One of the ways we assert ourselves as creatures of the natural world is to celebrate equinoxes and solstices. As part of these seasonal celebrations, a few years ago Chad and I started a tradition of hiking to the same spot in the desert on these occasions. We nicknamed our spot, “Solstice Point.” Every solstice…
Category: Native Plants
Death and Life – A Walk in the Desert
Who needs candy and costumes? We celebrated Halloween with a hike in the desert where we found signs of life and death to help us contemplate the holiday. Since we’ve been enjoying a mild, exceptionally wet, and colorful fall on our farm, we found that conditions in one of our favorite desert hiking spots were…
Showy Milkweed – Weed or Wildflower?
When it comes to differentiating between a weed and a wildflower, the answer lies in one’s perspective. Many farmers find that milkweed gets in the way. I wouldn’t exactly say that my husband and I qualify as farmers. Though we do live on a small farm and keep farm animals, we earn our living from…
Celebrating the Autumn Equinox
Being nature lovers, we like to celebrate the equinoxes and solstices, those special moments in the year that mark the rotation of the earth around the sun. At each of these occasions, we take a hike out to a particular point in the desert to watch the sun set, a place we call “Solstice Point.”…
Fall Color on the Farm
As much as I love gardening during summer, the transition into autumn makes me want to give a big sigh of relief. Along with the cooler weather, some glimpses of fall color seem to bring a promise of rest and rejuvenation to come. And while flowers may not be what you think of when I…
We Grew It From Seed – California Poppies
While we still grow some exotic garden flowers in our polyculture garden, such as cosmos and zinnias, this year I decided to add more native annuals to the mix. One of the native wildflowers I planted was California poppies. Our sunken garden rows are on a slight slope, so when I planted the seeds, they…
Native Plants – Elkweed
On a recent hike I was excited to discover a plant I was unfamiliar with. For those of you who grew up in the Western US, you probably are familiar with this meadow-dwelling plant. I had never seen it until recently and spent quite a lot of time getting some close up looks of its…
Native Plants: Milkweed
Milkweed is one of the loved, cherished weeds we have growing on our property. The plant is very important for monarch butterflies and may be edible (this subject gives rise to much debate!). And they are beautiful! We were wondering, though, if this was the RIGHT milkweed for monarchs in our area of the country. So I…
Native Plants: Curly-Cup Gumweed
This summer, anytime we walked up to the end of our lane, Chad would point out a plant with bright yellow flowers growing along side it and tell me he heard it had medicinal properties. He told me it was called Curly-Cup Gumweed. We looked it up and found out what it’s good for: primarily…
Hearthwilde 