Spring Garden (re-post...because I've been delinquent)

"Weed" may be the only four-letter word in the English language I don't use.

As a young collegiate lad, I decided to indulge my underfed bio nerdiness by supplementing my high falooten design degree with a certification in western herbalism at the New York Open Center under Peeka Trenkle.
Those classes fuelled a budding interest in food and health that ushered in a major change in the way I thought about food, and of course, how I ate.
Ever since I have been known to get a little witchy on occasion.
I'm not ashamed to dig up a root or two , and if you cough around me I'm going to try to dose you with garlic.
Enuf said.

So, this is the long way of saying I would like to introduce you to my Garden.
Garden, Reader. Reader Garden.
She may look a little toe-up now, but after she combs her hair its going to start getting green around here.
In addition to a few hot photos , you can expect gardening tips I have picked up along the way , as well as benefiting from my ethnobotanical knowledge (not that I am an expert or a medical professional or anything so respect my amatuerity and don't go suing me. Instead go to a doctor. p.s. that was the disclaimer).


"Weed" might be the only four letter word in the English I don't use,
as evidenced in the picture above I like to keep it on the wild side.
If strangers are friends you haven't met yet, then the same can be said for weeds.
They are nothing less then misunderstood plants, and learning to control your pruning finger can be a rich educational experience.
Gardens are , after all, one of the last places where we hold onto some part of our illicit past as hunter gatherers. Modern as we may feel ourselves to be, we often carry around plants as heirlooms- passed down to us like ancestral china.
We invite plants to sit on our windowsills and in our offices, pack them like over sized shirts into the grids of our cities and nurture them in our backyards.

But every garden has its outliers.
The wild has only been mildly domesticated.
In a feral garden there is always something new and once the growing season starts I'm always finding some interesting foreign leafy thing to look up.
Adding to the field book Que are butterflies , birds , assorted pollinators and the associated riff raff that follow them.
I actively try to recruit wildlife who appreciate the diversity and often reward me by popping in to "drop off" new seeds.
These are my gems.
Very often the very plants Ive been contemplating purchasing at the garden center actually turn up unannounced in the beds provided I give them a chance to grow.
I like the idea of a garden as constantly evolving with its own desires and personality.
While I make an effort to tidy up the beds I give it some room to breathe.
I'm on the liberal left when it comes to border patrol.
What can I say?
I like it a little hairy.

Welcome to my garden.