• Tansy repels Japanese beetles, striped cucumber beetles, squash bugs, ants, flies.
• Thyme deters cabbage worms.
• Yarrow attracts hoverflies, ladybugs, and wasps, all of which prey on aphids.
Yarrow, yarrow tremble and sway
Tiny flowers bright and gay
Protect my garden night and day.
—TRADITIONAL
Read more about the companionable herbs:
Carrots Love Tomatoes: Secrets of Companion Planting for Successful Gardening, by Louise Riotte
Great Garden Companions, by Sally Jean Cunningham
APRIL 30
Tonight is May Eve, the night when fairies are about.
A Fairy Garden
Ruby Wilcox, who is a firm believer in fairies, is planning to spend the evening creating a miniature fairy-garden-in-a-bowl, just for the fairies she hopes will be stopping by for a visit around midnight. Whether you believe or not (of course you do, don’t you?), a little magic never hurt anyone.
THE CONTAINER AND THE SOIL
A wide, shallow terra-cotta bowl (the more weathered and mossy the better) is the best sort of container for a fairy garden, but any sturdy, well-drained container will do. Fill it with a light-weight potting soil. Water when the soil begins to dry (don’t keep your garden wet), and add an organic fertilizer every few weeks. Your fairy garden will need plenty of sun, but set it in a protective place so that the wind doesn’t tear the fragile plants.
THE PLANTS
Moss is a must, to cover the soil. But herbs are the real secret to planting a fairy garden. Choose varieties that won’t grow more than 8-12 inches high, and clip to keep them the size you want. You can clip some into the shapes of bushes, others into trees. Many different herbs are appropriate. Here are a few suggestions:
LANDSCAPING AND FAIRY GARDEN FURNITURE
Fairies love a garden that has a “lived-in” look. Add a path of tiny cobbles, a quartz crystal, a pretty shell, a bit of bark or an intricately-shaped branch with lichen growing on it, a reflecting pool made of a small mirror, a Popsicle-stick fence, a bench, an arbor, a wheelbarrow, and other miniature tools and garden accents. A great variety of fairy furniture is available these days—and fairy figures, too. (You might want to add one or two of these, until your garden attracts the real thing.) Garden lighting would be fun, and if you really want to lure fairies, add a miniature fountain, and maybe even a plate of tiny Faerie Blossom Cookies, as a special treat (see May 1). Use your imagination, and be sure to include all the things you’d like to see in your garden if you were a fairy.
You see children know such a lot now, they don’t believe in fairies, and every time a child says, “I don’t believe in fairies,” there is a fairy somewhere that falls down dead.
—JAMES BARRIE, PETER PAN
MAY 1
Today is Beltane (meaning “bright fire”) the cross-quarter day of the ancient Celtic year, celebrating the beginning of summer. Other cross-quarter days: Imbolc (February 1), Lughnasadh or Lammas (August 1), Samhain (November 1).
A May Day Garden Party
The first day of May is the very best day to celebrate our gardens and enjoy them with neighbors and friends. The party doesn’t have to be elaborate or involve a lot of work if every guest brings a salad, a casserole, or a dessert. Ask people to use their favorite herbs, and bring a recipe card to display with their offering.
Dress up your table with a bright cloth, cotton napkins edged with pinking shears, flower-wreathed candles, and a few terra-cotta pots filled with rosemary, thyme, parsley, and sage. If your party includes children, they would delight in a miniature May Pole, with bright ribbons and flowers, centered in a large, flat container surrounded by flowers. If yours is a nighttime party, string fairy lights in the trees, hang paper lanterns, and float candles in bowls of water.
Fresh salads are the joy of a garden party, with spring greens, edible flowers, and herbs. Chilled garden soups are always good: tomato, cucumber, avocado. Easy garden casseroles (spinach lasagna, chicken and broccoli, scalloped potatoes with ham, eggplant casserole) are filling. A garden punch with lemon balm and mint is easy (see August 30), or you can serve May wine (see May 24). And dessert tops it off—fresh fruit, cobbler, cheesecake—each featuring an herb, of course. For the kids, Faery Blossom Cookies are sure to be a hit. Here’s the recipe from the Fairy Festival Ruby organized in “A Violet Death,” in An Unthymely Death and Other Garden Mysteries:
FAERIE BLOSSOM COOKIES
2 tablespoons sugar
¼ cup fresh lemon-basil leaves, packed down
¼ cup fresh lemon balm leaves, packed down
¾ cup sugar
½ cup butter or margarine, softened
1 egg
3 tablespoons lemon juice
3 cups flour
Preheat oven to 350°, and lightly grease two baking sheets. In a blender or food processor, process the fresh herbs with 2 tablespoons sugar and set aside. Using your electric mixer, beat butter or margarine until creamy, gradually adding ¾ cup sugar. Add egg and lemon juice and blend. Add herb-sugar mixture, then flour, 1 cup at a time, beating to blend thoroughly. Shape into 1-inch balls and place 2 inches apart on greased baking sheet. Dip the bottom of a glass in sugar and flatten each ball. Bake until golden brown, about 8-10 minutes. Remove to wire racks to cool. Yield: about 3 dozen.
MAY 2
The first week of May is National Herb Week.
Mildred obviously enjoyed garden crafts, and the living room was full of her work—bouquets of dried flowers, some small framed pictures made with delicate arrangements of pressed pansies, lavender, and dried herbs, and a sweet-smelling bowl of rose potpourri.
—“AN UNTHYMELY DEATH,” IN AN UNTHYMELY DEATH AND
OTHER GARDEN MYSTERIES
A Handcrafted Herbal Gift
To celebrate National Herb Week, here is a recipe for a fragrant, old-fashioned rose potpourri that you will enjoy sharing with a friend. It was created by Mildred Rawlins, whom China and Ruby met when they were investigating the unfortunate demise of one of China’s gardening friends.
OLD-FASHIONED ROSE POTPOURRI
2 cups dried rose petals
1 cup dried lavender
½ cup fresh or dried rosemary leaves
3 bay leaves, fresh or dried, broken
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
2 teaspoons grated nutmeg
2 teaspoons whole cloves
1 teaspoon powdered cloves
4-5 whole star anise
2 tablespoons orris root powder (a fixative)
6-8 drops essential rose oil
dried rosebuds for decoration
Mix dried materials together. Mix essential rose oil with orris root powder and toss with dried materials. Store in a covered container for 4-6 weeks, gently stirring or shaking every few days, to blend the fragrances. Display potpourri in a pretty bowl or basket, and renew scent with rose oil when necessary.
Read more of China’s garden sleuthing in this collection of short stories:
An Unthymely Death and Other Garden Mysteries, by Susan Wittig Albert
To make Oyle of Roses—Take of oyle eighteen ounces, the buds of Roses (the white ends of them cut away) three ounces, lay the Roses abroad in the shadow four and twenty houres, then put them in a Glass to the oyle, and stop the Glass close, and set it in the sunne for at least forty days.
—JOHN PARTRIDGE, THE TREASURE OF HIDDEN SECRETS AND
COMMODIOUS CONCERTS, 1586
MAY 3
Herbs are our only living connection to past history.
—DON HAYNIE
Going Places: Buffalo Springs Herb Farm
The Buffalo Springs Herb Farm, a lovely 220-acre farmstead, is located in Rockbridge County, Virginia, in the Shenandoah Valley, an area of spectacular mountain views, quiet green valleys, and charming towns and villages. Don Haynie and Tom Hamlin bought the eighteenth-century farm in 1989 and began restoring its buildings and field
s. They opened the farm to the public in August 1991. Two of their most popular events are the annual May Day celebration on the first Saturday in May—a community-wide event with a May Pole, craft workshops, lectures, food, art, and a ballet performance—and the annual Christmas house tours of their eighteenth-century farmhouse, decorated with holiday herbs and other natural materials.
Don has a special interest in history, and he and Tom have worked very hard to preserve the historical spirit of Buffalo Springs. Their meticulously restored buildings, originally built in the 1790s, will give you a glimpse of life as it was lived by the earliest settlers. But it is the dozen or so theme gardens that will steal your heart. The Celestial Garden, the Fragrance Garden, the Mediterranean Garden, and the Medicinal Garden all give us glimpses of the way herbs have been used over the centuries. The Medieval Garden contains an abbey ruins and is filled with herbs of ritual and worship. You’ll smell the sweet scent of strewing herbs—angelica, lavender, rosemary, sage—and hear the muted sounds of Gregorian chants.
May Fest is the farm’s most special occasion, with music, wonderful food, beautiful flowers and herbs, and a May Pole. I know, because I was crowned Queen of the May there, in 2006. It was a day of bright flowers and warm friendship, and I’ll never forget it.
Buffalo Springs Herb Farm has a plant house, a gift shop, a nature trail with a waterfall and labyrinth, and provides luncheons with selected programs and for groups, by reservation. When you visit the web site (www.buffaloherbs.com), you’ll see their current list of workshops, seminars, retreats, special events, hours of operation, and directions. (The farm is three hours from Washington, D.C. and two hours from Richmond.) Treat yourself and your family to a visit!
Read about creating an Advent garden:
The Season of Advent: Herbal Symbolism, Projects, Garden Designs & Recipes, by Don Haynie (available from the web site or at the farm)
MAY 4
Tomorrow is National Midwives Day.
In western tradition, midwives have inspired fear, reverence, amusement, and disdain. They have been condemned for witchcraft, eulogized for Christian benevolence, and caricatured for bawdy humor and old wives’ tales.
—LAUREL THATCHER ULRICH, A MIDWIFE’S TALE: THE LIFE OF
MARTHA BALLARD, BASED ON HER DIARY, 1785-1812
A Midwife’s Tale
In the 27 years that Martha Ballard kept her remarkable diary, she attended 816 births and served as the apothecary for Hallowell, Maine, crafting and dispensing herbal medications. Her journal gives us a valuable record of a midwife’s remarkable service to her community. It is worth reading as the testament of a dedicated herbal practitioner. Laurel Ulrich’s appendix detailing Ballard’s medicinal plants provides a wealth of information.
Here are a few of the plants Martha Ballard raised in her garden or gathered wild in the woods and fields, with her descriptions of their use in her practice:
• April 5, 1790. For complications following childbirth, “applyd ointment & a Bath of Tansy, mugwort, camomile, & Hysop, which gave Mrs. Cragg great relief.”
• November 30, 1791. “My daughter Hannah is very unwell this evening. I gave her some Cammomile & Camphor.”
• June 5, 1794. For her niece, Parthenia Pitts, “I made a syrup of comphry, plaintain, agrimony & Solomon Seal leaves.”
• March 29, 1797. She treated a patient with a “syrup of vinegar and onions and a decoction of gold thread [Coptis trifolia] and shumake [sumac] berries.”
• August 26, 1799. She was called to treat a young girl with a high fever. “We applied Burdoc leaves to her stomach and feet and gave her a syrrip of mullin and she had some rest.”
• May 5, 1807. “Mrs. Nason Calld in to get some Dock root for the itch.”
• December 23, 1811. “Sally Ballard is unwell. I made her Sage Tea.”
This wonderful book is a tribute to two spirited, persistent, and talented women: Martha Ballard herself, who devoted her life to using herbs to heal; and Laurel Ulrich, the historian who saw the remarkable virtue in Ballard’s diary and labored long and hard to bring us this Pulitzer prize-winning work. Both are extraordinary midwives.
Read more:
A Midwife’s Tale: The Life of Martha Ballard, Based on Her Diary, 1785-1812, by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich
MAY 5
Today is Cinco de Mayo (the Fifth of May). The holiday is celebrated in Mexico and in Mexican-American communities in the U.S. It commemorates the Battle of Puebla (1862), where the Mexican militia defeated the French.
Maggie [Garrett] created an open-air dining area under the pecan and live oak trees and I landscaped it with perennial herbs such as Mexican oregano (Poliomintha longiflora, a shrub that bears lavender flowers on glossy leaves and has the same scent as Greek and Turkish oregano) and Texas wildflowers—coreopsis, eryngo, gayfeather, bee balm, and several asclepias for the butterflies.
—WITCHES’ BANE: A CHINA BAYLES MYSTERY
Herbs from South of the Border
If you haven’t experimented with the interesting Mexican herbs that are increasingly available, it’s time you gave them a try. Here is a quartet of the personal favorites I grow in my Texas garden.
• Mexican Mint Marigold (Tagetes lucida). If you live in the sultry South, you know how hard it is to grow tarragon successfully. Try this delightful substitute, which has a stronger anise-licorice flavor than tarragon. It’s zippy in vinegars and vinaigrettes, adds zest to herbal butters, and is a delicious addition to pesto. Bonus: the plant repels insects and the blossoms are pretty on your table!
• Cilantro (Coriandrum sativum). Throughout the Southwest, you’ll taste the fresh pungency of cilantro in salads, salsas, beans, and sandwiches. The leaves look like Italian (flat-leaf) parsley, and best used when the plant is young. Don’t try to dry the leaves; you’ll lose every bit of the flavor.
• Mexican Oregano (Poliomintha longiflora). In my garden, this plant is a 5-foot shrub, with highly aromatic leaves and pretty tubular flowers that attract bees and hummingbirds. Steeped in a robust red wine vinegar, with garlic and chiles, it’s a lively marinade. The leaves may be added to soups, beans, and stews (although I like to take them out before serving). Another oregano, Lippia graveolens, is used on pizzas and with tomato sauces.
• Hojo Santa, or the root beer plant (Piper auritum). When you rub the leaves, your fingers smell like root beer. This tall (6-10 feet) tropical herb likes plenty of humidity, and does well in containers. The leaves are the size of dinner plates, and are often wrapped around tamales. Shredded, they’re used to season sauces, chicken, and fish.
Read more about growing and using south-of-the-border herbs:
The Herb Garden Cookbook, by Lucinda Hutson
The Essential Cuisines of Mexico, by Diana Kennedy
MAY 6
May’s Theme Garden: A Moon Garden.
Here at the end of the garden walk is an arbor dark with the shadow of great leaves, such as Gerard calls “leaves round a big like to a buckler.” But out of that shadowed background of leaf on leaf shine hundreds of pure, pale stars of sweetness and light,—a true flower of the night in fragrance, beauty, and name—the Moonvine. It is a flower of sentiment, full of suggestion.
—ALICE MORSE EARLE, OLD TIME GARDENS, 1901
Gardens in the Moonlight
For centuries, people have been enchanted at the sight of the moon in a garden. In medieval Japan, the moonlight was reflected by carefully arranged white rocks and sand, silvery pools of water, and white chrysanthemums. In seventeenth-century India, jasmine, narcissus, lilies, and tuberoses shone in the darkness. Many gray, silver, and white plants are candidates for a cooling retreat, day and night.
Many moon gardens are designed in moon shapes: circles and crescents. You can make your garden large or very small; you can plant it around a pool, or in containers on your deck. Another ideal spot: at the foot of a lamppost, supporting a glow-in-the-dark moonflower.
HERBS AND FLOWERS FOR YOUR MOON GARDEN
• Artemisia (Artemisia sp.). Silver-gray, ferny “Powys Castle,” “Dusty Miller,” and taller “Silver Queen” are good year round.
• Candytuft (Iberis sempervirens “Autumn Snow”). A dainty perennial edging.
• Chrysanthemum (Chrysanthemum sp.). There are many decorative varieties, in various heights.
• Hosta (Hosta plantaginea). Fragrant white flower spikes appear in late summer.
• Lamb’s-Ears (Stachys byzantina). Low and silvery, a perfect border plant, and soft to the touch, too.
• Moonflower or Moonvine (Ipomoea alba). Perennial in warm climates, this vine will grow to 20 feet. Fragrant, trumpet-shaped white blossoms.
• Nicotiana (Nicotiana alata grandiflora). Jasmine-scented ornamental tobacco, elegant, a delight for bees and pollinating insects.
• Shasta daisy (Chrysanthemum x superbum). Will fill the garden with white blossoms from early summer to frost.
• Summersweet (Clethra alnifolia). A mid-sized rotund shrub, can fill the whole garden with fragrance in July and August.
China Bayles' Book of Days Page 18