Dandelion: Sparkling Wine
Dandelion wine. “The words were summer on the tongue. The wine was summer caught and stoppered.” Ray Bradbury, the great science fiction writer, was a man who knew how to appreciate summer. And he really knew how to appreciate dandelions:”A pride of lions on the lawn.” To make dandelion wine, you need the full-blown blossoms. What’s more, you have to harvest the flowers when they’re open. Since dandelion flowers close up tight on cloudy or rainy days, you have no choice but to wait for sunshine. All recipes for dandelion wine agree that you have to pick...
Read MoreCan You Eat Poison Ivy?
In my poison ivy research I keep running into the old belief that eating a leaf of poison ivy every day in the spring will make you immune to the itch.
Read MoreIs A Tomato A Fruit Or A Vegetable?
Is a tomato a fruit or a vegetable? The answer to this question is easy. It just happens to change every time someone asks it.
Read MorePoison Ivy: Spring Flowers
“Poison ivy” and “flowers” are words that don’t seem to fit in the same sentence. Yes. Poison ivy has flowers. Dainty and delicate, lovely flowers that, yes, will give you a lovely rash if you’re allergic to urushiol, the irritating chemical found in almost all parts of the poison ivy plant. Poison ivy flowers are rich in nectar and very attractive to bees. Fortunately for honey-lovers, there’s no urushiol in poison ivy nectar or pollen, so eating poison ivy honey is not a problem. In fact, if you like honey, you’ve probably eaten poison ivy nectar many times....
Read MoreGroundsel: A Little Poison
Groundsel. A tiny plant, growing close to the ground. A dandelion relative, a hardy little plant, able to cope with the forbidding habitat of the Price Chopper parking lot. Common Groundsel is a European plant, (Senecia vulgaris) like so many that sneaked over centuries ago. The word groundsel is very ancient—the first recorded use of the word is before the 12th century, and it was probably used well before that. It’s such a humble plant, you’d think it hardly worth mentioning. Wikipedia describes it as a plant that’s “easy not to notice.” The name comes from ground Old...
Read MoreWild Thyme: Bee Harvest
Funds are tight everywhere these days, and one thing that must have gotten slashed from the budget of the Florida, NY Town Hall is mowing. Of course there’s not a lot of lawn to mow in front of the town hall, it’s just a tiny oval island of green in a sea of blacktop. Usually it’s scalped into a brutally short crew cut, but this year they’ve let it run wild. Which is to say, the grass must be quite two inches long. And intermixed with the grass are several large purple patches of thyme. Lying on my stomach on this sun-warmed savory blanket, I can see the honeybees bumbling around among...
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