Comfrey With a Story

Some people only use the herb comfrey topically as one study showed that it could damage the liver if taken orally. There are people that still drink it and don't believe the studies. I don't drink it cause I don't want to risk my liver health. when I was 14 I had a bicycle accident. I banged up my elbow, pretty bad. So bad I had to have sutures and I had to go to the Emergency room. the wound became infected and it didn't heal right. Could be because I had splashed ditch water in it, not knowing that I was contaminating the wound. I was in shock from the accident so i did not know better. The elbow became infected and my father put a comfrey poultice on it. My father grew comfrey that he made the poultice from. I got the blue plants from

my sister and I obtained the purple ones from the Rochester folk art guild. My elbow healed eventually but it developed a keloid on the scar. The scar was cosmetically, surgically refashioned, and looked terrible afterwards more dented in at the elbow bone. My parents didn't get me braces, but they had my scar remodeled that was weird.

Monstera plant

my good friend and coworker gifted me this wonderful monstera.

Bishop’s Herb Ammi Majus

I recently noticed what looked like a Queen Anne's lace in my yard, in my driveway. But this is May in New York Queen Anne's lace aren't out in May so I was wondering what it was. I actually looked at the leaves and they looked ferny kinda like dill so I tasted some. then when my daughter came over, she told me there is

a poisonous weed that looks like Queen Anne's lace. The poisonous weed looks like Queen Anne's lace has red or purple on its stems so I'm confident that what I tasted was not the poisonous weed. It is a little risky to just taste random weed in the yard so I got a little paranoid. Luckily it was not hemlock. Even a small bite of poisonous hemlock can hurt you really badly. But what we did look up was this Ammi majus herb (weed)which is kind of funny because my name is Amy. It is used in herbal medicine. i'm loving towards plants so it's hard for me to kill even the ones that like to pop up in the wrong places.

Forsythia

today I went to help out at church doing some garden work. I was lucky and found some baby forsythia under a forsythia bush and I took them home with me. It was a win-win situation. I brought my tarp and ended up leaving it there and I got three baby forsythias that I planted in a bunch so I would have a bush next year. I also saved some forget me nots.

Community Garden

I was out getting some exercise tonight and came across the Penn Yan Community Garden. At first I was excited and fantasized about partaking in growing plants with my fellow community members. On closer inspection I realized that I have no shared values with these gardeners, as they had sprayed roundup around the containers and fences. I guess that people in this community have not heard of the dangers of glyphosate.

Botanical Gardens at Cornell

Today, my daughter and I and her daughter visited Ithaca. Natalie attended Cornell years ago. 20 years ago actually. We had a great day and enjoyed looking at all the herbs and plants.

Outlet trail deforestation

The people in charge of the outlet Trail are cutting back the greenery. It will grow back and look nice again but right now it looks terrible.

Fungi and Indian pipes

I love mushrooms. I don't eat that many of them because they interfere with my digestion. I can only eat oyster mushrooms. I'm sad for mushrooms when people go into the forest and gobble them up when they know they're not poisonous. Indian pipes are actually a plant not a mushroom. But it does not have chlorophyll. It's also called the ghost plant.

Fern study

Three generations of a cactus

20 years ago, my son gave me a Christmas cactus for my birthday. Over the years it deteriorated and I took one cutting. It's getting a little old and wilted and I've tried different things like feeding it sugar, fertilizing it repotting it several times to try and get it to perk up, but it doesn't really want to so I took some cuttings from it and when I was very successful with the first cutting, I did a second batch of cuttings.

update Nov 2024

What happens when you skip mowing the lawn for one week?

I am so excited! I didn't mow my lawn for one or two weeks in the backyard and this was for the benefit of the lightning bugs or fireflies. I gave in and started mowing today -I gave into social pressure. Anyway, what I noticed in my backyard was a sprouted oak tree. a white swamp oak?. I do get deer in my backyard so I will have to fence it in with some chicken wire. A good deed was rewarded afterall. I thank the squirrels for their contribution.

I stopped feeding the squirrels and they got spiteful and bit off the plants.

Mock Orange Cutting

While going for a bike ride, I noticed Mock Orange along the trail. I thought maybe I could take a little branch and root it and that's what I did. years ago, I had a mock orange bush outside my bedroom window. The fragrance would waft in through the window. I'm not sure where I'm gonna plant this bush I have rooted. I used root hormone and vermiculite. when this first one was successfull i went back to the trail and am rooting another.

White flowers in May

Narcissus

Amy's Garden in Mid-July

It is only July 10 and I am in the thick of harvesting from my garden! I have harvested onions, a raspberry, 6 potatoes, zucchinis, basil, elderflower, yellow summer squash and it is a delight to be are gardener once again.

Amy's Garden 2022

When i was in my twenties and thirties I always had a vegetable garden. I bought my first house alone in 2006 and tended the yard and attempted a garden in the lawn which failed. The past few five years I have had a fallow area in the middle of lawn with goldenrod for the bees. It was usually wasps that came by to feast on the flowers. That spot in the yard was cleaned up and meticuously exfolieated and derocked and roots of weeds removed by my friend Vern. He is German born and is an amazing worker. Very methodical and thorough. I dedicate this post to him becasue without his hard work i would not have such a garden as i do. He planted some of the potatoes and also the garlic. The garlic was planted in the fall

The garlic was from my son, the tomatoes, onions, shallots,zuchinni and some of the potatoes were from my daughter.My daughter starts seeds in greenhouse. The sunflowers self sowed. There are three lupines that also self sowed. Some of the potatoes sprouted initially in the kitchen, they were from the grocery store (Vern planted them early in the spring) I have never grown dahlias, this is a first for me, and I found a punky old treestump nicely rotted down to put them near and in. They came from my friend David. I put bone meal down and sprinkled them with flower fertilizer. Friends and family make a garden special!