Welcome to the section of this site dedicated to real-life gardening and growing experiments!  I’ll be sharing progress updates throughout the growing season, lessons learned (sometimes the hard way), the logic – or lack thereof – behind some of my experimentation, and other interesting tidbits as I get to know some of our age-old herbal allies.

My garden is a bit atypical, though, so I’ll start by introducing you.

My Unique Kind of Garden

For years, I’ve been intrigued by the way that regular people kept themselves healthy centuries ago. I don’t mean that I study the history of formal medicine or developments in the expertise of physicians; those treatments were fine and good (well, sometimes) for the wealthier sort who had access to them and could afford their expenses. No, I’m talking about the remedies of common folks, the “everybody else,” who relied on generations’ worth of experimental knowledge of plants and their surrounding environment, and who depended on the healing properties found in nature to heal and preserve themselves. 

It’s important to note that I have no formal training in medicine or botany. Heck, I don’t even really have a green thumb! Yet despite my limited knowledge about plants and a sub-par natural ability to even tell them apart, I love the idea that these things growing wild around us have so much potential!  And frankly, I’m boggled by the fact that our ancestors figured out those medicinal properties without the benefit of modern science. I mean, who was the first person to, say, get a splinter in a finger, then look down at a funny green thing growing nearby and think “huh, I wonder if my hand would feel better if I tied those leaves around it?” (We won’t even think about what happened all the times when those experiments DIDN’T go well!) From our lofty modern-day perspective, shaped with the benefit of scientific knowledge, it’s easy for us to doubt those old folk remedies were anything but a placebo, but science has proven to us that these plants really do possess some of the abilities that our forerunners figured out. 

Making It Personal 

One day I found myself musing about what it must have been like to walk through a meadow or a forest, or down by a stream, and to not only recognize the plants I saw, but also to know what I could do with them to help myself or my family the next time we fell ill or were injured.  I imagined collecting those herbs and flowers and bark, taking them home and storing them carefully.  Then comes the most difficult, yet most intriguing, part to imagine: days or months down the road, reaching for those things I’d gathered, and mixing or combining or infusing them into a remedy that could reduce a fever or staunch bleeding or calm a queasy stomach.  How cool would that be? No wonder some believed there must have been magic involved! 

Then I thought: what if I could try it out? Not by foraging in ditches alongside Interstate 35 or digging down by the neighborhood pond, of course (remember my brown thumb? I’d ingest something poisonous for sure!). But what if I could grow a few safe herbs here at home, right alongside my ornamental flowers? It felt like a way to touch the past; by observing and tending the same plants that women have used for centuries, I thought I might understand just a little more about the experiences of those healers.

Diving Into Herbal History

As you might’ve guessed from the name of this site, my main historical interests lie in the medieval and early modern (think the Tudors/Renaissance) periods. So I started researching herbal and folk remedies from around 1100 AD onward, and I came up with a list of a few that seemed a) safe; and b) available in the midwestern United States.  Then I had to consider the growing conditions available to me, which limited my options and helped me keep my grandiose dreams a bit in check. 

Growing Area

When I say ‘garden,’ that’s a very generous description of the area I have to work with.  We live in a suburban townhome without an actual garden plot or a space to make one (thanks to some silly homeowners’ association rules), but the place does have a rather nice deck.  It’s not a massive size by any means, but it provides a pretty decent living space out there, and I’d enjoyed keeping a few containers of home-improvement-store flowers around the edges since we moved in. Still, I knew my herb garden would need to be container-based.

Keeping It Real…istic

The deck wasn’t the only limitation I had to consider.  We’re in hardiness zone 4, which in a nutshell translates to very cold winters, late spring frost dates and in general a fairly short growing season. Some of the medieval plants I initially considered just weren’t likely to thrive in this climate, or at least I had to seek out the hardier varieties as the “best-available” option. Take lavender, for example: while a French lavender is lovely and certainly would have been prized in its native growing area, I’ve opted for varieties like Munstead, which is better-equipped for the English climate, and Phenomenal, which has been bred specifically for success in even chillier regions like mine. 

Along those same vines – er, lines – many herbs and medicinal plants are perennials.  Even in Minnesota, they might have a decent chance at survival if planted in the ground, but suspended twelve feet in the air in containers exposed to the elements? That takes a tough plant indeed to survive beyond a season.  As my research advised, some herbs take more than one year to reach the point where their leaves/flowers/roots/what-have-you are viable to be used in medicinal preparations, so was there a purpose in even trying to grow them?  I’ll circle back to these considerations in a future post. 

Then there’s the elephant in every room:  money. As much as I wish I had an endless supply of cash to dedicate to expanding, protecting and improving my garden experiment, this was and remains my hobby (one of several, truth be told).  Expenditures every year, especially in the spring, have to be somewhat kept in check, as I’m sure many of you have also experienced.  As a result, I try to control costs where possible, and you won’t see me with a super-fancy setup or the prettiest pots.  Function over form all the way, and even then sometimes function has to limp along until I’m ready to invest in the upgrade!  

Last but by no means least, I’m a fur mama to two dogs and four mini panthers (okay, black cats), and their safety is a prime concern. The panthers are inside cats and the dogs are always supervised outside, yet I always consider a plant’s toxicity level to animals before including it in my garden plans. Does this mean I will never grow plants that could be dangerous if the pets were to get into them? Not necessarily, but it does mean that I remain aware of those plants that could cause discomfort or worse if ingested, I take steps to keep them out of reach, and I’m constantly vigilant when any of the animals are on the deck to make sure they aren’t sneaking nibbles.  

With all these aspects to consider, there are a lot of things I can’t do or try in my garden as it is.  That’s okay, though, because my real goals are still met.  

Goals – and Things that are Specifically NOT Goals 

Here’s one of those situations when a thing is easier to describe by starting with what it is NOT, before moving on to what it actually is.  We’ll start there.  

1.       This blog is NOT one of those fancy lifestyle blogs. (Let’s be honest, though; if you’re still reading at this point, you’ve likely already figured that out. Thanks for sticking with me.) I don’t have advice for you on the best way to make herbal vinegars that will clean your entire home while giving you the shiniest hair you’ve ever had in your life.  There are other blogs that probably CAN advise you there, and those blogs are great! Those things just aren’t part of my knowledge base or skillset at this time.  

2.       Along those same lines, I’m not out to have the coolest deck or the swankiest patio setup.  Again, not my forte, and I certainly won’t be entering (let alone winning) any contests for “most visually appealing garden setup.” 

3.       I will never claim to be a fantastic gardener, and frankly it isn’t my goal to become one. I garden because I enjoy it, and I garden in a way that fits my time and interests. Skill and expertise will grow with experience, so I don’t sweat it now.  

So what IS my goal with all of this?  

Simply put, my intention is to learn from and grow with the plants. 

Cheesy? Probably. The thing is, the more I research, choose, tend to, observe and preserve these plants, the more I learn about them, their preferences, what helps them thrive, and how plants and humans are dependent on each other. All of that circles back to gaining just that bit more understanding of the lives of the people who depended on these plants for their very lives in times past.  

So welcome to my garden! I hope you’ll enjoy following and learning along with me. I’ll be posting updates soon with this year’s progress!