I love growing my own herbs for everything. Tea, tincture, salve, first aid, food, you name it. Growing my own herbs all summer long and then filling my shelves makes me feel prepared for anything. When things became very hard to come by during the early year of COVID, I felt secure knowing I had everything I needed, even if no stores could ship for months. 

As herbalists, we are lucky to have a head start. We can identify the herbs we want to use out on a walk. We know what to pick for scratches or cuts or stress or stomach aches. Having a well stocked home apothecary can also be used to build ready-to-go kits that are easy to use and targeted to the specific needs and situations in our regions. Some people have one kit for everything, but I like to have a few types of kits on hand for different situations. When a well thought out first aid kit combines with skills, we are better prepared. My kits have a lot of what I grow and make myself, along with some key items that I purchase. Some of that changes based on what I'm growing, the season, and the needs of my family. 

Today I want to share more about how to build a day/camping/weekend outing kit.  This is a small kit organized by season and region that is great for taking with you in the car, when hiking, or when camping. 

I live in the midwest, so my needs definitely vary from summer to winter. In summer my kit tends to focus on injuries, sun, ticks and fatigue. If we were hiking in a more remote location I might add water filtration, food, batteries, and other items in case we get stranded/injured.  If I put a kit in my car during blizzard season, I might include the first aid kit in a large lidded container along with bottled water, blankets, warm socks, extra hats, a box of instant hand warmers, and gloves. When my kids were younger I always carried extras - suckers, granola bars, sunscreen, backup shoes, and outfits along with a first aid kit. I also have a child that gets overheated easily, so I always carried  instant cold packs and/or coolers with re-freezable ice packs, which were good for not only keeping food cool, but also cooling down and on injuries. 

There are a few main categories to consider when building a first aid kit. To start, let’s look at all of the supplies as a whole first, and then focus on the herbal first aid elements. 

Allergies: If anyone in your family has allergies, having a few antihistamine tablets can be a big help. For skin allergies, having salve or balm that help with the itch and inflammation is great. For more serious allergies, keeping benadryl in the kit is a great idea, and always having epipens in the kit for those that experience anaphylactic reactions. We also carry a cooler with an ice pack in summer to keep epipens cool if it is really hot. For seasonal allergies, making an iced tea blend for camp that includes peppermint, goldenrod, and nettles can be nice and support lowering histamine response as well. 

ENTE: Ears, nose, throat, eyes. Q-tips are great for mixing things as well as clearing out bugs or gunk in the ears or nose. With small children during the cold and flu season, mullein ear oil might be on your list. Eye drops or single use saline ampules are great for rinsing the eyes or inflammation. If you are on a longer hiking trip it might be a good idea to carry a dental kit or have clove essential oil and a mixing medium to apply to any broken teeth or on gum injuries until you get back to civilization. Teething gel can help as well, especially if you have little ones (though I have used it on a few adults as well). Chamomile tea bags are a great addition to a kit as the tea can be used for calming and stomach upset, as well as an eye rinse. I keep salt in my small kit because it can be used as a gargle for sore throat, to make a saline rinse for a wound, or mixed with honey and lemon juice to create an oral rehydration mix. Salt is lightweight and doesn’t go bad, so it is great for emergency kits. 

General/Seasonal: This is where you think of where you live and what is happening around you.. If you live in the desert southwest, something for snake bites may be important. . If you live near the ocean and are always at the beach, burn spray or eye rinse cups might be useful (or jellyfish stings). Just try to think of where you are going and what the climate and top needs/issues might be. In extreme heat you might want cool packs, in cold, hand warmers. On longer hikes in remote areas a whistle or a water filtration straw might be very important to have. This also includes some staples/basics such as tweezers, safety pins, tape, multitool, flashlight, scissors, a notebook and pen, electrolytes, and extra baggies. I also put things in baggies where I can - they can be used over a bandage on a hand, finger or foot. They keep the contents dry in case of torrential rain or falling into a creek or river. They can be used to mix something together, to place over gauze and taped on an injury. There are many uses for a few extra plastic bags, it is good to have a few in the kit. 

Gut/Digestion: Chamomile tea is mentioned above and can be good for an upset stomach. Ginger tea or ginger chews can also help with stomach upset and nausea. I love ginger chews. Bismuth tabs are great for diarrhea, heartburn, nausea, and indigestion, and are lightweight and obviously identifiable.  For poisoning or other more severe issues, having activated charcoal tablets on hand is important. I also like carrying capsules of ginger/chamomile or oregon grape root, depending on the season and length of outing.

Illness: Illness can be from food or water, viruses, bacteria, or other causes. During cold and flu season you might want to stock elderberry syrup and natural cough drops. In the summer, it might be nausea or diarrhea (see above). For a short hike or weekend camping trip, stocking just the basics can help get you home. For longer trips or hikes, having items that can help reduce a fever or soothe a cough might be what is needed. Yarrow is a good multi use herb that can be used to stop bleeding or for a fever. I like to have powdered yarrow on hand, but also often include a squeeze bottle of yarrow tincture for cleaning hands or for fever as well. Echinacea tincture is always in my bag for illness (and wounds) as well. 

Infections/Wounds: This category not only includes having bandages, compresses, suture tape, or wraps, but also antibacterial support for cuts, scratches, and punctures. Lavender essential oil is a good one to carry as it can be applied to a burn, used in an inhaler for anxiety, has antiseptic properties and is antimicrobial. You can make rollerballs with first aid blends and have them ready to apply. Lavender is also safe for kids and the elderly - and if you carry a small vial of carrier oil or have a pre-mixed rollerball ready to go, it can be easily blended for other topical applications. This category also includes salve - I like making salves in small sticks so that they are portable and solid enough to not melt in the summer heat. To keep from contaminating the stick, you can scrape some off with a clean Q-tip, popsicle stick,  or finger and apply to any wound. I like having a stick of salve that can be used for blisters, cuts, sunburns, and is a good all around ointment. I also always pack a soothing sun spray in the summer, that helps relieve sunburn, but can also be used for other scraps and scratches. If we are already carrying a cooler with ice packs, I put the burn spray in with the cold things, as a chilly burn spray feels amazing on a sunburn. Echinacea tincture can be used internally for infection and illness as well as topically on wounds. 

Kids/Pets: This is a big variable category. With small children you might want to include suckers, herbal gummies for stomach issues, and even things like extra socks and cute bandages that make it easier to keep them on.  If you hike with your dog, having a folding bowl, extra water, and some sort of liquid bandage can help with pet paw injuries and overheating. I like the paw wax for pads in winter, as if my dog gets a cut, it can be heavily applied and help us get back to the car. The dog flexible wrap tape that discourages them from chewing on bandages can help, too, and it can be used for humans or pets. I also like the dog bandanas that are of the cool cloth material, as you get it damp, squeeze it out, and it is cooling. Good for a hot dog as well as hot kids, in a pinch. 

Medications: If you have important medications, having some extra in case you get caught out is a good idea. Important medications become critical if you are stranded along a raging river for 2 days, or have an injured person and are waiting for assistance. This can also include glucose tablets, candies or honey sticks for blood sugar, an inhaler for asthma, or other critical needs. 
Pain: Pain can be from a wound, sprains, overexertion, or fall. Keeping some aspirin and other NSAIDs on hand can help, as can having topical pain relief for tooth problems, wounds, burns, or other injuries. One spray I always have in my kit is Kloss’s Liniment. This recipe has been around for over 100 years, and is well known in the herbal community. This can be used for pain, swelling, bruises or boils, toothaches, sores, and more. This is also a good skin cleanser on wounds to reduce chances of infection. I love the little sampler spray bottles for these things, as they take up little space, but have enough to use many times. 

Safety: This may not be a big need for a short hike or camping at a busy campground. But if you are hiking backwoods or are kayaking Lake Superior, you may have to add safety additions to your kit. Things such as a whistle, bear spray, flares, extra emergency blankets, a flint or waterproof matches, and food rations might be important depending on the location. If you have younger children, you may want them to carry an emergency whistle and your contact information at all times.  When my kids were small and we hiked a lot, I got the fishing vest lots of little pockets. The pockets could carry the whistle, compass, snacks, ice packs (to keep cool), little bottle of cold water, contact info in a baggie for waterproofing, etc. That way they carried their own things too, which is less for me to carry, and critical items would be WITH them if we got separated. 

Sanitation: No matter how many herbal aids you have on hand, if a wound cannot be cleaned out it can get infected. Salt is a good option when mixed with water to rinse out a wound. Kloss’s Liniment is a good option, and so is lavender essential oil. The first step to working with any wound is having clean hands. I like carrying soap, but if you don’t have a clean water source that isn’t helpful. A mini hand sanitizer is good.  If you are in an area without access to any water that is a problem too, and I try to always have a small water source in the kit in case we are out otherwise. Water and salt can also help clean hands. I also pack some natural antibacterial wipes for hands, surfaces, tools, tweezers, etc. Sanitary gloves are important too, and I always have a few pairs on hand. 

Skin: Skin crosses over with wounds and infection, but also includes bug spray, sunscreen, tape, gauze, burn pads, wound repair and more. Bug bites can use an anti-itch balm or salve, which also crosses over with skin reactions to water, sap, or plants. I always carry a few moist burn pads or ointments as well, for any bigger burns when we have campfires. With skin goes ticks as well, and a tick remover for those in tick areas is good, or really pointy tweezers. Those little honey sticks can be used on skin or for blood sugar. Yarrow powder can be used to slow bleeding. Plantain is for scratches and scrapes, and I like to have a little jar of dried plantain that can be mixed with some water to make a poultice or compress. I also keep moleskin tape as it is a great cover for blisters. 

Trauma: Trauma can involve injury or a scary event. I like to keep a skullcap glycerite on hand for calming after injury, pain, or frightening event. It can help calm when scared of the dark or when stressed due to an accident or storm. I also carry a blank inhaler container with a wick that can be used with lavender essential oil to calm, or, the wick can be used to help stop a nosebleed. Rescue Remedy is often in kits for this, as can be other glycerites or calming tools. 

Other: There are a few things in my kit that I have found are a must when we are also packing herbs. A container that holds q-tips can also be used as a mixing jar. Yarrow and Plantain can be crushed and sprinkled in, mixed with water, and applied to an injury. I keep a few muslin bags that can be filled with plant material and placed on a wound. They can also be used to steep herbs for an infusion or compress. I keep a small empty squirt bottle for blending salt and water and used for cleaning a wound or gargling. Q-tips can be used as applicators or stir sticks. I like an emergency blanket in the kit as it can be used not only as a blanket, but also a dry groundcover, a sling, a blanket, a tarp/rain cover, ties/straps for a splint, and even as a reflector. 

While I love the clinical education on plants used for aromatherapy and herbalism (I love teaching!), I also love love love just talking to folks about how to grow their own, and demystify growing medicinals for anyone who wants to use herbs in any way. 

I started growing medicinal and culinary herbs in pots on our deck when we first moved to Wisconsin. In Chicago I had some window plants, but no outdoor space, so I craved green. We were on the second floor, and had a 6x12 or so small deck. At first I had a few pots, in the second year I had a packed deck with barely enough room to sit. From there we moved to a duplex rental, which was much larger and had a back deck by the kitchen and a small front porch. I had some plants there, but also had a newborn. When I became pregnant with our second (when the first was 11 months old), we moved to our first home. It was a 1400 square foot small home with a new urbanism design. That meant almost no yard. New urbanism works to decrease expanses of lawn and waste of water for lawns. The houses had a 10' or so front yard and no back yard as the garages went out the back to a carriage lane. The yards were only on one side, going from our siding up to the neighbors siding. Our yard was 18 feet wide, and less than 100 feet long. When we moved in, I started by planting food in our landscaping areas. Then I expanded into pots on the deck. And then I started carving out both sides of the yard - over 11 years we ended up with all food plants and only a walking path down the center. Every other space was perennials, annuals, fruit, vegetables, medicinal herbs, flowers. 

We moved to have a bigger yard, but quickly realized we needed a community garden plot as well. Our next home had a traditional backyard, but an HOA, so we managed the plantings within landscaping for visual appeal. It was still food and medicine - but the blueberry bush along the front entry sidewalk was next to flowering Echinacea, Black Cohosh, Hyssop, and other beautiful flowerin plants. 

The next year we realized we needed more space for our #happyflowerproject, where we grew flowers for the food pantry, so we managed to find someone who bartered for space to grow on her farm. We did that for two summers while still growing on our deck and in landscaping on our home. 

After a few years there, we realized we could grow in a larger space and that we wanted acres. My worry was always as a person with RA/SLE and other autoimmune issues combined with getting older, it would be too much to manage. But, gradually scaling up made me realize that as long as you plant perennials as well as annuals, expand a little every year, carefully plan location, water, expansions, and plants, that you can create a low work high yield garden space, no matter how much space you have. 

I always tell folks how easy it is for them to grow their own herbs, no matter if it is only pots on a small deck or acres of blank canvas. I know this is true, because I have done it all myself!

This year our plan is to do more sharing on the blog and YouTube to help people grow their own medicinal and aromatic herbs, culinary herbs, and perennial foods using permaculture and organic, regenerative practices.  We have some Lunar Hollow Farm online classes in the works, and plan to publish more ebooks, garden plans, and other freebies! We also hope to do mini courses on the things we love to do and we always get questions on - sourdough, smart home systems, smart farm systems, herbs for chickens, seed starting, and so on. This is a whole family endeavor, and we are all excited to share.

Growing herbs is not hard. The more we grow our own the less waste we generate - no plastic baggies in shipping boxes coming from around the world - and the more we appreciate and connect with the plants we are using, as we nurtured them from seeds to tea. We don't have to grow everything, but we can start with a few of our favorites that can grow well in our zones/regions/climates. Growing our own also saves money, and super fresh, carefully harvested at their peak and gently dried herbs, are often more flavorful, colorful, aromatic, and vibrant than bulk herbs. Growing something yourself that you can pull out of a jar in January and drink while sitting by the fire is one of the most rewarding feelings. Can't wait to share more!

Seed starting season is upon us. I manage a seed grant program for HWB every year, so I manage a lot of seeds in general for others. With the seed grants I intake donated seeds for HWB and then create seed kits for groups based on location and needs, and share the seeds out to HWB members growing HWB chapter, clinic, or project gardens in their communities. 
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So, with all of the seed grant program happening, and it also being seed starting season for me, I have seeds everywhere. I keep the HWB seeds in large totes and I keep my seeds  I purchase in large photo boxes and bins. I literally have a whole space filled with the seeds as I prepare them for shipping. 

I like to organize my seeds for our land by seed starting date - so I make folders that are # of weeks before avg last frost. For the indoor seed trays the seeds just go into the folder and I pull the folder for the current week and start those seeds. I note them all in my seed calendar (see last post for a free download). For the direct sow folders, I keep the seeds in baggies so on that week I take the whole bag outside and direct sow those weeks. 

Every year I grow medicine and food for my family here, and then I grow extra herbs to donate to HWB. I try to grow all of the herbs we need for our family for a whole year every year - with some items every other year if I know we use them less - so I first calculate our own needs and then see how much space I have left or am creating new for additional herbs for HWB donations and community outreach/mutual aid work. I also try to make sure I am growing some for seed, especially items that are not often donated so that the seeds can be shared out. The goal is that people start saving their own seeds for these less common varieties and then share them back as well, so we have those unusual varieties in perpetuity. What most often happens is that I am the only one saving and donating seeds, but mutual aid over time is the ultimate goal, so the system is not dependent on one single person. Me. 

For our family food, we are adding to  our perennial foods and food forest ongoing. Every year we try to add more plants - veggies, fruit, perennialied unusual vegetables or landrace varieties or those that were historically popular but have been falling out of the seed catalogs. A goal is always to maintain a rich and diverse garden of varieties that were used or grown historically, and may be at risk or rare. By growing more varieties of food, we are maintaining seed diversity and food diversity that will help us when dealing with issues such as climate change. I love experimenting and trying new things as well. This year a few things we are growing that you might not have heard much about includes duck potatoes, skirret, huacatay, landrace parsley, maral root, garden patience, skulpit, mitsuba, Good King Henry, hablitzia, sea fennal, saltwort, naranjilla, pipicha, yauhutli, altai dragonhead balm, greenthread, papalo, upland rice, and a few others. 

This year we may also have our business products open again due to a change in Wisconsin cottage food laws, so we may open custom product sales a few times per year for special events or on farm pickups depending on how that goes. So, we are planning alot of herbs. SOOOOO exciting!

I am also expanding the dye garden this year, so will be growing a few more dye plants. We will grow greenthread, dyer's chamomile, woad, founcy soapwort, weld, indigo (will try!), and dyer's coreopsis, to name a few. 

My goal this year with the dye plants is to dye more textiles and yarn, as well as create natural paints and dyes for weaving and art. ​

The plants that I always grow a lot extra of to donate include those plants that I can harvest throughout the season such as lemon balm, catnip, peppermint, monarda, lamb's ear, comfrey, nettles, elecampane, mugwort, blue vervain, mountain mint, hairy mountain mint, and a few others. I often donate a bit of Tulsi as well, as there is never enough. As well as raspberry leaf, yarrow, violet, and a few others that grow wild here. I will also share pipicha, yauhutli, huacatay, epazote, and prairie sage this year, I think, depending on how well it does. 

Hopefully others will also grow a row to donate back, so that the folks who need supplies for their community free clinics, community outreach and education,  disaster relief response, and other free community programs, can get what they need! It takes a village.  

I had a week or two of garden panic again this year, thinking maybe I shouldn't grow so much, but that passes, and I know it will be fine, I will get it all done, and even if we are able to leave more next summer, things will be OK without me staring at them - plants should be able to survive without babysitting.

As I pack up seeds to go to others and work on my own garden plans, I have been realizing I wanted to write a whole guide on how to grow medicinal herbs with basic monograph information for each plant as well as the growing conditions, zones, parts used, how to harvest and dry, how to save seeds, etc. Just one full page per plant with growing intensive information for each. I have about 50 plants outlined so far, and am filling them all in. I hope to then also add to the medicinal plants with other perennial permaculture plants and dye plants eventually. Perhaps it will become a large book. But it seems people want to grow more of their own. I heard someone once say how so many herbalists are "mail order herbalists" these days- only ordering dried materials from online retailers and not growing their own, and more importantly, not able to identify those plants in the wild. So, sharing information on herbalism not only from the perspective of a practitioner, but someone that wants to have a relationship with the herbs from seed to seed, is so important as we lose more of our precious plants due to climate change, natural disasters, and habitat loss from growing urban areas. Growing our own is easy and can be done even in pots on a windowsill. So, I will be using the growing season this year to photograph more of these plants, input more info into my growing guide/book, and share small videos of the garden all summer long. Can't wait for the snow to melt and for spring to arrive so I can get my hands in the dirt. 

​What are you growing this year that you have never grown before? 

One of the things I have been working on, is created large sets of permaculture and garden design tools that I would eventually love to list on Etsy. I have a designer background, and I am always making things just for my use because I cannot ever find what I need, or the design styles are all the same. I like using technology in a way that makes my life easier, and this week that included downloading and starting to use Good Notes, which is a note management tool that allows you to import PDF files and use them as templates. So, I created a layout for seed starting that I can import as the template in Good Notes, and then directly write or type over. 

When I start seeds, I organize them by number of weeks back from the last frost date. So, May 15'th or so is week 0. The week before is -1, and so on to -10 or so. Each week has a folder and in that folder are all the seeds I am starting that week. Once I get to about -6 I also have direct sow folders as well, but for seed starting, it is by week. So, my calendar really only needs to have the week listed, a spot for me to enter my # of weeks to last frost, and then I want to track what I started on that week and how many. So, I created a calendar that has weeks from Feb 01 to June 15, and each week has a place to write and record. With Good Notes I can handwrite or use the typewriter. It is so much easier to organize and then I quite literally have Feb, Mar, Apr, May, June as pages to save to reference what and how many I grew. I will transfer the info into my master spreadsheet, butI can also just printout my final list and put it in my garden binder 

I am testing this iteration to make sure it has what I need. I thought I would share it with you all, if you would like to download.

There is a PDF that is in color or B&W so you can import into your notepad application on your phone or tablet. There is a standard letter size B&W PDF if you only want to print it out and write directly on the paper.  I also saved the color version as a Canva template if you want to create your own color palette and dates for your region (you need a free canva account to use).

​So, feel free to download one or all of these freebies. 

I have had a mailchimp signup for years, but my self-doubt and thoughts that nobody wants to actually hear from me has consistently prohibited me from sharing my writings or posts. Oh, people who want to read will find out, will come, but I felt people would find me if they wanted to.  It is funny, because I manage social media for clients and volunteer work and have no issue promoting their work, because it is not personal about me. I know a lot of us, especially those of us that have taken on caregiving of our children for many years of their lives, diminish our own contributions and values in our minds and in the work we do. I recently counted up the volunteer hours in the past 5 years for one single organization, and the value of time was in the hundreds of thousands of hourly wage value. That is just ONE organization. Throughout that time, I rarely promoted the fact that I was volunteering thousands of hours per year, or, that I was doing important work to support others. Parenting is like that. We work work work work so hard but don't feel we deserve acknowledgement or recognition because that type of work is undervalued. Why am I telling you all this? Because I finally decided to use mailchimp and send out reminders to my subscribers, and to focus on posting more consistently to here and substack/medium. To create discussions and essays on things that are important to me. I updated and typed and worked and went through the process of using a new mailchimp feature I have not used before, and clicked begin, and the RSS feed didn't work properly. I noticed immediately that the link to the blog post was not in the mailchimp notification to my subscribers, but I thought nobody is going to read it, so I won't even bother sending another update. I didn't want to bother anyone.  I did get several unsubscribes immediately, and my imposter syndrome me said, see? Nobody wants to hear from you. One single person emailed me and said what link? Where is the blog post? THANK YOU for acknowledging me, and seeing me out here in your sea of inbox messages. That one small error made me completely reverse from happily starting to utilize the mailchimp that people actually signed up for, to doubting the value of communicating with folks or putting any more emails in the inbox. 

That small error and the subsequent anxiety from that error made me think about how much of our lives we spend diminishing our own work. We, meaning caregivers. Often parents who put their needs in the backseat for years to care for their children. Often moms, or people who identify as the mothers in the family dynamic, especially. We do spend thousands of hours per year serving others - our others - and society does not really value of the work we do. It is not only physical work, it is also emotional work.  So, when we also attempt to talk about the work we do, share our input in our homes and lives and communities, it is often done in a minimizing way. Nobody likes braggers, but self-promotion even in a sharing and community oriented platform can feel weird. Even if we are not selling anything. 

So, this is all to say I messed up the mailchimp on the blast yesterday - sorry. I know some folks have been subscribed for ages, and I have never sent anything out to your inbox. So, hello, I am Denise, and I like to write about permaculture, gardening, growing, making food and herbal products for my family, canning and preserving, baking, herbal health, plant conservation, solar power, chickens, homestead living, homeschooling/unschooling, parenting, books, handmade things, and more.  I have been working on a book and garden designs and things, and wanted to start publishing here in this space more often and sharing more again. I apologize for the blankish email yesterday, but now I got it figured out. Now, I just need to see the value in what I share to other people, and continue to work to connect and build this community. Working on it. 

I've been thinking a lot about leadership lately. It sounds trite and cliche to say there are leaders and there are followers, because that isn't quite it. There are people that do lead, naturally, and well. There are people that lead through bullying and domination. There are people that think they are leaders, but hide behind the pretense of busy-ness and important-ness. There are also those that are naturally charismatic, and some sense of leadership just happens because that is how our society tends to work. 

I think many of us work with people with some sense of intuition. I know at 55 years old, I can gauge a person within a few minutes, and rarely am I wrong. What we call our intuition is based on thousands of minutes and hours of our life experiences, culminating in an innate understanding of a persons behaviors and likely behaviors based on body language, verbal cues, choice of words, attitudes, and how they interact with others. Leadership, I think, takes those experiences of social cues and human behaviors, and works to identify and leverage the strengths of those we are working with, to attain a result through a common goal. Leadership is not so hard in a space of people of all of the same backgrounds and experiences - and goals. The problems happen when there are individuals with different experiences that impact how they interact and work with others, when there are individuals with their own agendas, and when there are individuals who are dominating, aggressive, manipulative, or who rock the boat when their personal power issues and struggles impact a group.  We all know what it is like to work with someone that dominates rather than collaborates, who bullies or forces rather than communicates, or who attacks and belittles others rather than working together and lifting people up. Many people also confuse pushing papers and doing office tasks with leadership. They are two distinctly different things, and leaders must have skills beyond organizing papers and making spreadsheets. Leadership requires trust, collaboration, vision, respect for others, and, that intuition of experience. Leadership is not a solo endeavor or about the one, but about the many. 

So, what does this have to do with growing, permaculture, herbalism, and community action?  So often we see leaders in this community who don't have good leadership qualities, who do not inspire or lead by example and don't collaborate. We see people who are considered experts who are abusive and who harm others. Many of us are educated in facts of our industries, but not in human interaction, community building, developing collaborative environments, or leadership. But I think we should be.

In Permaculture, we work within the concept of Social Permaculture, which includes areas such as egalitarian leadership, building communities, right livelihood, reciprocity, and re-imagining social structures and societies. To do all of that, we have to look to leadership as a piece in the collaborative puzzle, guiding, mentoring, supporting, and engaging, instead of dominating, overseeing, forcing, and bossing. In permaculture we look to the ecological principles to guide how we understand the world around us, and create communities that work. In this model leadership is not about lording over, but playing a role in the success of an entire community (or family or workplace or group or school or event). It is about understanding different learning styles, different communication styles, and the needs of the whole. In our actions, as in permaculture, we look to REGENERATIVE practices, which includes human interactions. In sustainable practices we only maintain the status quo, but in regenerative practices, we improve and grow, and create a better system than existed when we started. In permaculture that might mean we reduce plastic or compost or divert waste into resources. In communities we might practice kindness, value knowledge over material wealth, look to collaborative groups rather than hierarchical structures to create a movement. Creating strong teams and partnerships that build resilience, belonging, community, and right relationships, builds forward supporting all involved. 

Some might think the concept of leadership at all, especially in non hierarchical collaborate groups seems hypocritical. But leadership does not mean a singular person dominating in a top down way, and leadership can be a collaborative group dynamic of shared responsibilities and mentorship using regenerative practices and philosophies to create dynamic working relationships and community minded models. In the methodology The Art of Hosting, they break it down and remove the word leader completely, just calling people hosts. With any group of humans working together, we have to form some kind of agreement and consensus to move forward and grow/proceed. Traditional top down leadership forces a dynamic and power structure that reinforces a lot of our societal norms, whereas 

The Art of Hosting is described as “an approach to leadership that scales up from the personal to the systemic using personal practice, dialogue, facilitation and the co-creation of innovation to address complex challenges.”

While tossing out the old and bringing in the new paradigms can help people overcome some of the power struggles of hierarchy, leadership still happens in a group dynamic, in encouraging others to listen, to show respect, to take turns, to concede and debate fairly and consistently, and I think we can keep the word if we rethink and restructure how we approach it. To develop new leaders in our communities that are collaborative and regenerative minded is important. To form new regenerative leadership systems that drive our schools, organizations, clubs, groups, and communities, could create communities that work better together, reduce conflict and power struggles, and create a more sustainable future.

One book I have been reading is The Timeless Way of Building by Christopher Alexander. My husband recently picked it up because it is being used in software engineering. When I told him it has been in the permaculture community for a few decades, he looked at me like I was crazy. After all, what does architecture and systems have to do with permaculture. But patterns, order, communities, and symmetry in the whole is as much about philosophy and community and leadership as it is about ... buildings. I hope to share more about that book, and others, as I have been working through a big stack of reading. 

We define organic order as the kind of order that is achieved when there is a perfect balance between the needs of the parts, and the needs of the whole." ~Christopher Alexander, The Timeless Way of Building

I hope to continue this thread, to talk more about leadership and collaborative environments, and building better teams. Permaculture principles extend to leadership, community building, relationships, teamwork, and regenerative processes. By talking about this, thinking about it, and creating new systems, we can create the work and life environments that are better for everyone. 

~Denise

This is the time of year for garden dreaming, but also for optimism, high hopes, and taking time to look at and consider the grand plan. We like to grow our plantings annually so we can establish things over time, not have any total loss if one year is a bad one weather or pest-wise, we don't have too much work all at once, and so there is not too much water demand all at once if we have a dry year (new plantings often need more consistent watering until established). 

We always have our master plan in mind, but we also need to evaluate how things went every year and change based on data. If we install new bed areas and the soil or drainage or light or wildlife just make it a bad place, we need to move and adapt. One of the areas of adaptability is our orchards. We did plant tree orchard space in the front, and bush orchard in back. We underplanted existing mulberry, black cherry, choke cherry, and apple trees, but some of the underplantings were destroyed by wildlife - we also had a very wildly fluctuating weather season from extreme cold and snow in May to record heat in June. The deer also keep eating the baby trees and bushes, and there is not enough chicken wire in the world to wrap as much as we have planted as tall as is needed (we put tree guards and hardware cloth around a lot, which is ugly, but they still ate the tops).  So, this year I hope to layout a lot of no dig contours to connect the bush orchard and retain moisture, create mounded planting areas for the underplantings to be expanded with plants the deer do not like, and then also work to put in temporary fencing around them in certain times of year. 

​We also are planting more trees, and we need to fertilize and supplement existing trees as they are growing slowly due to the deer damage. All of the bushes planted within the brambles and medicinal beds are doing well, as the deer don't really like getting in there except in winter, and the groundhogs and voles and field mice and rabbits do get in there, but the coltsfoot, walking onions, and thyme seems to keep them from doing much. The mint on the other side seems to keep them back as well. I thought wormwood would be a good deterrent, but it seems 

Our goal as a UpS Botanical Sanctuary is, and has always been, to preserve endangered and at-risk plants, and use our space for education and support of conservation. OVer the past 3 years we have planted a lot more at risk plants throughout our wooded area and in a few new areas established for prairie/sun and shaded spots. 

I know long lists of plantings are not the most exciting, but I like having this all written down in this space, so that it is there for me to look back on the future, and to also offer some kind of overview or look into the process of others wanting to do this type of work and planting more integrated permaculture layered gardens with a focus on also plant conservation and not just food and medicine. 

So, last year we added a lot of native and medicinal at-risk plants  - we won't know how well they are doing until this year and future years as they get established. A few things we planted in 2022 (many of these we plant more every year to grow the planting areas):

That adds to the ongoing list of the UpS species-at-risk we are growing: 

Planting bare root and seeds of these natives and at risk plants means we don't always know how they are doing for a while. We planted our first wild ramps, ginseng, blue cohosh, black cohosh, wild ginger, goldenseal, and more back in 2019, and I just saw new plants emerging just last year, so they are actually alive and spreading, but it will be many more years before they become a large developed stand.

We also are focusing on the Wisconsin's Natural Heritage Working List to plant "species legally designated as "Endangered" or "Threatened" as well as species in the advisory "Special Concern" category" in the state of Wisconsin that often have also been used historically as medicinal plants by the indigenous people of this area for millennia. Wisconsin native plants we are working on growing and establishing here at Lunar Hollow include:

Every year I cold stratify natives around this time of by year as most need 30-60-90 days of cold moist stratification before being planted to break their dormancy cycle. They always say put all the seeds into a baggie with moist potting soil or sand, but I can't ever find the seeds again and end up with waste as I end up with a lot of seeds in one potting cell and none in another when I have to just divide the soil and plant it (except for larger seeds which I can see and manually extract). This year I decided to use some old pill containers. Each little cell is big enough for a spoonful of potting soil that I moistened in a bowl, and then each cell gets a few seeds. If you were planting thousands of seedlings this would not work, but I am always planting 4-6-8 of each thing, and planting them out annually to slowly grow and expand natives, so this seemed like a good idea. I labeled each section of seed by name and how long they need to stratify. I put each tray in a baggie to retain moisture and popped them in the fridge. I am hoping this makes the planting into seed trays easier and more consistent! 

In addition to starting from seed, I also purchase spring shipped bare root plants that should arrive in spring to go in ground. So, other new plants coming in this spring for bare root plantings include: 

And of course I order potatoes, onions, and other spring planting food plants as well. 

So, that is a start. I am beginning to organize all of my food seeds from the last few years, clear out varieties that didn't grow well or we didn't like. Adding new things as we get input from the family. And putting everything into my folder system to be ready for seed starting. The grow light setup is up and ready, and we have a few new lights to try out this year as well. We always grow a lot of things, but for this year we hope to increase our storage veggies. We had a bad squash year last year, so we are moving the whole thing to a new spot and will see if we get luckier when the surrounding farms are on soybeans and not corn, as the corn rootworms took over our squash last year and most of the farms in our immediate area were on corn, so we think the weather made for a huge year for them and they strayed to our acreage. Most of the farms around here rotate so if it was a big corn year it should be a soy year, and we shall see. The good thing is that means I can grow our own sweet corn, as we choose to grow heirloom sweet corn only in soy years to prevent cross pollination.

I'll be sharing more about what we are growing food-wise soon. I will also post herb lists soon -as well as my Grow a Row choices for donating.  I always try to grow enough for my family for an entire year without needing to purchase anything from a store that we could grow here (basically grow enough to be entirely self-sufficient in dried herbs), and then also grow enough extra to donate some. Wisconsin had a big update on cottage food laws, so I may also be selling dried herbs, herbal teas and spice blends, and other herbal products next year. We shall see! All of that impacts our expansion plans and beds, so we may look to adding many more no dig spaces to grow even more herbs depending on how this all goes. Exciting!

​Do you grow any at-risk plants in your gardens? 

I have always struggled with darkness. I love winter - the fluffy snow, the excitement of big snowstorms, the silence of the world in the snow, the tracks on the snow of all of the wild visitors, the smell of crisp clean air, the break from the same thing day after day. I love sitting by the fire with calm music, a cup of steaming tea, and a book. Living in the country I love winter even more. The hard work and heat of the summer gone, forcing us inside for more domestic pursuits such as baking and homekeeping. Winter is the time for art and writing and books. The time for baking and stitching and sitting down. But that said, I also struggle with darkness. If it snowed every 2 or 3 days all winter followed by the post-snow sunshine and blue skies, I would be OK. But we do tend to get months of cloudy days. Combining gray and darkness is hard for me. So, I look at snow as my relief, the bright spots between the repeated gray cord on the string of lights. 

This year we got a light therapy light. We have all been sitting in front of the light a half hour a day at least. And of course we are all still trying to get outside, take walks, enjoy the quiet, and do a lot of baking. But since it does not get light until pretty late and is still dark before 5pm, the light is helping us continue. We have had so much gray and so many fog warnings this January so far, that the light is a relief.  So is garden planning, seed sorting, art making, bread baking, and spending time with my teens. 

So I will still enjoy the snow, the quiet, the fluffy snowflakes swirling, the crisp cold air, the crunch of snow under my mukluks, and the sunshine when it comes, I also feel like I have another tool in my toolbox to help get through the long winter. 

What do you do to get through the darkest days of the year? 

January is here. This is the time of year I vacillate between wanting to grow EVERYTHING next year, and wanting to grow nothing. In that, I mean I have so many plants, and wouldn't it be nice to have a break. But then I love the warm sun, soil on my hands, and walking the garden on a warm summer night. I don't like ticks, which come with country living, or having to change clothing when I come inside from the garden to ensure I am not a host to one. Do you watch YouTube? Do you see all of the channels that have women in long, flowing skirts, with hair to their waist, walking through tall waist-high grasses, laying down on the ground, and picking herbs with bare arms and shoulders? Does that seem as unrealistic to you as it does to me? What I mean is that the dream of the idyllic garden and the reality of the hard work that goes into growing thousands of plants is at odds in January, when it is cold and there is much time to idle and read, hangout with my (adult) kids, and work on home projects. Of course in the end, I crave and dream of the garden, even if I am wearing ankle and wrist guards and have my clothing all tucked into my socks and have my hair under a hat. I enjoy weeding and picking and harvesting, even if wearing rose gloves to the shoulder.  And, I know that though there were some failures last year, there are new plants to grow, new things to try, more space to fill, and more challenges to learn and grow as an herbalist, aromatherapist, and grower. There is always more to do, more to grow, and new plants to experience. 

Every January I sit with my boxes of seeds that I put away last fall, and I sort them. I filter out the things we didn't really like or that didn't work well, and I box and organize the things I know I want to grow again. We do grow a lot of perennials, and some are short-lived perennials, so they must be replanted every year or two. Some are root perennials, so I dig them up and they need to be replanted every year or two. And, every single year we continue to plant more fruit and perennial food, so that eventually we have a significant amount of plants that need minimal care and produce a LOT of food. Trees can take years, so I continue to plant new trees from seed, bare root, and transplants, every year. 

I also dig through all of the veggie and fruit seeds to see what I have still, and filter out any old seeds or seeds that performed poorly, or what we didn't really like. I remove what didn't do well in our soil. I always want to buy all the new veggie seeds, but make myself go through and see what I have still, first. It is hard to resist buying all the seeds, but I try. 

I do buy annual flower seeds every year as well, so I love going through all of my seeds and then picking a thematic color for the bouquets and flowers I'm growing. Two years ago I had all the colors - but last year I picked all warm pinks and creams, and this year I am going with all peach, brown, cream, and warm gold. I love having a cutting garden, where I can walk and cut fresh flowers for the house every day. I do also grow some flowers that don't come into the house as they are not safe for my animals (lily, etc.) but I do grow them to deter deer and for their beauty and fragrance. 

Other considerations for seeds includes at-risk plants, woodland medicinals, and natives that I want to grow and expand. There are many native plants that I grow a few of every year, and plant out annually to expand the stands we are developing in the shade and wooded areas. I also do purchase bare roots, rhizomes, and transplants to go in ground each fall and spring. One of my projects is to also expand the sweetgrass that is already growing here. I think it is my most favorite aroma on the planet. It is the smell of the upper midwest prairies in the summer. I love that we have enough so that even walking out in the prairie areas of our land I can smell it in waves. Every time anything is mowed the smell wafts and drifts down the road from all of the roadsides and neighbors. I want to plant more sweetgrass in other grassy areas we have, so that I have more to harvest. And so that the world smells of Sweetgrass in July. 

I so love aromatic plants in general (I'm also an aromatherapist) and want to continue to grow aromatic plants that I can distill into hydrosols and infuse into oils and other carriers to create my own aromatic apothecary of plants in addition to those that I carefully select from ethical producers to use. So, with that, perennial and annual aromatic plants and plants that have amazing properties as hydrosols are wonderful, including those natives that I love so much such as yarrow, violet, and sweetgrass. We also have pine, spruce, juniper, and cedar on our land, as well as cottonwood, rose, sweet woodruff, goldenrod, plantain, chickweed, cleavers, and other cultivated plants such as other rose varieties, lilac, thyme, oregano, rosemary, sage, tulsi, lemon balm, mountain mint, hairy mountain mint, catnip, peppermint, spearmint, hyssop, chamomile, yauhtli, pepicha, and others that have amazing aroma and flavor. 

This year I have gone through my main list of seeds, and have a growing list of what we will be starting from seed and growing this year. This first list ONLY has new herbs and flowers, and does not yet contain vegetables except for fruit bare root trees I have purchased and potato starts I have coming in spring. This list is on a separate tab from our existing natives, and from the perennials we are planting in succession in past years. I also have dye garden herbs in this round, and will probably add a few more, but need to decide what to purchase!

It feels like a good start. Next, to hone the list and fix up the names, and then start adding the final vegetables/greens/fruit seeds we will be planting. I bought a lot of seeds last year, but we had a lot of poor germination, so I might try purchasing my food seeds from another company, to see if we can get better results. 

Anything special you are starting this year, or excited to try growing? 

`~~-Denise

How do you store your herbs? How do you inventory and track what you have? 

We made it to 2023. I will say it again. We made it to 2023. As a family that has been on lockdown since March of 2020, that is almost unbelievable to think. 3 years. No dining out, no grocery stores, no shopping in person, no restaurants or cafes, no events or festivals. No family holidays, no vacations, no hotels, no business trips, no hotel pools, no dentists or hair salons, no road trips, no museums. No book stores, no clothing shops, no live music. No visitors in the house, no friends over, no driver's education classes, no botanical garden. As a family with several high risk people including one with a compromised immune system, we have done all touchless, curbside, online, shipped to the door for everything. While we regularly go into Doctor offices and hospitals for ongoing medical needs, even our Doctors have done telehealth and video visits to protect the high risk here. I cannot believe it is 2023. 

One thing I always focused on when my kids were young was creating the life we didn't need a vacation from. To work so hard at things we don't love only to desperately get away from it all every single day off seems off balance. While I have traveled and enjoyed travel, I also spent most of my childhood wandering the woods by myself.  I am so grateful that I can be with myself and family for a long time. I know that means something to be able to sit and read a book. To sit and write for hours. To make sourdough bread from scratch at home 3 times per week. To have time for art and making and tending the home. To spend every day with our kids. To have time to garden and grow things. To have time to cook meals. To have time to just be. So, while we would love to get out and about more, we also are OK being safe and keeping our most vulnerable safe, spending time as a family, and living our life from our home, as people have done for millenia. 

Does anyone else remember the early days of blogs? Back when we all wrote and shared and visited each other and left comments that became conversations? When it was about feeling the roots we made with our family and our connections to them? When we all became penpals and wrote paper letters as well, with the people we met and connected with? When sharing was about sharing and not a hustle? When we cared enough to visit and comment on our lives and ask questions, and have meaningful exchanges? I can tell I'm getting old when I say it was not like the tik tok of today with people faking entire lives and filtering faces and hair and clothing and location and food and experiences to get attention and people only clicking the little heart or thumbs up button, it was interactive. I think constantly seeking new experiences and constantly running and looking for more attention and more clicks and more approval is a product of our modern society in many ways, as old as it might make me sound. ;) In the beginning of the pandemic I thought here is everyone growing vegetables, being home with their kids, having quality time just being, engaging on a deeper level...and then it was gone. 
​
I hate New Year resolutions (esp In january - hellooooo regeneration and new life is in spring, not deep winter), but my wish for the world is to have more time. Time to be home with family. Time to spend reading or hanging out with the kids. Time with teenagers before they leave. Time with partners to talk and dream and think together. Time to read and write and draw and bake. Time to plant feet on the ground and smell the fresh clean air. Time to feel the sun on your neck as you weed the garden. Time to enjoy a bite of a freshly picked strawberry. Time to take a long walk and look at every plant along the way. Time to scribble in a notebook and explore your ideas and inspirations. Time to sit by the fire. I wish that for everyone in 2023. The year of home, the year of simple living and being where we are.

Winter for me Is a time for Introspection, stillness, recovery, connection. In winter we cocoon and prepare to emerge with the green grass and golden sunshine. With that, I plan to post more often this winter, like we did back in the olden days of blogs, with conversation, sharing, and inspiration. 

​Happy New Year. 

If you have a moment, I'd love to hear from you. What are you dreaming this January? How do you rejuvenate yourself in winter? What are you doing at home that makes you feel grounded? 

Making change in our own lives can be hard. As a "type A" person I have to do it all. I am sure many of you overachievers can relate. The house must be clean, the laundry must be folded, the beds must be made, the work must always be caught up, the to-do list is before anything resembling sitting, relaxing, or enjoying. I was realizing last spring that I was working so hard to keep working at 150%, that I was not able to actually do any of the things I enjoy - such as working in my garden, harvesting herbs, distilling hydrosols, making herbal products. I was working. Working. Working. And I was stressing. Panic attacks, heart palpitations, waking up 5 times a night with full on heart pounding sweating shaking panic feelings. That is no way to live. So, over the past few months we have been making change. It takes time to plan, move, wiggle, resign, transition, step away, resignresignresign, just say no, and walk away from so many things. But, it was the right thing to do, and I am feeling better about the future. 

When we work only for others, we burn out. It is a guarantee. While I have always rolled my eyes at the whole take care of yourself first idea, as I think we can take care of ourselves AND others at the same time, I was stuck in that rut of always doing and being everything for everyone else, without thinking ever of myself. It was definitely impacting me in being unable to sleep and having panic attacks. I could feel deeply things had to change, and I could not continue. I know many of us steamroll full speed ahead until something happens that forces us to change or stop - cancer, heart attack, injury, illness. But we shouldn't need an excuse to make deep life and systemic changes for our health and wellbeing. We should be able to make these changes JUST BECAUSE WE WANT TO, and not have to justify why we have to prioritize ourselves and our families over...everything else. 

This is something we all need to do in some way -  to take time to dabble, sit, be, and not feel that we must fill all the gaps with some other measure of success or achievement.

So, as my roles are wrapping up and I have more time, I am slowly working to give myself a break. To bake bread.  Pick herbs. Read a book. Sit still. To read something that is not for a business, or a skill, or a function. To give myself permission to not complete or achieve anything if I don't want to. Spend time just hanging out with my teenagers. To focus on the health needs they have with time, attention, and consideration. To focus on my health needs with time, attention, and consideration. 

What do you do for yourself? How do you take time to be? 

​

One of our goals this fall and winter, is to start building a YouTube channel with more videos and life. To start, we have been practicing with small video editing, drone footage, music editing, and playing around with Davinci Resolve as our video editor. Gavin has also been creating content for his TikTok and Instagram, and I have been playing with making short videos. I am enjoying the process, and look forward to building more skills at both filming and editing.

August is a hard month. It starts out slow and forever feeling like the heat and sun will never stop, and ends with cool nights, and the hint that the garden is ending in those wilting leaves and fading squash vines. While it is here, I dream of September, when September begins, I wish summer would hold on just a tiny bit longer. I love fall, but I also love that golden light and those amazing sunsets that came with August. Looking forward to fall, with a small peek back at our last month. 
​

I can't believe I haven't posted in a few months again. This year has been an intense year with major life changes for my kids (plus the loss of my mom), and every time I have wanted to write and share, I feel blank.  We have had huge losses and huge changes as a family - just like a lot of folks -  and a lot of that hit my own system pretty hard. While I was already having stress issues, losing my mom toppled me right over, causing me to start experiencing intense health issues. 

So, we as a family did some deep thinking and reflection and decided I need to make some major life changes to allow myself the time to focus and care for the needs of myself, my own health, and, the needs of my kids.  Well, more like my family stepped in and said I needed to stop before all of the stress took me out, so I listened. ​

It is hard to step down, step back, do less, and change our entire schedule and daily life to accommodate the impacts of change, and, to find some kind of balance that allows me to release that stress.  I'm so grateful we are so close to our teens, and that they felt comfortable reaching out and asking for what they need, to ask for more time and support from me, and, to support me in my own needs as they saw the impact stress and anxiety was having on my health and wellness. 

With that, I have stepped down or am stepping down from everything. This is something I have thought long and hard on with the full support of my family.  I think this fall is the perfect time.  I will be turning 55, my youngest will be turning 18, my oldest will be starting some amazing life changes that needs my support and time. I feel like the slowing down of fall into winter is  a good time to wind down, take some down time, and focus on what is important. 

I have resigned as the Chair of the American Herbalists Guild. I have given my 90-day notice and will be stepping down from Executive Director of Herbalists Without Borders as well. I am closing my herbal practice work. I will still volunteer with HWB as the lead donation distribution person for the US network, as I have the entire lower level of my home dedicated to HWB donations and packing/shipping boxes out to free clinics. But, that will not be 40-50-60 hours per week, it will be a few Mondays per month for boxing/shipping, and 2 other days per month for inventory management, cleaning, prepping, organizing the donations that go out throughout the US. So, instead of every waking moment being this work, and 40-60 hours per WEEK being this work, it will be more like 30-40 hours per MONTH of this volunteer work. 

As I am working on transitioning out of the roles and reducing my stress and working on improving my own health by stepping back and focusing on wellness, I am feeling a call back to my art - photography, writing, and painting/visual art - and know I will be taking more time for those creative outlets that help me feel who I am and calm my restless and anxious spirit. Having more time for my art, design, writing, photography, permaculture gardens, handwork, kitchen, and home, is just what I need. It is funny, because I was so busy managing and organizing herbalism, that I haven't had any time in over a year (or more?) to actually make herbal support from my own gardens and use the herbs I work so hard to grow (other than simple tea). I want to have time again to make things and ferment and tincture things and cook with things and share what we do. 

I have already started supporting G on a new business endeavor that we are working on together to get him started in one of his areas of interest. And, I have started supporting A in some of the life changes that we are focused on over the next few years. Having more time with my kids in these key years as they enter adulthood and find their own paths is SO IMPORTANT. There is nothing I would rather do. 

So, I will be here, hopefully more, but it will be different as I make major life changes and transition to a new stage of my life. As I try to look at my stress-related health issues, and return to the calm equilibrium I had for so many years before taking on too much.  I look forward to sharing more about life, home, gardens, art, handwork, design, words, and things that make me feel healthy and strong and happy.

Looking forward to the fall.  

I am so happy to be presenting at the Botanica 2022 conference, on behalf of Herbalists Without Borders, on Using Tools for PTSD When Working in Disaster Relief and Humanitarian Aid. 

As an herbalist and an aromatherapist, I find that our industries often cleave them into two opposing forces, divided, when in fact I think they should be united.  I believe in sustainable aromatherapy, and I believe in sustainable herbalism. I think both modalities compliment each other and provide us with specific properties, effects, and tools to support those we serve. 

I am so happy to be speaking at this conference, with so many wonderful scientists and clinical aromatherapists, to talk about using these amazing plants as tools when working with trauma. To find out more or to register for the conference, visit:
www.botanica2022.com

Stop by the Herbalists Without Borders virtual booth and say hi if you attend! 

It is seed season. Back in 2018 I started the first US Seed Grant by gathering donated seeds from companies and sharing them out to HWB gardens around the US. Early on, all seeds were from seed companies, and they included fruit, veggies, culinary herbs, flowers, and of course some medicinal herbs. Food justice is health justice, so growing fresh food is so important and food seeds are as important as medicinal seeds - but to be honest, since most seed companies do not specialize in medicinal seeds, we didn't have enough medicinal herb seeds. We really needed more. So, I started buying medicinal seeds for my own garden (not that I need an excuse to buy more herb seeds, ahem), and then saving them to continue growing out to get more and more seeds to share. I grow herbs for free clinics, but I also grow a lot of plants that I also grow out just for seeds now. Over the past year or two there have been other HWB members and herb schools that are also now saving and sharing seeds back so we have more medicinals to share out as well. So, this year, I am so happy to be bagging up hundreds of packets of medicinal seeds from Lunar Hollow to donate to the HWB Seed Grant Program. It is very satisfying to bag up so many seeds for seed sharing. 

Even after bagging up over 400 packets of seeds (yes, four hundred! woot), I still have more bulk seed left to grow out this year in the garden, and, to include in seedling sales for others this spring as well. 

I have many new herb varieties I have purchased this year to grow out and hope to share seeds from those in the future. I will be growing new herbs such as Balkan Mountain Tea, Greenthread, Huacatay, Kkaennip, Labrador Bog Tea, New Jersey Tea, Green Pepper Basil, Perilla, Pushkarmool, Safflower, Hoary Skullcap, a few new types of Tulsi, Yauhtli, Hairy Wood Mint, and more. So excited to be starting seeds in my seed trays, and planning and plotting the gardens for summer. It is the perfect time to sort through all of the successes of last summer and bag seeds to share. I hope to share more about growing medicinals this summer, as well as tips for seed starting and propagating woody cuttings. Seed starting season always comes just as winter feels like it has been here forever, and I need growth and light to grow. 

What are you growing this year you have never grown before? 

I like giving regular updates on things. It helps me feel like I am recognizing the work I am doing, and, marking the time and passage of the things I am doing. In this work people often do not focus on any self care  - well, I know I don't, anyway - and so it is a steamroller full speed ahead. By sharing updates, I feel more that I am recognizing my own work. 

It has been a hard few weeks. My mother passed away suddenly on her birthday at home. We were able to see her urn and have a few minutes by ourselves before everyone arrived (we had to leave as people came in), but it was hard to not be able to be included in any memorial service due to my son being immunocompromised, and the service having so many people. It helped with some sense of closure, but also felt pretty sad and alienating. 

But with that all happening, I have been struggling a bit. Luckily, I had several huge deadlines that I had just completed 2 days before she passed. So that helps me feel like I accomplished something, even though the past 2 weeks have been a wash. 

One project I completed is as a guest presenter for a Health Justice and Accessibility Intensive for Wild Rose College of Herbal Medicine (MORE INFO HERE). I am presenting a series of 3 webinars on accessibility, community herbalism, and using social permaculture in community models, followed by a live Q&A coming up in March. I have been wanting to begin teaching more again, and this is a perfect way to get into the swing of presenting and recording myself for webinars and classes. I hope to do a lot more online teaching in 2022. 

I was also interviewed for an Integrative Medicine publication that will be out in a few months, and interviewed for a video module within an Integrative Medicine program online - a "Meet the Herbalist" type of interview - where I was able to share more about the profession of herbalism, our work, the state of the profession in the US, finding an herbalist, and more. I will share more when some of these pieces go live!

I am also working on a few modular courses on Herbal First Aid and Trauma-Informed Practice, and am planning some more social permaculture and garden design webinars and online classes for this spring. 

It is also seed starting season! We will be selling some seedlings on the farm this spring - if you are a local and might be interested in seedlings (veggie, fruit, culinary herb, medicinal herb, flowers), please fill out the interest form. It is just to help us get an idea of what types of plants people would be most interested in so we can start enough seedlings!  (FILL OUT FORM)

I am happy my teenagers want to do all of the seedling work with me this year - and are helping me create spreadsheets to calculate it all and will be helping manage the plants until they are hardened off and ready for purchase/pickup. So excited for even the thought of spring. How about you? 
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Seedlings!

For the 2022 growing season, we plan to have a limited supply of seedlings for sale at Lunar Hollow Farm (no shipping). These seedlings will be annual fruits, vegetables, and herbs, primarily, with many annual medicinals. As our first year doing this, we will be planning to start a large amount of seedlings for our own use, and will sell extra starts to friends who don't have the space or equipment to start their own seeds. This will be first come first serve, and we will designate spring pickup times (socially distanced, outdoors, most likely) for people picking up any pre-purchased seedlings on site here. We also plan to have some medicinal plant seeds for sale here on farm. We already have a lot of folks asking about the seedlings, so think they will go fast once we get our quantities set. I'm still buying seeds, so if you have any special requests, let me know! This year I purchased several new herbs (to me) from Central and South America, that I am so excited to try. 

UPDATED TO ADD: If you are Interested In purchasing seedlings this spring (local pickup in Deerfield WI), please take a moment to fill out the seedling interest form so we can have a better idea of quantities as we start seeds. 

FORM: forms.gle/vyLowu4UGXJkJfdx8

​I am also expanding our cutting gardens this year, so we will have some annual flower starts as well. I buy my flower seeds from Johnny's because they have the amazing earth tone flowers that I love so much. 

Seeds are carefully gathered each fall from our gardens here at Lunar Hollow, processed, winnowed, and stored all winter long. We bag them in sets of about 25 seeds for those more rare seeds, up to 100 seeds per packet. Seeds  will only available on farm here. Available seeds will be listed in early spring. 

Keep an eye out for more information soon!

A few things I am excited to grow this year include: 
Huacatay - AKA Aztec Marigold (Tagetes minuta), is a fragrant South American herb that is both medicinal and edible. It will likely be annual this far north, and is the plant found in Black Mint Paste you find at Latino Grocers. It is commonly used in Bolivia and Peru, and dried leaf and flower is used to make tea. 

Greenthread - Thelesperma fifolium, is a dye and medicinal plant. You use the new leaves before they flower and dry them to make a tea. It also is used to make a yellow/orange dye. (as you can see from my list, I am growing a dyer's garden this year as well). This might end up being annual up here, but I do plan to save seeds so I can share to folks that use this traditionally next year. 

Altai Dragonhead - Dracocephalum rupestre - I love Moldavian dragonhead balm, and this is in the same family, though looks more like Betony. It is found natively in Russia, Mongolia, and China. I have a rocky garden area where I am growing Rhodiola, so I think this will be perfect there. 

Balkan Mountain Tea - Sideritis scardica - This is from the Balkan peninsula, and it is a downy, fragrant, plant. It is traditionally used as tea or tonic. 

Flouncy Soapwort - Just the name alone makes me want to grow this. It is used with botanically dyed fabrics as it is super gentle, so I plan to use it in the dye garden. 

Yauhtli - Tagetes lucida - Another marigold family plant of South American descent, that I have grown before and I love love love the smell. 

Schizonepeta - Schizonepeta tenuifolia - you might notice the nepeta, as in catnip, and this is a Japanese Catnip used in TCM. This is a very fragrant plant that apparently perfumes buildings when it is dry. This is used for tea re: cold and flu season. 

Camphor Basil - Ocimum canum Sims var. Camphor - This is a camphory sweet basil that is used often as an insect repellent. 

Tinda - B enincasa fisulosus - This is a northern India fruit/veggie that is like a green tomato watermelon that is used in curries. Can't wait to try it. 

Hoary Skullcap - Scutellaria incana - This is a midwest native that is used as others are used, as a nervine. I grow 3 types of skullcap, so am happy to add another. 

We are growing upland rice again, this time Loto, Hayayuki, and Zerawachanica. And, expanding the oats, sorghum, amaranth, flax, millet, and quinoa this year to grow more. 

There are many more new varieties I have been happily purchasing all winter, in addition to the standards that I grow every year (mullein, elecampane, astragalus, ashwagandha, etc.). I'll share more as I start seeds! 

So, keep an eye out for info on seedling and seed sales for this spring - with pickup on the farm here - it will be wonderful to be able to share plants that we rarely find in nurseries! 

~Denise

This is the time of year I like to start slowing down. This year, we have so much going on it has been a challenge! We are wrapping up a lot of things before taking down time for the last few weeks of the year. 
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I thought I would share some of the big things happening this fall and winter. 
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1. I recently spoke with Bevin Clare on the Mountain Rose Herbs Meet the Herbalist podcast and the podcast is now live. Take a listen here. 
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2. Speaking of Bevin, I am now transitioning to the Chair of the American Herbalists Guild as Bevin finishes her long tenure in that role and transitions to non-officer Board role. Bevin has been a wonderful mentor and supporter in this transition, and I wish her the best. I am so happy to serve the AHG in this role.   Read more about this here. 

3. I am also excited to say that I submitted my final presentation and video for my dual Permaculture and Advanced Social Systems Design Certificate (PDC) course, and will be transitioning now into more education, and teaching more on permaculture systems, social systems, and mutual aid work. Want to check out my final presentation video and PDF? It is live on the Permaculture Women's Guild page here. ​

4. We are having a full house solar system installed. The solar installation has been happening on cold autumn days over the past few weeks, and we are in the last stretch just awaiting 2 final panels being installed when the electrician connects us to the grid. We have 32 panels on both south and east facing rooflines. The system is an 11.85 Kilowatt system with battery storage and switch so that we utilize solar energy when it is sunny, draw from the grid when it is not, and can continue to operate even with power grid is down. This will average out over the course of the year to provide us with 100% of our power needs. ​We are so happy to reduce our reliance on the grid, produce our own energy, and have systems that will keep working if the power goes out. This is a part of our goal of reducing waste and reducing our reliance on the grid, that I outline in my permaculture plan, and I am so thrilled this is coming to fruition a few years before we thought we could do this. 

5. Just as I thought I would like to start teaching more about social systems design, community supported herbalism models, and accessible herbalism, a few opportunities have come up, so I am working on a class outline, which I am happy about. I will be doing a deeper dive into how I can best teach this over the holidays. This all aligns with my goals of teaching more moving forward, so things are all falling into place. 

​We have had a lot of big health needs happening around here, so we have been taking time to be outside, bake and make, have quiet evening time, and enjoy the season. Self-care is one of the hardest things for activists and people working in community models. There is always another person or community needing support, there is always another fire, flood, hurricane, tornado, or earthquake. There are always more people in need. With that, it is hard to not feel guilty or selfish about taking time for our own health needs and self care when there is so much need every single moment.  And, with climate change, all of this is happening back to back to back without a break or any reprieve. The saying you must put on your own oxygen mask first always seemed trite, but we must be strong and resilient to continue to do this work, and self-care is a part of that.

The point is that I am learning that it is important to take care of myself as well, because to do this community service work requires endurance and stamina  for the long haul. So, teaching, family time, and also modeling self care and life balance in this model is a part of my own goals for 2022! 

I can't wait to share more of the Lunar Hollow plans for 2022, including a lot of the outlines and work we have in our permaculture plan for 2022, our new water systems, plantings, outdoor classroom plans, and more! 

​In health and gratitude,
​~denise

Autumn is the season that seems to pass so quickly. We go from summer garden to snow and while there is so much in the middle - from winter prepping the chicken coop to closing up the greenhouse for the winter - it seems to be over so quickly.

As soon as the daylight savings happens and it is suddenly dark at 4-something every evening, we all seem to slow down. The oven is on as we start to bake, soups and stews are for dinner, and we have longer quiet nights watching homesteading YouTube channels (or Korean farmer and lifestyle channels), reading books, working on our projects, and feeling a little slower as the darkness hits our moods and sleep schedules.

I have been realizing (as we all do, I’m sure) that I am working too many hours and not taking enough time for home life, family, homeschooling, and home keeping. While most people make new years resolutions, I like to make fall and winter resolutions - and consciously work only a normal work schedule and be sure to take the time I need for short days and dark nights, making and baking, family time, and enjoying the winter snow, cold, and holiday season. I have made my playlists for the dark days - Asgeir, Fever Ray, Foy Vance, and Chill Dubstep, Zoe Keating, and so many others that make the darkness more manageable and meaningful and ping the creative threads.
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I have been realizing that while I am in zoom meetings 5,6,7+ hours a day, I'm missing deeper human connection and friendships. Zoom is not that, for sure, and I think COVID has intensified that disconnect (that and our need to isolate due to immunosuppressed family). People have also been less ... nice. I miss the days of blog friends, sharing our life, and seeing what others were doing - and handwriting letters, sharing, and engaging with people. So, I am going back to the idea of sharing on the blog, snippets, life, bits and pieces, and daily life, not just information or what is deemed important enough. And sharing works in progress, and daily life.

We have some winter projects planned, and I have been stitching and working on many new creative pieces for gift making, skill building, and creative outlets. I have been working on more writing, more art, and as I finalize my PDC presentation video, will start to have webinars and podcasts on making your own permaculture life plan. We have been at the hospital a lot for A, but that should slow down to monthly now, which is better for winter. So, the focus is on food, family, fun, craft, creativity, and connection.

What have you been up to? How do you handle the transition to the dark?

I love autumn and winter. My family is amused my favorite seasons are the seasons where things do not grow, but for ice and winds. I love early darkness, a steaming mug of hot tea, cool evenings, introspection, and falling leaves. I love time for poetry, music, medicine making, stitching and drawing, thinking and resting. I love time for planning, for sketching, for wondering, for hoping. I love fleece and flannel, blankets and seeing my breath. I thank the world for summers where we can grow food, fruit, nourish and sustain ourselves.  But I love having breaks and having time to change. Summer is the extrovert, and autumn and winter are introverts. Like me. 

When seasons change, the light changes. As the summer transitions the light is golden. As the leaves turn gold the sky shifts.  It gives us a chance to take a break. Think about what to try next. What to do differently. To plan new ideas and projects and to have time to think about them. To have a new opportunity to change, to reinvent, to try again. To rest with the darkness and rejuvenate for another year. 

This autumn I am turning another year older. 54. The older women get it seems the less we talk about it, and the less we share what the number is. 54 feels a little big to me. 50 was pretty simple, but now mid-something, not early something, but halfway to the next something. No longer young, not old, in the invisible in between.  Autumn is a change to start anew with the season, and start a new year. I like to live with intention and not obligation, but that can be hard to do.  Once we commit to something we feel a little stuck in it, even if after a while it doesn't fit right anymore, raggedy hem, short sleeves, itchy. But we continue. Every year I get older I realize that I have less energy for those things that don't fit anymore, and that I am more aware of the ticking clock of time taking me from the things that are meaningful if something becomes not the right thing for me anymore. Autumn is a time to slow down, think about  where I am, and where I want to be. To use all of the medicine I grew all summer. To drink the tea of the herbs I grew with my own two hands. To dream.
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So while many people are dreading the end of summer, I embrace it. I change the pillows on the couch. I watch the sun set earlier every evening. I look at the stars. I clean the oven and pull out the blankets. I bake bread. I pound the cinnamon, ginger, clove, and allspice.  I write in my journal. I stitch the fabric. I turn the pages. I gather the bark.  I mark time by when I can first see my breath in the early morning. I carry my basket and gather seeds. I dig the roots of fall herbs and make root medicine.  I listen to the sound of leaves under my muck boots and wrap my scarf around my neck, twisting and turning in warmth and reminders of the season to come. Welcome, September. I have been waiting for you. 

It has been 18 months since we first locked down with covid. With a high risk person in the house, we have stayed home, had everything delivered, and haven't gone into any building that wasn't a hospital. Luckily we are all mostly introverted, and happy to be home. This year has been used to get a lot done at home, on our land, and to make future plans that accommodate a likely ongoing challenge of interacting in public spaces with a mutating virus and high risk people. This has been a good year to work on finishing my Permaculture Design and Advanced Social Systems Design Certification. To look at ways that we can be more self sufficient, use less resources, build in loops and cycles that are regenerative, grow more of our own food, produce our own energy, and have our home needs grow with the idea of ongoing multigenerational living. 

​I have realized as we are living in the world of nonstop zoom meetings, that we are losing our connections even while we see people MORE. I for one am in zoom meetings all day every day, and lately miss the days of blogging where we actually connected one on one, communicated, shared, and interacted. When we continued talking outside that one meeting, that one moment. With everyone working from home people have been working more more more and doing more more more meetings and expecting more more more results and connecting on a deeper level less less less. And, with that, people are connecting less, deeply present less.  I miss the world of kindness and interactions. Some of it is that people are just overdone and burned out and are not taking the time and energy to be supportive of one another and don't have to deal with the repercussions of being unkind as when the zoom disconnects, the transaction of that energy and moment is completed. The energy of self care supercedes the energy of other people care. It is tough.  Permaculture itself is about regenerative systems and relationships and community are systems just as animal waste and energy use are. 

So, how do we find those positive connections with people that are people working together towards a common goal in a supportive way that also shows appreciation, respect, and understanding and that does not burn people out? That looks at relationships as regenerative and doesn't chew them up and spit them out?  And, builds continuing connections? 

​There is a point, and that is if we are going to continue living life differently for years (and for us, being carefully protected in this house, due to our needs), how do we pivot our world, interactions, and goals to better fit our place and this land, and create meaningful connections with like-minded people that lift us up and don't tear us down? 

I keep coming back to teaching. Sharing in a positive way that supports people and connects while also giving people information that they can use to create their own circle of sustainable existence, or more accurately, regenerative existence. So I have spent a bit of time this summer (after all the zoom meetings) outlining ways to share information and access to knowledge in areas that people don't talk as much about. People teach a lot about how to use herbs. People teach a lot about how to plant things. Grow things. Make things. But what about how to make community, create regenerative relationships that make communities stronger and not undermine them? How can we look at mutual aid, reciprocity, skill sharing, and social systems in a new way and give people ways to make fundamental and systemic change that impacts their whole community? I share this kind of thing one on one with people to help them work in their communities all the time, but there has to be a way to make it more community based and oriented while building upon those connections.

Abstract things are not as simple to teach - I get it. It is easier to say here is a recipe for how to make a salve. It is fixed, repeatable, the same for everyone, and easy. But, there are also 1,500,000,000 salve recipes out there. Is there a recipe for community building? Will it be the same every time for everyone everywhere? Nope. But when we want to make actual change we need to shake up the system or create a new one. So, I have been thinking of how to create something that does all of these things in an accessible way and it comes back to teaching. I want to be a part of something that might share the 1,500,000,001st salve recipe, but also share the recipe for regenerative living, livelihood, activism, simple living, reciprocity based systems, right livelihood and right relationships, and community building. 

Working on it. 

One of the things I like to do every year is to review what worked, what didn't work, what went well, what could be improved. One big goal in 2020 was to save more seeds to share out with people to grow their own gardens. So, while I harvested a lot of herbs that were shared out and saved, I also let a lot of plants go to seed and gathered plant heads in the autumn to save. From there, I processed all seeds through a little japanese screen system. 

The small screen system worked well, although I was out winnowing seeds in below freezing temperatures a few times when the wind was just right. From there, the labeling and bagging went well, and I saved thousands of seeds and stored them in the cold storage for the winter in bulk paper envelopes that were stored in larger airtight containers buckets and bins.  

As we hit the new year, I started bagging seeds down and labeling them all to share in seed grants. I divided saved seeds Into hundreds and hundreds of envelopes that I shared  throughout the US. I kept some of each plant seed type in the seed bank I maintain so that there is a backstore of seeds in case something happens. 

I saved easier seeds this first year I tried in bulk, and plan  to expand to include more plants I grow, and I hope to reach over 100 seed varieties saved next year. The key is to being mindful of the plants and where they grow, using permaculture and organic methods to maintain disease free healthy plants, to wait to harvest the heads until the right time, to fully dry all seed heads first, and to carefully thresh and winnow so that clean, dry, seeds are remaining, and then of course, store them properly. 

I love a challenge. I like learning new things, expanding and making systems that create sustainable sharable mutual aid systems and processes that shares the bounty with many, without overworking the few. While I would like a bigger seed cleaning system, my little screen set worked well, and I think is fine for a few thousand of each type of seed each year. 

Part of our plan is ongoing social permaculture, and the giving back and supporting community in all that we do. Seeds are a part of that system, and an important part of our master plan every year. 

I love planting season. Starting seeds is about what we will have to eat this year, in some part, about beauty or medicine or flavor or mini environments and ecosystems, in the rest. It is also about creating systems that support plants growing in a way that they need to thrive. 

I like the simplicity of plants. I like the complexity of plants. I like the chaos of plants. I like the order of plants. Plants create relationships and communicate with each other through chemicals released via rhizosphere and transported via soil fungi and through chemicals they release in the air. That is pretty amazing, isn't it? I like to think of plant communication more like our music and art than our speaking. As a synesthete, I see music as colors and wavelengths based on the tones and some sounds are perfect and clear colors along lines and others are more like sizzles or spots. Planting plants together that are together in the wild or that benefit one another makes me feel like they are experiencing a clear singular connection and do better together than alone. I imagine those threads of life under the soil creating this amazing network of life and microbia and electrical connections. 

So when planting season gets underway, I feel like every plant that goes Into the ground Is an opportunity to create something not only nourishing, and beautiful, but also doing something underneath our feet that is improving and changing the very nature of what exists where we are right now. Every time we plant something, the soil, the insects, the earthworms, the chemical components and minerals change. 

I am dreaming of sunshine and blue skies, warm sunshine, and green grass. But I am also dreaming of planting the plants In the ground. The trees, bushes, bulbs, food. The native plants In the woods and the prairie plants In the field. The food plants In the little beds, and the flowers around the fruit trees. Every plant is a step in creating a new soil and making things different from what we have and having the faith in plants to know what they will become  - this summer, next fall, in 5 years, in 20 years, in 100. 

I love driving through rural Wisconsin. You can tell where farmhouses used to be even in empty fields where no house stands anymore. Rows of lilacs all in the windbreak line, and the big wavy leaves of rhubarb. We leave something behind every time we put a plant into the ground, and we are changing things one way or another. Above and below. I wonder if someday someone will drive past my old abandoned house, and see a row of crooked and heavy laden fruit trees, and a woods lined with medicinal plants, and wonder who lived in that place. I hope my children stay here, though, and talk about the summer we planted that peach tree, or started that linden, or put that monarda into the soil. I wonder if my hair, my skin, my bits and pieces that come off me every day become a part of that plant that I touched and carefully put into that little hole. 

We leave pieces of ourselves everywhere we go in our actions, our interactions. In our art and music and words. In our children. I am reminded of this every planting season as I dig a hole and plant each and very plant. Thousands of times I repeat - dig and plant. It makes me think of what I am trailing behind me in my wake every day, and if it is changing what is beneath for the better. 

This is a work in progress as we update our seeds lists, plans for growing, and join a few trials to grow out new varieties for testing/research or seed purposes. 

Click to view the google sheet in progress: ​docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1VxLb230ck2eiWdeCArtXjtVbn7CPJJ7bd54zOjI-C-I/edit?usp=sharing