Cupcake Cosmos and blue skies.
IN THE FLOWERS
This Week’s Flower Challenge: Make your own strawflower garland!
One more way to use the flower that keeps on giving. Strawflowers make incredible garlands, whether strung tightly packed together, or with knots or beads spacing out the flowers one from another. For the longest lasting, prettiest garlands, choose flowers that haven’t yet opened very far. (If you include a flower that has opened to show it’s yellow, daisy-like center it will probably complete its seed-making process as it dries and open further to release a cloud of fluff and seeds.Perfect for seed saving but less beautiful than the shiny, color-saturated young flowers.) Garlands are beautiful hung vertically down from the ceiling with bells or bobbles at the end, strung around your Christmas tree in winter, or looping back and forth across the ceiling for a celebration. Bonus! Try adding in Gomphrena (the little round globe amaranth that remind us of gumdrops).
Strawflower and gomphrena garland.
IN THE HERBS
Oregano, Marjoram, Thyme, Chives & Garlic Chives, Lemon Balm, Lemon Verbena, Chamomile, Tulsi Basil, Purple & Green & Bi-color Shiso (aka Perilla), Mints, Italian Basil, Purple Basil, Thai Basil, Green Coriander, Dill Flowers, Anise Hyssop, Sage, Tarragon, and Vietnamese Cilantro, Culinary Sage, Sorrel, Husk Cherries, Lemongrass.
FAQ
When does the CSA end? Exact dates are TBD, depending on the weather. The flower and herb garden will starting winding down in October and we’ll put her to bed in November. But expect some good blooms all the way til then. The strawberries will usually wrap up a little earlier, producing through the end of September.
If I go away can a friend use my share? Yes! If you’ll be out of town or unable to come pick strawbs and flowers, feel free to send a friend or relative in your stead. Please verbally orient them as to the directions and how things work as we are not always around.
FARMER’S LOG
Tonight we’ll leave you with a helpful reminder from the poet Lew Welch.
Notes From a Pioneer on a Speck in Space
Few things that grow here poison us.
Most of the animals are small.
Those big enough to kill us do it in a way
Easy to understand, easy to defend against.
The air, here, is just what the blood needs.
We don’t use helmets or special suits.
The Star, here, doesn’t burn you if you
Stay outside as much as you should.
The worst of our winters is bearable.
Water, both salt and sweet, is everywhere.
The things that live in it are easily gathered.
Mostly, you eat them raw with safety and pleasure.
Yesterday my wife and I brought back
Shells, driftwood, stones, and other curiosities
Found on the beach of the immense
Fresh-water Sea we live by.
She was all excited by a slender white stone which:
“Exactly fits the hand!”
I couldn’t share her wonder;
Here, almost everything does.
See you in the fields,
David and Kayta
