Tag Archives: garden

Harvesting Elderberries, NOT Pokeweed / Pokeberries!

Lots of folks are out harvesting elderberries, especially the North American native American Elderberry, or Sambucus Canadensis. Health benefits abound! BUT, many people are posting photos of Pokeweed or Pokeberry (also known as Pokesalat) on social media, and asking: Are these Elderberries? NO! And knowing the difference when you’re harvesting elderberries is critical! Pokeweed berries […]

Pulling Out Invasive Privet After A Rain

Invasive privet (aka Chinese privet) is a non-native species throughout the Southeast USA. Privet crowds out native wildflowers, bushes and trees, and is difficult to remove. For example, when I moved to my property in Catoosa County, Northwest Georgia, nearly the entire edge of my woods was a solid mass of privet. Since removing it, […]

Making Healthy Elderflower Tea

Elderflower tea may boost your immune system in the same way that elderberry juice does. This healthy tea, served hot or cold, is a refreshing drink that’s available in the early summer, well before elderberries are ripe. And tea from elderflowers is simple to make, with only a few things to watch out for. Check […]

Earth + Us Part 2: Weeding Uncovers Treasures Haiku

Weeding out the bad/ that shouldn’t be there makes room for the good that should. Backstory: My wife wrote Earth + Us about pulling privet. This is an update. I was motivated to pull out a massive clump of several very old and large privet on my NW Georgia property (privet is an invasive, non-native […]

Earth Day At 50 With Me: Haiku – Haibun Memory

Earth Day’s 50! Then:/ I’m in Milwaukee’s River./ Now: I’ll plant Earth’s fields. Earth Day is 50! A half century ago I stood in the Milwaukee River in Estabrook Park near my home in Glendale, Wisconsin, loudly singing with other youth and cleaning out the old tires, mattress springs, tin cans and other junk that […]

Why Make And Maintain A Natural Yard: For The Birds, Bees and Butterflies

Natural yards for the birds, bees and butterflies — and for the pleasure they brings human senses — are nothing new. I personally have created my own natural yard for decades, as has my brother. Where did that inspiration come from? Our forest ranger father, who taught all my siblings that lawns were silly, foolish, […]

Finding Wonderful Hidden Wildflowers: Haiku

It is often so/ that when we clear dross and junk,/ we find wonderful. Using a loping shears to clear underbrush and non-native privet from around the hardwood trees in my back yard reveals an undergrowth of black-eyed susans and other hidden wildflowers. Sometimes you have to burn the grasses and weeds from large fields, […]

Late Season Blueberries from The Blueberry Farm in NW Georgia, July 2019

Finding the Last Late Season Blueberries: Haibun

Picking Redux: The Last of the Late Season Blueberries It was, they said, too late in the season to find even the last of the late season blueberries. For weeks, pickers and birds had scoured the field for the small, blue bursts of anti-oxidants and health and taste. OH! The taste! Our house chef was […]