Lonesome Dove

I'm lucky enough to have a mini wildlife refuge of sorts right outside my office window. Besides the tangled underbrush, it consists of an old weathered bird feeder where a dozen or more species of birds fight all day over the right to gorge, a raised bed of cheery lantana flowers made from a sawed off palm oil drum where colorful butterflies flutter by...and a beautiful teal bird bath that my husband gave me for Mother's Day.

I've been watching this family of 4 inca doves for a few weeks now. They seemed inseparable, real birds of a feather. Every time I spotted them I'd get all warm and fuzzy inside. You know, peace and love and all that. But today....I noticed there were only 3! I scoured the surrounding brush to see if maybe one of them was just being shy, but sadly

numero quatro was nowhere to be found.

Since doves travel in pairs, I can't help but wonder which one of them is terribly lonesome now. My heart goes out to it. Life is indeed fragile. Be sure you hug the ones you love today.

Stalking the Wild Dayflower

Commelina species also provide delightful greens. Use the leaves, stems and flower parts of the tender young plants. The crisp plants have a pleasant distinctive flavor. Clip off the stems above ground. Chop them up, and add them raw to salads, soups, stews, and sauteed vegetable dishes. The greens need only about 10 minutes of cooking. Unlike most wild greens, these greens do not become bitter with age. On older plants the stems become tough, but the leaves usually remain tender. Commelina blooms in the fall as well as the spring and summer. Dayflowers grow in a variety of habitats. Look for them on stream banks, in rich woods, or as weeds in gardens and along roadsides. (excerpts taken from Edible and Useful Plants of Texas and the Southwest by Delena Tull)

Dayflower Do's & Don'ts

For as long as I've lived here in central Texas, I can remember these fragile blue blossoms popping up during the late spring and early summer. Commelina erecta is known as a dayflower because its blooms last for only a day so don't expect it to be around forever. I found this one growing next to the soap shop about a month ago and quickly snapped this pic with my iPhone, so forgive me if it's a little blurry. When I checked on it yesterday I found that it had succumbed to the stifling 111 degree heat and lack of rain, but because it's a hardy perennial, I trust it will be back next year when the conditions are right.

Starchy dayflower root tubers are edible when cooked, but supposedly have a fairly bland flavor. What I find most interesting is that plants of this genus are used as an anti-inflammatory balm by orangutans! Humans also grind it into a balm and apply it to their skin to treat muscular pain, sore bones, and swellings. The mucilaginous sap can be made into a salve and used to ease skin irritations. Modern research has shown Commelina extract to possess antibacterial properties as well.

Happiness is...

gazing upon one of the mammoth 12 inch sunflowers that grace the outer edges of our summer garden. Radiating joy and eternal sunshine, they seem to be smiling down upon all the vegetables...defying the intense Texas heat. Their usefulness and symmetrical beauty has been unsurpassed.

Native to the Americas, the prolific sunflower represented the image of the ancient Sun God. Its ability to grow in the direction of the sun is known as heliotropism. The sunflower's cheery presence and nutritious edible seeds have been enjoyed by humans for more than 4,000 years. Sunflower seeds have long been prized for their oil content and research is currently being carried out to refine the oil for use as a bio-diesel fuel.

The dried plant can be steeped and the tea added to bathwater for relief of arthritis. Sunflower tea has also been used as a diuretic and expectorant, and the leaves have been smoked like tobacco.

Rich in fatty acids, sunflower oil is loaded with vitamins A, D & E and has been used extensively in the cosmetic industry. It's light texture is easily absorbed by the skin making it useful for topical skin care applications. We use high oleic sunflower oil in our natural soaps from the wild for these same reasons.

All this aside, I just enjoy the incredibly happy feeling I get when I see a giant sunflower. Even the smaller native ones put a smile on my face and a song in my heart. Have you hugged your sunflower today? :o)

Summer Squash or Graceful Swan?

OK, this is not really a native plant....but it's grown by a native, so doesn't that qualify? This is an heirloom Italian summer squash that's going crazy in our garden right now! It's called Tromboncino or Rampicante Zucchetta (Cucurbita moschata). They can grow up to 3 feet long! They curl up on themselves and they bruise easily, making them harder to store and impractical for shipping, but they're heavy producers and I recommend you give them a try.

The flavor is subtle and interesting... slightly buttery and lightly nutty. We like them much better than zucchini. Tromboncino can be used in all the same ways and it's 90% seedless since all of the seeds are located in the bulb on the end. I like the seedy parts but not everyone does I guess. Tromboncino freezes well after blanching and stays firmer than zucchini.

Go here for a delicious summer squash recipe and here to buy seeds of this unusual heirloom vegetable.

Toxic Beauty

These little red beauties have been blooming all over our property lately. Some common names are rouge plant, coralito, small pokeweed and pigeonberry. They're pretty unique in that they have pale pink flowers and bear the beautiful scarlet fruits shown here simultaneously. This one is on it's way out due to lack of water so the flowers are gone.

All parts of the Rivinus humilis are considered toxic if ingested or absorbed through open wounds on the skin. Apparantly this didn't prevent ancient peoples from using this plant to color their cheeks, hence the name rouge plant. Personally, I think I'd have stuck to the pale snowy maiden look. Other uses for this low growing perennial include as an ink and a natural dye. They are a delicacy for many species of birds as well.

I don't think I'll try to make soap with this one. I like feeling healthy, vibrant ... and alive.

Dye It, You'll Like It!

By combining a carefree solar technique with easy tie dye instructions, you can make a Coreopsis tinctoria t-shirt like we did in my summer camp class for kids several years ago. Instead of store bought dye, use as much freshly gathered dye plant material as you can fit into the jar (along with your t shirt). For a stronger color, use pickling alum that you get at the grocery store, vinegar, or salt for mordants that are safe to use with children. Additional information about dye techniques and other native plants to try can be found in Delena Tull's excellent book Edible and Useful Plants of Texas and the Southwest. Remember to gather native plant's responsibly by removing no more than 1/3 of the available plants and never gather plants that are on the "at risk" or "to watch" lists.

Is Coreopsis soap to dye for? NOT

This is the Coreopsis tinctoria test soap that I told you about yesterday. Notice the beautiful golden yellow color! The lighting is kind of bad here so this photo doesn't do it justice. I was pretty psyched. So I covered it up and put it to sleep.












Here's what I came back to the next morning... ugh.












I unmolded it, then reluctantly cut into the ugly beast and here's what I saw...hmmm... not bad. Pretty interesting actually.













But this is the final drab color (I think) after being in the drying room for a couple of days.












It's somewhere between the color of that dirty dish rag that you mopped up the spilled coffee with mixed with that lovely shade of doggie doo that you stepped on in the front yard this morning. Yuck. Time to move on.

Coreopsis tinctoria is to dye for!

This beautiful flower is blanketing the field across from our soap shop right now, so naturally, I had to look into its uses. I knew it was a dye plant because I taught a summer class for kids once and we tie dyed t-shirts with it. Do you remember wrapping all those rubberbands around the fabric? As I recall, we used alum for the mordant and the shirts turned out a beautiful peachy shade. So yesterday I whipped up a test batch of soap to see if I could get the same results. The soap was a gorgeous rich golden yellow when I poured it, but we'll see what happens as I unmold it and it ages. Natural colorants are very unpredictable in cold process soap.

I found a report that American Indians used Coreopsis root tea for diarrhea and as an emetic. The dried tops were brewed into a tea to strengthen the blood and the boiled plant makes a red drink for internal pains and bleeding. I also discovered that the whole plant was used at one time as a coffee substitute.

Coreopsis is a showy annual native that blooms here in Texas in April, May and June. After that, there usually isn't sufficient rainfall to sustain it.