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Garden Pharmacy – Chamomile

So, a series on the easy to grow, multiple-use herbs I grow at least partly for their medicinal use. A retrosuburbia garden medicine chest. After my cold last week, I started to think about how useful it is to have basic medicinals growing where I can just go out and pick, even when I am quarantining so as not to pass my germs on, even if pharmaceuticals get tangled up…

In year three …

It is year three of this retrosuburbia challenge, and most days now we are eating substantially what can be produced from this little, 500m2 suburban block. No food miles, no packaging, no energy loss through processing or storage. With important gaps – cooking oil, dairy products, flour – but also with some surplus shared with neighbours, and at least in spring of a la Niña year and not taking our…

Emperor Dragonfly (Anax imperator)

Happy Beltane

Here we are in the odd position of celebrating Halloween, a festival that, in European tradition, marks the start of winter, when thoughts turn to mortality and all around are reminders that every living thing dies. But tonight I will light the fairy lights in the carport and dress up, I think perhaps as a dragonfly, or maybe a mud wasp? Some predatory insect anyway, and make a batch of…