Garden Medicine

Weeding has become a meditative practise— waking up with the occasional weekend coffee in hand to make the way to the garden. The birds usually greet us in the morning— most notable the robin with it’s characteristic sound of summer and there’s something nostalgic— I remember hearing “The early bird gets the worm” and watching robins walk along the lawn with my Father one morning as a child.

This morning, weeding involves pulling at an especially grassy tuff of what is a walking isle in our garden but that has hints of sod like lawn. In-between shoots of grass— lays lots of clover— beautiful gorgeous clover. If picked early enough is easy enough but which becomes woven masses around vegetable seedlings and very difficult to pull as it ages. It’s a fine line between encouraging the diversity of growth and then growing weeds. There was a year we intentionally planted clover in our walking isles along with buckwheat. We tried the pull and lay method— which in small personal gardens seems lovely and which we struggled with on large scale and being “new” vegetable farmers. That’s one thing that farming has ultimately taught me. Try. If you don’t get it right— you’ve learnt something. Some may say we grew equal parts of vegetables to “weeds” that year but many of these “weeds” have become helpful medicines.

This morning, the clovers are welcomed— they are small and easy to pull  and remind me of my Mother’s herb shelf she used to have with all her jars of collected plants that hung in her kitchen. She’s since moved West and we don’t see her as much but these memories of her are always close especially in the garden. She never collected clover— from what I can remember— but she taught us to love plants. I remember a canoe trip with her and my siblings collecting Usnea from the branches of trees. She would point out yarrow and goldenrod and taught us to chew plantain and put it on bee stings. My Mother made tinctures growing up and actually sold them as a small business for a short while. She was a herbalist of sorts.

So, I pick clover and contemplate how my mind and body can run from place to place in the productivities of “to do’s” — but that clover is the plant that while on my “to do” list let’s me find repetition and I can explore some of my thoughts. “Just be”.  Clover has been a friend of mine this past year, and as tea or powdered in capsules— is good for anxiety. I love the soothing feeling it would encourage when I had the feelings of having drank too much coffee. Ironic— for having had a coffee that morning. Clover reminds me of the strength of small practises— how one small leaf can grow into a web of strength. Or the practise of how drinking clover instead of coffee can help calm this girl right down.

I feel blessed by the stories my parents shared — the things I learnt through osmosis of their own interests. A collection  of my mom’s herb books still line the bookshelf and while I prefer learning knowledge from people rather than books— these books represent something of my Mothers herb shelf. This particular morning— both the robin and clover remind me of my childhood— and I am ever grateful.

Love, 

Laur