The Crafty Gardener. Becca Anderson

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      Protection Wreath: Hang this guardian wreath on your front door using heather, holly, dill, foxglove, garlic, sandalwood, snapdragon, mustard, foxglove, mistletoe, and/or mugwort. White and blue ribbons add security and serenity.

      Abundance Wreath: Greet prosperity at the door with herbs associated with money magic, which include clover, chamomile, sunflower, apple, cinnamon, myrtle, basil, and bay leaf. Weave in gold and green ribbon to add to your luck.

      Love Wreath: Don’t wait until Valentine’s Day to try this; love should be 24/7, 365. Invite love into your home by hanging a wreath full of love herbs on your door. Any combination of these will work beautifully. I recommend using herbs that personally resonate for you among these options: allspice, clove, catnip, fig, bleeding heart, periwinkle, tulip, peppermint, violet, daffodil, lavender, and marjoram. Adorn with pink and red ribbons to let the universe know you’re ready to welcome love into your life.

      For Love of Weeds

      As I work in my vegetable garden, tenderly planting seedlings of peppers, cucumbers, and tomatoes, I suddenly spot the weeds and regretfully rip them out by their roots. Regretfully because I’m a great fan of weeds. Weeds are the wonder workers of the world. Weeds covered the hellhole of Hiroshima with a living green carpet of hope. Within a year after the volcanic explosion, weeds brightened the miles of volcanic ash around Mount St. Helen’s. As I stood in Yellowstone, disconsolately peering at a desolate forest of giants blackened by the great fire, my eye fastened on small clumps of green—patches of weeds whispering on the winds, “We will be back.”

      Rain in spring is as precious as oil.

      —Chinese proverb

      Surprise Guests

      I strive to be an urban gardener, but rarely do much better than a pot of basil and a few annuals in my window boxes. However, I discovered a toil-free pleasure in my back patio. Since we live in an older building, there are a bunch of old planters filled with dirt and scruffy remains of plants. One day, I decided to water these planters and was pleasantly rewarded a week or so later with a profusion of mostly weeds but some flowers. One box even yielded a red tulip this spring. Even the weeds are pretty, and one bunch has tiny orange flowers on spindly branches. All it took was a little time and a little water. I enjoy the daily anticipation as new things reveal themselves, and, besides, it’s far prettier than the brown scruffy stuff.

      To win the secret of a weed’s plain heart.

      —James Russell Lowell

      Bottle Your Own Basil Infusion Oil

      Infusion is a trendy cooking method that brings the flavors of one food, in this case, fresh herbs, to another, such as oil. Basil oil is unbelievably easy to make. You’ll need:

      •¾ cup virgin olive oil (you can use safflower oil or canola)

      •2 ounces fresh basil

      Ideally, you gather your fresh herbs in your own kitchen garden, but any farmers’ market or organic grocery will have green herbs. For the best and purest flavor, use fresh herbs at their peak. Rinse thoroughly in cold water. Gently pat dry with paper towels and give the basil a coarse chopping. Place into a metal colander and dip into boiling water for 10 seconds. Rinse in an ice-water bath and drain well. Gently pat the basil dry and add it to the oil. After three to five days in a cool, dark place, the flavor will have infused into the oil, adding the fresh, bright green note of the herbs. Use liberally on roasts and salads, and drizzle on top of cooked vegetables and soups. Basil not only confers much palatability, but it also brings prosperity. Enjoy!

      These herbs also make fantastic infused oils: rosemary. tarragon, parsley, chives, and cilantro.

      Urban Gardening: Produce for Apartment Dwellers

      If you have no space or time for a garden (or are plagued by critters eating your goodies before you get to them), try creating hanging vegetable baskets. According to experts, almost anything can be grown in a basket, but be sure to get compact-growing varieties of the vegetables you want. Buy fourteen-inch-diameter wire baskets (sixteen-inch for zucchini or watermelons). It’s best to grow one type of vegetable per basket, although a variety of lettuces or herbs will work well together.

      Line baskets with sphagnum moss and fill with potting soil. Plant seedlings rather than seeds, and hang the baskets outdoors from patios or rafters where they will get at least four hours of afternoon sun. Avoid overwatering seedlings, but once they become established, be aware that you need to feed and water frequently; on the hottest days, they may even need to be watered twice a day! Once seedlings are three weeks old, fertilize every three weeks with an all-purpose soluble fertilizer, but never feed unless the soil is damp.

      To be beautiful and to be calm, without mental fear, is the ideal of nature.

      —Richard Jefferies

      Easy-Care Gardening

      Too busy to care for a vegetable garden on your own or don’t have the room? Consider what one hundred thousand folks around the United States do—“buy” shares in someone’s large garden. All shareholders agree to pay a certain amount per year and in exchange get weekly baskets of produce. Depending on where you live, deliveries can be anywhere from twenty-two to fifty-two weeks per year.

      Like most good ideas, this one has a name—Community-Supported Agriculture—and an organization, CSANA. According to CSANA, shares usually cost between three and six hundred dollars per year. (Many offer discounts for labor, since the work is shared, no one is overburdened, and there’s the added bonus of meeting fellow gardeners you might not otherwise know.) For more information about the six hundred farms that belong to CSANA, contact them at (413) 538-4374 or email to [email protected]. Their web address is http://www.umass.edu/umext/CSA.

      I am not…certain that I want to be able to identify

      all of the warblers. There is a charm sometimes

      in not knowing who the singer is.

      —Donald Culross Peattie

      Remembering Lilacs

      I suppose the garden behind my grandparents’ house was small, but to a four-year-old it seemed immense. The distance from the back door to the end of the yard was a journey from the safety of home, across an expanse of grass, around orderly flower beds, and finally to the marvelous wilderness of the tall, old lilac hedge. I discovered that a persistent push would let me enter a cool, green space under the branches of the lilacs. There I daily established my first household, presiding over tea parties for an odd assortment of stuffed animals and the patient family cat.

      Now, nearly seven decades later, the heady scent of lilacs takes me back to that garden where I took those first ventures toward independence—though never out of sight of the familiar back door.

      Unless the soul goes out to meet what we see

      we do not see it; nothing do we see, not a beetle, not

      a blade of grass.

      —William Henry Hudson

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