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Category Archives: permaculture
Paw Paws
After 12 years of trying, we finally got our first paw paws today! I am beyond excited.
Blueberries are for the birds …
Being a permaculture enthusiast means playing the long game sometimes. It’s kind of like having an investment that eventually pays dividends. I bought our house in 2007 knowing that I would be putting down roots in the City of Durham. What sold me on the property was our backyard—a fenced-in double lot, unusual for a […]
The Healing Salve
A few years ago I wrote about my obsession with the miracle plant, Comfrey. I wrote how the plant has been used for a variety of purposes over the years, from healing fractures, helping with skin irritations, insect bites and inflammation associated with rheumatoid arthritis. It’s a nitrogen fixer too, which means it’s a great fertilizer. […]
City of comfrey, part 1
Listen up gardeners, it’s time to talk about the miracle plant, comfrey.The plant, which has pretty pink or purple blossoms depending on the species, was called knitbone for thousands of years because of its ability to speed the healing of bone injuries. The ancient Greek historian Herodatus wrote about it, and it’s very name, symphytum, comes from the Greek symphyo which […]
Thrills from blueberry hill
For years we’ve been trying to grow blueberries, but we’ve had scant results. Despite giving them plenty of water–blueberry plants require at least an inch or two of water a week–the berries have always been few and tiny. That’s why my eyes almost popped out of my head when I visited our neighborhood friends Sally […]
Solomon’s Seal
I think it’s time for a new series called Nostalgic Plants of Childhood, starting with Solomon’s Seal. As a youngster growing up in Boone, I’d always see this plant when I was hiking in the woods. I loved its gently curving leaves and tiny clusters of white, tubular-shaped flowers. Thinking it was a mountain plant, I […]
Way down yonder in the paw paw patch…
It made my morning to discover that our paw paw tree had flowered. The flowers are an astonishingly-pretty deep red with a hint of purple. We planted this tree a few years ago, but this is the first time it’s flowered, which means it should fruit sometime over the late summer. I’ll be honest with […]
Foraging for onions
Nothing could be finer than foraging for food in your backyard on a glorious North Carolina spring morning. Today’s harvest was wild onions, and there were onions ‘o plenty. Wild onions are part of the allium genus of plants which includes all types of onions, garlics, chives, and leeks. (Allium is the Latin word for garlic, […]
How permaculture saved my basement
Three years ago today, some friends invited me to hear permaculture enthusiast Toby Hemmenway speak at the Nicholas School of the Environment here at Duke. As I walked to the lecture, a gentle snow blanketed the ground. Little did I know what a positive impact this lecture would have on my life. Permaculture, it turns out, is […]