PorchSide Ecology » thyme

An easy pill to swallow: the joy of fresh medicine

admin — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 02:17:40 +0000

It’s that time of year again. Starting last Friday, my yearly throat cold came a-haunting as it normally does with the shift from summer to fall. Usually I make small adjustments to my diet to eliminate “troublemakers” like dairy, but this year I went more on the offensive. I made my medicine. And it sure was good. First I created a nutrient rich chicken broth with lots of garlic, I used that to make a quinoa soup with all sorts of little amendments from the garden, garnished with a selection of greens and topped with some violets, just because. Throughout the day I made a point to make various herbal teas from fresh herbs around the garden: mint, sage, thyme. Occasionally I would throw small amounts of greens, like kale into these teas. Added some honey, and took my medicine. Needless to say, it was a pleasure to do so.

I would love to say that I was cured immediately by the bounty of my garden and my amazing skills of food preparation. But sadly, the symptoms reached their usual level of discomfort and I did get sicker through the weekend. Sunday night I was kept awake by an intense cough.

But.

Now, it could just be coincidence, a one-off event….but….my recovery was much quicker. By late Monday, the cough had pretty much disappeared. In the past, my yearly affliction would usually develop into a lingering cough and sore throat sometimes lasting as long as two weeks.

So sure, it’s purely anecdotal. But this whole year I have been making and taking my medicine and creating a diverse nutrient foundation for my body to draw on in order to operate fluidly and abundantly. Just like creating nutrient-rich living soil is the foundation for garden health, creating a nutrient-rich diet is a foundation for health in the body. And it is so much fun! Processed food has been dropping steadily out of my diet. Not because I am being disciplined, but simply because I don’t find flavored cardboard to be all that appealing anymore. My body has learned (remembered, really) that there is much more to be easily gained from munching on some leaves, than can be scavenged from the wasteland of processed food. In fact, grocery stores are starting to feel like fields of desolation and desperation: a circus of brightly lit packages hell bent on selling salt, sugar, cheap fat, and denuded carbohydrates to the bedazzled shoppers.

Ok, so I wax dramatic. I used to have a curious attraction to grocery stores. There was something meditative about going through the aisles, in looking at the organized arrangements of brightly colored produce, the vast array of foodstuffs. But lately I’ve started to feel like a monkey in a cage when I walk into the glaring arena of food consumerism. I can only eat what’s offered, and most of it is worthless, or at best marginally useful to my body.

I still don’t have a solution to the meat dilemma, but at least I can rely on the bustle of the farmer’s market and the chaos of my own garden to provide me with the fresh produce I need. The interaction with people, the touch of living plants and the smell of rich, healthy soil: these are good healing medicines as well. It is delightful, joyful medicine that I wish more people could experience. Hopefully I can begin to share it more with others, and they can get a glimmer of what they might be missing out on.

Plant Profile: Lemon Thyme

admin — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 18:13:14 +0000

Lemon Thyme (Thymus citriodorus variegata)

Thymus citriodorus variegata

Lemon thyme is one of my go-to plants in the garden. The variagated variety has beautiful foliage, the smell and flavor of the leaves are wonderful and it tolerates a wide range of growing conditions. In the ideal setting it would prefer well drained soil and full sun. However, the plant pictured above is in a moderate amount of shade (it gets about 2-3 hours of noon sun) and has grown well over the six months since I propogated it from my original plant.

It is drought tolerant, and in my experience lemon thyme tolerates a fair amount of abuse as well. I have moved the original plant after it was established. I have divided it twice. On a couple occasions after accidentally pulling off some woody material, I just treated the accident like a start and stuck it into soil, kept it moist and viola, I had a new thyme plant! Very easy to propagate. The picture below is the original plant. It is looking leggy right now, but that is most likely due to the fact that it is winter and it is still recovering from getting moved in fall. Come spring if I keep it trimmed down (very likely since I use it constantly), it will gain a nice compact, bushy form about 6″ to 8″ high.

Lemon Thyme (Thymus citriodorus variegata) in February after two rough years (still looking pretty good!)

Ornamental Uses

Lemon thyme has a semi-creeping upright growth habit and will form a low mound as it matures. The young leaves are bright lime green, they then turn to a darker green and ultimately mature (about a year later) into the variegated foliage. It is a beautiful accent plant, useful in borders and is great in a rock garden. If there were a perfect place to put lemon thyme, it would be at the edge of a waist-high rock wall. Its colors would make it pop out against the stone and the leaves just beg to be touched and smelled. You can see in a couple of these pictures, the dark greens and bright yellows are a nice contrast to the bamboo border of one of my beds. It is also a useful companion plant for vegetables, as the oils in thymus spp. discourage some pests and inhibit harmful bacteria and fungi.

Culinary Uses

Anywhere that you use mint, try using lemon thyme either as a substitute or as a complimentary flavor. Also, for dishes that ask for thyme, you might try using lemon thyme instead. It has a very unique flavor and I like throwing a few leaves of it into practically anything because it brings an interesting accent flavor. Best of all though, it is wonderful in herbal teas. I make a mint, sage, basil, thyme and green tea fusion that is probably one of my favorite drinks ever. As one of the “world’s healthiest foods“, you can’t go wrong!

Lemon Thyme (Thymus citriodorus variegata)

For more information on thymes in general you can check out this article . There are many varieties of thyme, each with their own unique characteristics and flavor. It is definitely a plant worth experimenting with.

garden snapshots

admin — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 18:02:50 +0000

An innocent start to the year. It all began with some herbs a few zucchini and tomatoes

Big changes are afoot, August saw the addition of a hugelkultur bed by the patio. Beneath the bark mulch lie two shallow trenches (maybe 12" to 18" deep?) with young cypress that were cut down next door. On top of the trenches is a light sheet mulch with manure, cardboard, an inch or two of yard waste and the bark on top. Now, how do I keep these furry garden pests from destroying too much?

The "hugelbed" in January 2009. Planted with garlic, thyme, brown arrow lettuce (outside the photo frame) and some ornamental annuals that stuck around. It doesn't get very much sun right now (a couple hours at best) but the plants seem to be doing well, except for the lantanas which had to be moved to sunnier pasture. In the background you can see the main garden taking shape. Somehow, I trained the dogs to stay out of the hugelbed (so far anyway), yet they continually find ways to get into The Lab and dig!

January 2009 Work in progress (isn't it always!). This is "The Lab", my main garden. I am trying different experiments within The Lab areas. A biointensive bed lies beneath the clover and other cover crops. Off to the left is a section that I am reserving as my "what would nature do" plot in which I simply try to mimic nature's patterns in my garden. I intend to pattern it off of the edge between a forest and meadow, in which plants are kept down by "grazing", mulched by leaves and other forest debris and receive the occasional deposits from "flooding" (i.e. composting) in my little ecosystem. I intend not to till that area if at all possible. Should be interesting. Oh! And right next to the compost bin I am trying to cultivate mushrooms (Hypsizygus ulmarius "Garden Patch")! I hope it works.

My first soil blocks to start out the new year. Can't wait to see what this year holds!