December 5, 2011
Greetings from Susun …
In the Green Report, I will tell you a little about six or more plants that are green the first week of each month.
I hope this will tickle your fancy and get you interested in going outside, no matter what the weather, to interact with the plants. It’s my way of sharing the green blessings. Let me know how you like it…
Learn more about adding these health-promoting weeds into your diet!
And enjoy these articles from the archives…
WILD FOODS FOR WISE WOMEN, Part One
WILD FOODS FOR WISE WOMEN, Part Two
Green blessings,
Susun Weed
susunweed.com
The Very First Green Report by Susun Weed
First week of December 2011
Celandine (Cheladonium majus) is an evergreen. Locate it now so you can find it if you need it when the snow lies deeply.
Chickweed (Stellaria media) loves the cold and will be available for salads until snow cover. Possible to make tincture now, too.
Flowering kale is not really kale in flower. This cultivar of kale is pretty pretty pretty all autumn and winter.
Garlic mustard (Allaria officinalis), a cold-loving plant, will provide salad greens well into the winter and early next spring.
Lemon balm (Melissa officinalis) is an aromatic wilding in my garden; but plant some anyhow for joy all winter.
Motherwort (Leonurus cardiaca) is not a salad green. It is possible to make vinegar of the young leaves now.
Queen Anne’s lace (Daucus carota) or wild carrot overwinters with leaves that are yummy in salads. Red clover (Trifolium pratense) leaves are really visible now. Make note of patches to harvest when flowers come next summer.
Wild chives are unmistakable. I add them to salads, soups and cheeses, like my herbed strained-yogurt spread (along with dried ground shiso, thyme, rosemary, basil, dill, and garlic).
Live wild! Add some wild greens to your salad tonight!
Wise Woman Radio
Susun Weed interviews musician and filmmaker Patty Greer
Wise Woman Bookshop
Elements of Herbalism: Harvesting, 2 CD set- Susun Weed
Ethical wildcrafting and harvesting instructions for all plant parts, including leaves, roots, flowers, seeds, and bark of all annuals, biennials, and perennials.
Published by wwezine on December 5th, 2011 Tagged Ezine Articles, Wise Woman Radio
December 6th, 2011 at 10:04 am
Thanks you so much for the new Green Report!! I truly appreciate all you do and your willingness to share the information you have gathered. I always find a spark of inspiration in your books and now on here. Thanks again!
in-joy, Debbie
December 6th, 2011 at 10:15 am
What a great idea – the Green Report! I will bring The Green Report with me when I visit my dad (we both love to forage) and see what we can find in his yard and in the surrounding woods… Thank you Susun, for so generously sharing your knowledge. You’re a national treasure!
December 6th, 2011 at 10:16 am
Thank you!
Wise Woman Team
December 6th, 2011 at 10:18 am
Thanks Emily! Have fun with your Dad.
Wise Woman Team
December 6th, 2011 at 10:38 am
Thank you so much for doing this. I can’t wait to get outside and put more of the knowledge you share to use. You are a huge inspiration and an herbal treasure trove. This Green Report will help keep things lively during the long winter.
December 6th, 2011 at 10:41 am
Susun, you are awesome! Thank you so much for this. You just took my winter blues away.
December 6th, 2011 at 10:47 am
The green report is great for urban herbalists like me, too!
December 6th, 2011 at 10:53 am
Thanks Barbara. Yes, you can find herbs anywhere – even in the city!
Wise Woman Team
December 6th, 2011 at 10:55 am
Thank you Heidi. Always something green around, even in winter.
Blessings,
Wise Woman Team
December 6th, 2011 at 10:55 am
Thank you Jennie!
Wise Woman Team
December 6th, 2011 at 12:02 pm
Chickweed is available in Philly all winter. It’s favorite winter habitat here is on south-southwest facing rocky slopes. I found it, abundant under the snow, behind the Art Museum overlooking the Schuylkill river on two sunny but frigid Sunday afternoons last January.
December 6th, 2011 at 12:07 pm
Awesome and very useful!
I am learning about all our wild plants out here on our 17 acre guest ranch so I can educate the public that visits. This is very helpful!
Now I need to master the mushrooms too!
December 6th, 2011 at 6:56 pm
I was surprised to see that celandine was featured in your list. True, it does stay green for a long time through winter’s dark days, but you didn’t indicate what uses it has. I’ve never eaten it & always thought that it was more of a medicinal plant (I’ve heard it called “wartwort”). Neophyte foragers/herbalists might be confused with the inclusion of this plant with the others listed here that can be consumed. Maybe I’m mistaken–does it have edible parts?
I like your idea of having a weekly list like this…
December 6th, 2011 at 8:54 pm
I absolutely love ,this Green report.I am so visual,this truly helps me. To see their pretty faces,with their names,a good thing.Helps me, identifing so many herbs in the lessons.I have seen them,about my feet,so nice to finally know them,as friends,waiting for me to see them,and speak
big thanks
green blessings,always
love and light
Ronnie
December 7th, 2011 at 4:11 pm
Greetings from Barcelona! I’m a Naturopathy student and I find that your books end e-zine really bring plants to a “feeling” level that helps me relate to them so much better…and I totally attribute my good marks in phitotherapy to your work too!
December 9th, 2011 at 1:10 pm
Can you speak to the presence of heavy metals in plants gathered/grown in urban settings? If I live in a heavily populated area, am I simply better off ordering herbs from suppliers who live in cleaner places? Let’s talk about radiation while we’re at it, too, post-Fukushima… Thank you!
December 9th, 2011 at 1:40 pm
Susun~ Thank you for the green report. I always think the plants are underground this time of year, thanks for reminding me that there are many hearty plant friends above ground. You have inspired me to go visit them!
Greenly Yours, Liz
December 9th, 2011 at 2:46 pm
I am learning and reconnecting with lost things. This is very important to me, not only for myself, but I have a 5 month old granddaughter and I want to have this information available for her to grow up in the wise woman tradition. See to my mom they were just weeds, but to me they have always been magic. Thank you Susun Weed for your energy, love and commiment to the green kingdom.
Sincerely
Becky Clark
December 12th, 2011 at 1:29 am
I’m currently living in Idaho.
Thank you for confirming the magic of
Mother Earth. Sharing the spiritual
connection with Mother Earth’s abundance.
I love your dedication, your knowlege, and your spirit to the ways of the Green
Blessings. Heartfelt thanks to all.
Truly Grateful,
Mary Ann Keiko Bruno
December 12th, 2011 at 12:46 pm
Thank you so much for the Green Report!
My youngest son just did a college Horticulture presentation on Wild Edibles, all the plants he used grow right here on the farm. We now have to take a walk to see if Celadine, and Wild Chives are available for our foraging.
December 13th, 2011 at 2:39 pm
Blanch Derby,
quite right. Celandine is to be used with caution and is not a salad plant.
I use it externally, to reverse possible cancer in questionable skin spots, and for removal of external genital warts, except from my new book “Down There: Sexual and Reproductive Health the Wise Woman Way”:
“Celandine (Celadonium majus) juice is the most effective way I know to remove external genital warts. It is safe, painless, and easy to use if you live where evergreen celandine grows – in Europe, in North America, from Nova Scotia to Georgia and west to Missouri, throughout Europe, and in waste places in temperate-zone cities. The fresh sap from leaf stalks or the root works fastest, and best, but topical applications of tincture are somewhat effective, too.”
December 13th, 2011 at 3:00 pm
Jody, here is a good article that discusses the help that plants offer us in cleaning our soil and water http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhizofiltration ..lots of articles online about how sunflowers are being used to clean up radiation http://www.japantoday.com/category/national/view/sunflowers-used-to-clean-up-radiation
if you are concerned about your land, grown sunflowers, and harvest them before they go to seed, then dispose of the plant matter in a responsible manner…
its really a fascinating topic and once again shows us how much the plants help us in many ways so many good articles….here is an other interesting one http://www.cee.vt.edu/ewr/environmental/teach/gwprimer/group17/phyto/index.html
all that being said, i would be suprised to find much contaminents in the wild plants growing around you and i personally am not concerned about roadside harvest of medicinals. A word of caution about plants harvested where cats and dogs or even people may defficate, avoid harvesting plants where pooping occurs. enough said.