It sounds very Renaissance Fair, doesn’t it? Anything with the word “wort” in it does, I think.
I had to look up the word, in fact, for this post, hoping it had a bizarre, archaic meaning, but really it only means herbaceous (non-woody) plant. Unless you are talking ale, then it means the liquid produced from mashing grains.
St. John’s Wort, in particular, is a medicinal herb. It doubles as a dyer’s plant, producing a yellow or gold color. Lots of studies have been conducted to see if it works as a treatment for depression, but the results are often inconclusive and sometimes contradictory. It’s been used traditionally for a slew of other complaints as well, something I find to be the case for most medicinal herbs. What this means I hesitate to speculate, but it seems that once a use is found for a plant, it gets tried for many ailments.
If you want to read more about this plant, here’s a general overview.
It grew easily in my garden from seed, but it hasn’t flowered yet. Hopefully it will and I can get some photos of the yellow blooms.
If you have experience of this plant, let’s hear it!
I ran into a neighbor friend at the market early this summer and she offered to bring me some red okra seeds.
Of course I agreed.
She walked over one day soon thereafter with an envelope with over a dozen nice round seeds. To help them germinate I put them in ice cube trays, filled the trays with water, and froze them overnight.
The next day I sowed two frosty seed cubes in each hole, covered them, watered, and waited.
It was late in the year to get started, but we have a pretty long growing season here and I think they will have a chance to produce before it gets cool.
They’re about three feet tall now.
I love the red veining and the red stems and buds.
Gardeners crave variety and color. There’s something so exciting about a plant just a little bit different, or a lot different, especially after we’ve been gardening a few years.
When the seed catalogs appear in January the wild and wonderful cultivars call out my name over the barren tundra of late winter.
Mention “heirloom” and “red” in the same breath and I’m selling my heirlooms to add new plants to the list.
My friend (she of the okra seeds) also shared her recipe for okra fritters. As soon as my okra produces, I’m making and posting those. I can’t wait!
Maybe I’ll make them with blue cornmeal . . .
I grew my first tabasco pepper plant last year and made my own tabasco sauce.
It was An Experience.
I loved the sauce, though, (on the second try) and grew another plant this year. Boy howdy it is a happy plant. Huge. If I had two of them I could go into commercial production. Three and I would have to apply for a hazardous materials permit.
Si, amigos, that is ONE pepper plant. Uno.
At 30.000 to 50,000 units on the Scoville Scale of heat levels, that’s a lot of firepower. I should have enough to make tabasco sauce for every He-Man Pepper-Eater on the birthday and Christmas list well into the mid-century.
Do you have He-Man Pepper-Eaters in your family who try to out-hot each other? They keep a straight face but it’s the beads of perspiration on their foreheads that gives them away.
It’s the modern duel.
Scotch Bonnet peppers at fifty paces.
Not for me, thank you.
I’ll be your second.
