, gaura biennis, sassafras etc), so the chickens can reach and eat them (and my dog actually eats them too). They are also beautiful and lush.  Plus if you get poison ivy you can do a spit poultice with the leaf.  

These plants attract Halictid bees (sweat bees) and Syrphid flies,  and both of their babies eat aphids. Woo hoo!

They attract wasps which are great in the garden. I love working in the garden looking for cabbage worms and the wasps are right there with me doing their morning chores as well. I've never been stung working in the garden, even when working the same plant. They are amazing to watch--quick, systematic, efficient.

Some people say that trap plants attract more bugs to the garden, but my experience doesn't show that. I've been testing trap plants for many years now. What my testing shows is that when the same trap plants are elsewhere, very far away from the garden, I don't see as many pests on them.  Especially in the case of flea beetles and horse nettle, there are none.  

When the trap plants are near, in or around the garden, there are more pests on them than on the annuals that I love. In some cases the plants will be touching (like in the picture above) and the trap plant is almost decimated and the potato (for example) is not touched. I think the annuals draw the pests in, then they say "hey, I'd rather eat that over there".

Don't forget about the insanely beneficial horsenettle and datura in the garden too. Flea beetles love them much more than the potatoes and other plants. Plus their seeds aren't air-born and easy to control.

~~~~~

06/22/17 Update:
Here are pictures of horse nettle in the garden:

 

Horse nettle in the garden

More Horse nettle taking the damage, baby watermelon... no damage. 

Horse nettle not near the annuals garden

Horse nettle not near annuals

Frostweed near the annuals

Frostweed not near the annuals... not one bug on them. 

Free skin care seminar...Meadowbrook Natural Foods, Mt. Grove, MO

Hope you can join us at Meadowbrook Natural Foods.  Feel free to come late or leave early.  This session will flow as people come in and out.  Bring your herbal questions too!  

Here is our radio ad: