Wild Wanderflower Wellness Homestead

It’s been a while since our last post! We’ve had a few life twists, turns and setbacks but we are pushing through it all! Thank you for keeping up with us as we enjoy sharing our holistic wildness 😁

Enjoyed a quick wild garden wander, and grabbed a tiny harvest from our blueberry bushes and Little Miss figgys in the rain before we get slammed with possibly 9” inches of rainfall and a little wind from Tropical Storm Debby!

Our bananas 🍌 are extremely happy with all this tropical weather with a slight peek of the sun!

Our heavenly smelling native passion fruit is flowering and can’t wait to harvest the juicy deliciousness packed with a ton of vitamin C, peace and calmness 😌☮️

Good vibes 😎 while weathering the storm, warming our bellies with homemade quinoa vegan, gluten-free crockpot chili 🌶️ 😋 and working on updating our website!

Happy harvests, peace, love and hippyness, you wild soulflowers! 🩷🌻

If only I wore shoes lol….. I’m barefoot most of the time 😍👣

🌱🫚HAPPY HARVEST! Unearthed my purrrty little lovely pink baby ginger harvest from the food forest today before the freeze. Sad that it didn’t get to finish flowering as the flower is beautiful and so tropical looking! 🌸

It was a small harvest however I’m totally blessed and grateful for one of my favorite garden experience this year and can’t wait to overwinter and replant a few for next year.

We will be using the roots, stems, and leaves for teas and freezing a few for cooking with grated ginger! 🙌🌿💚🫚 Going to be making a ginger stem syrup as well. You do NOT have to peel it! Super fresh, wild medicinal herbal wellness right on time for the season.

What is your favorite way you like to enjoy Ginger?

Peachy keen! 🍑 😂😋 We are so delighted and over the moon to see this! Y’all we planted this little Dwarf Elberta Peach Tree in our food forest Wild Wanderflower Wellness Homestead directly under an Oak Tree in December and look at her wildness now! ☀️Soaking up the summer sunshine and ripening with radiance. Patiently waiting to taste the sweetness. 🌿🍃

Simply joyful 😀 We are working on filling in the guild around our fruit trees. Currently we have bee balm, echinacea, garlic chives, comfrey, borage, blueberry bushes, strawberries and a few volunteer Jerusalem artichokes. ❤️🌱

Yep! She’s a soulflower amongst the wildflowers….🌸 🌻🌼🥀🌹🌷🪷 - Wild Wanderflower Wellness Homestead

🌿 WILD SAGE! 🌿 - aka Cancerweed! We happily discovered this native wild native plant recently during our New Moon nature walk in our woods along our creek bed here on our homestead! It wasn’t in its flowering phase yet, but the contrast in colors of the leaves sparked my attention! It was very low to the ground just like a ground cover. Great alternative to Ajuga BugleW**d!

It’s always exciting and joyful to learn about the wild herbs, medicinals and edibles on our property daily. We will be wandering back today to see what blooming surprises we might find! 😁

Lyreleaf Sage or Cancer W**d (Salvia lyrata) is blooming now in roadsides, yards, and woodlands. It’s native to the eastern US and is pollinated by eastern carpenter bees and leafcutter bees. Its name comes from the resemblance of the lobed leaves to a lyre, a harp-like musical instrument. Some people encourage the growth of this perennial in their yard as an alternative or native supplement to a traditional grass lawn. Lyreleaf Sage can form dense stands of evergreen ground cover and it tolerates mowing well.

You may be wondering why it’s called Cancerweed. Some plants in the genus Salvia have a long history of medicinal use. The genus name comes from the Latin ‘salveo’ meaning to heal (e.g. a salve). In the case of Cancerweed, it was once thought that it could be a cure for skin sores and even skin cancer.

🙌✌️🌿 There are no garden mistakes, only experiments and experience! 😁👩‍🌾🪴

Nature's lab: where every gardener blossoms through trial & growth...🌱🔬🌸 Have a great weekend, fellow gardeners and plant lovers ❣❣❣

📷 Sandia Seed Company

🌿🌼Dandelion Capers! 🌼🌿 Foraging wild early spring goodness in abundance in your own backyard!

Dandelion capers can be fermented just like pickles and are packed full of trace minerals, calcium, and iron, and vitamins A, C, and B6!

What are some ways you use wild dandelions?

https://www.matthewwoodinstituteofherbalism.com/pages/blog?p=dandelion-capers

🌸🌿 Fruit flower Blossoms from our recently dormant, bare-root planted peach, and pear trees along with more blueberry + blackberry bushes in our food forest! Patiently waiting for our plum and apple trees to bloom. So much joy and gratefulness! 🌿🌸 Spring is near! ☀️

Winter Bloomer!! It was beautiful, slightly breezy and cool sunny day today wandering our medicinal gardens. We planted a few more fruit trees and blueberry bushes, planned/designed a few more forest layers, installed a rain chain system to help with the flow of our rainwater run-off from our roof until we can get our rain barrel harvesting system installed and peeked through our seeds collection deciding on what to plant now.

What a nice wild dazzling discovery this morning of my first lovely flower blooms of the new year! Ozark Witch Hazel. It sure is ringing in 2023 with fragrant little streams of gorgeous red and orange fireworks and many more coming! 😁 So pretty 😍

Loving this new eco-friendly idea of using seeding starting trays made with only two ingredients from Mycelium and H**p Hurd!!

🍄Very cool and interesting! Kinda hoping they make larger and deeper ones to sustain the growth of the plants before transplanting! 🍄

Mycelium composites are 100% plastic and chemical-free, water-resistant, and insulating. Most importantly, they are home-compostable. In 45 days, the composted mycelium trays will bring nutrients back into your garden, allowing those seeds to flourish in their environment.

Credit: Nelson Esseveld and .bio

Interesting perspective! Typically we only discuss the 7-Layers of a Permaculture Food Forest, however, here is talk about 9-Layers including the MYCELIAL/FUNGAL Layer.

We here at, Wild + Wanderful Homestead, are so grateful to now have all 9-layers of our small wild edible food forest. The hard-work and love we pour into our little plantuary space of paradise each day continues to bring joy and improve these ecological layers day by day. One of our goals for Spring is to fill in more of our ground cover layer, herbaceous and vertical layers.

Looking forward to sharing some updated photos soon!

1. Canopy/Tall Tree Layer
2. Sub-Canopy/Large Shrub Layer
3. Shrub Layer
4. Herbaceous Layer
5. Groundcover/Creeper Layer
6. Underground Layer
7. Vertical/Climber Layer
8. Aquatic/Wetland Layer
9. Mycelial/Fungal Layer

https://tcpermaculture.com/site/2013/05/27/nine-layers-of-the-edible-forest-garden/

🐜🌹🌸🌼🌺🌻🌷🥀🪷🐜

Can’t believe my Holy Basil “Tulsi” is still blooming beautifully!! 🌱 It has been blooming for many months. I think it started blooming way before spring! We still have many plants still luscious green and going strong. Now patiently waiting for my fall/winter goodies to produce 😁

It is a very aromatic, healing adaptogenic, anti-microbial, spiritual and medicinal herbal plant. It smells like a mixture of clove, licorice, cinnamon, and citrus! One of my favorite plants I grow! ❤️

We mostly use it in tea, but you can also use it as infused honey, syrup, elixirs, tinctures, vinegars, lotions, soaks, and food/drink recipes.

Show me in the comments what blooms you are still enjoying!!

✨🌿🌙

Heal yourself with the light of the sun and the rays of the moon. With the sound of the river and the waterfall.
With the swaying of the sea and the fluttering of birds.
Heal yourself with mint, neem, and eucalyptus.
Sweeten with lavender, rosemary, and chamomile.
Hug yourself with the cocoa bean and a hint of cinnamon.
Put love in tea instead of sugar and drink it looking at the stars. Heal yourself with the kisses that the wind gives you and the hugs of the rain.
Stand strong with your bare feet on the ground and with everything that comes from it.
Be smarter every day by listening to your intuition, looking at the world with your forehead.
Jump, dance, sing, so that you live happier.
Heal yourself, with beautiful love, and always remember: you are the medicine. --Maria Sabina

Art | Catriz Welz-Stein (https://www.catrinwelzstein.com/)"

Yes! So much this! ❤️Plants are Life! 🫶🙌 🌳🌴🌿 We just planted and overwintered a few more banana plants today! Technically banana plants are NOT trees, but, rather an herbaceous herb and the bananas are the berries!

🌳🌳🌳

DIY natural organic pest spray recycled with plants from your garden!

https://youtu.be/GKwFQoBftLA

Hobby Farm Gardening: Organic Pest Spray Chef Q is in the garden today mixing up an organic pest spray that anyone can make from common ingredients easily grown in a kitchen garden.4 C of Water4 C o...

W O O D L A R K I N G.....To answer to the call of the wild, to wander in the woods, and forage for useful things in witchcraft. 🌱🌿🤣🙃

Our first Passionflower bloomed today on the new moon and the bees love it!! I do think the bee has been busy pollinating some of the flowers are drooping but thankful we may actually get fruit! 😍🌸Absolutely beautiful, breathtaking and divine nature at its finest. This flower is totally speaking to my soul and bringing so much joy, happiness and gratitude to my heart. ❤️💕💜💗💛💚❣️

The fragrance is so mesmerizing! It’s here to remind me of my passions, patience, purposes and pursuits and to stay true to yourself and your own path. Keep moving forward.

This wild soulflower only blooms for one day And that no matter what you may be going through at any given time, there is always an ebb to the flow that which bring light after darkness, a regrowth after a setback. ☯️Peace, Love, and Hippyness. ❤️

Plants are life! 🪴🌿🌱

Our first Passionflower (maypop/passiflora incarnata) bloomed today on the new moon and the bees love it!! I do think the bee has been busy pollinating some of the flowers are dropping but thankful we may actually get fruit! 😍🌸Absolutely beautiful, exotic, breathtaking and divine nature at its finest. This flower is totally speaking to my soul and bringing so much joy, happiness and gratitude to my heart. ❤️💕💜💗💛💚❣️

The fragrance is so mesmerizing! It’s here to remind me of my passions, patience, purposes and pursuits and to stay true to yourself and your own path. Keep moving forward.

This wild soulflower only blooms for one day. And no matter what you may be going through at any given time, there is always an ebb to the flow that which bring light after darkness, a regrowth after a setback, and timeless moments to enjoy. ☯️Peace, Love, and Hippyness. ❤️

Plants are life! 🪴🌿🌱

Very beneficial and surprising use for tomato leaves I never knew!!! Has anyone tried this remedy?

https://www.ruralsprout.com/summer-tomato-pruning/

The Importance of Late Summer Tomato Pruning + 2 Cool Ways to Use Tomato Leaves For the best fall harvest, prune your tomatoes in the late summer. But hang on to those tomato leaves, they can be used in two great ways!

So pretty, edible and so very useful medicinally!!! Can’t wait until ours blooms!!

Did you know that radish seed pods are edible? They're deliciously crunchy right off the stalk
https://www.marysheirloomseeds.com/collections/heirloom-radish

Natural Plant cordage!! Nature provides so much for us!

Incredible plant cordage collection by Suzie Grieve.
These corded bundles are just one example of how we can work with plants for function AND beauty. Don't they steal your heart?! 💖
Often cordage is made using bark, bast (inner bark), and stem fibers, as these tend to be quite strong. Plants used here:
~ spider plant
~ willow herb
~ crocosmia
~ yellow flag iris
~ wild garlic stem
~ nettle
~ dandelion
~ wild rose
~ h**p
~ winter heliotrope
~ linden
~ soft rush
~ day lily
~ willow
~ cattail/reedmace
~ hops
~ lesser burdock
~ grape hyacinth
~ horse radish
~ rhubarb
~ corn husk
~ peace lily
~ evening primrose
~ honeysuckle
~ leek
~ bramble
~ h**p leaved agrimony
~ clematis
~ dracaena
~ daffodil
If you love botanical crafts and basketry, check out on Instagram. Suzie crafts the most exquisite tiny baskets I've ever seen!
📷 by Suzie Grieve