Rebecca Blake

When I was visiting my relative who fell off a cliff I happened to have a bottle of verbena tincture with me, so I gave it to him before I left.

I wasn't originally planning on giving him some but after I spoke with him I learned he had a damaged nerve in his face and I thought the verbena might help since it's a nervine.

We of course can't say whether it expedited his healing or not, but the nerves were doing much better after. I also have no idea how often he took the tincture, but I do know he was taking it.
(It was a local variety: Glandularia Bipinnatifida)

The more commercially available verbena would be Blue Vervain (Verbena Hastata)

Here's an article on other herbs for nerve damage you may enjoy reading up on

On Blue vervain it says:

Blue vervain (Verbena Hastata) is used to strengthen and regenerate the nervous system while relieving tension and stress.

Of course... NURSERY PLANTS!

My birthday was not long ago and my husband came home with some 'random flower' from the nursery. He didn't realize it was one of my favorite medicinal herbs! Echinacea!

Nicky Schauder wrote:And honestly, cancer or no cancer, we want to know what the changes we need to make are.
And For what its worth, we're including your healing in our family prayers.

I want to join the forum for this exact reason.. and to maybe join the support group of making positive change in our lives.

Paul mentioned light above. I KNOW I need more organic light in my life but it's just so hard for me to actually do. Dealing with my own chronic issues (luckily, on and off rather than just a constant flow of bleh) I'm sure much of what's going down in the support forum would help myself.

I presume these would not be considered safe for cosleeping?

I am intrigued; however, the whole reason I need a new mattress is because I need something less soft for the baby.

Do people find just a pillow assists in better sleep? The aforementioned baby has turned me into a night time contortionist and my body aches as a consequence!

A pillow probably won't resolve that, but I am still curious.

I just realized, we got flower seeds from someone a year ago and I think it may had included hollyhock. I personally didn't plant any but my 5 year old can sometimes go rogue and do whatever so maybe she planted it here!

Considering I'm not growing much of anything this year... she's a better gardener than me lately lol

Maieshe Ljin wrote:That looks very much like a volunteer ornamental, double-petalled hollyhock. I don’t know Texas flora so you may want to double check. Like most mallows the young growth is edible.

If it's of the mallow family, is it medicinal like mallow?

I honestly know nothing about hollyhock nor why one would be envious of it volunteering in my vegetable garden! Still glad I left it and let it grow to maturity :)

I had this mystery plant growing in my vegetable garden. I am unsure if it was a seed I planted in a previous season and forgot about or just some random volunteer. At first it looked kind of like a squash to me, then like okra, and now that it flowered I have no idea. Can anyone help me ID it?

Jeff,

I've enjoyed reading about your dreams and what you're doing to help it become a reality!

I just wanted to give you a little nudge of hope so you know it is not dangerous to be optimistic :)

I love optimism, I think it must be why my husband married me. He can be a pessimist at times.

Speaking of whom, when we got married we set our sights on purchasing land for our 10th anniversary. The plan looked something like buying a cheap(er) fixer upper, living there, fixing it, saving as much money as we could (which would not have been much at first given our circumstance and cost of living where we are), and selling the home we fixed up to purchase land.

Well, three years later we purchased land around our 3rd anniversary!

And this is something I didn't think would be possible until more like our 10th anniversary :)

We've had the land for 3 years now. Unfortunately, we are not living on that land yet but we do have a house underway and should be moving in this summer.

Our 10 year dream has become a 6.5 year reality.

Someone with your kind of plan could had moved in sooner. We're building a standard small home and it costs a gajillion dollars to build anything around here, especially post covid.

If you intend to keep your girl by your side in all this I highly recommend setting it in stone (like, a literal stone i.e. ring... granted it doesn't have to be stone) and dreaming and doing together. Being long distance is a strain to a relationship so if she isn't completely on board with what you are doing then the stress compounds. You mentioned a lot about what you are doing and dreaming but given what she is studying she'll likely want to pursue a career after college... would you be willing to move for her job? This doesn't mean you can't go to Virginia, but just something you may want to discuss with her. If you would need to move for her job then you can always sell whatever you have going in Virginia and start fresh elsewhere, as you alluded to.

Also, I don't particularly mean marriage, just an engagement if it seems appropriate. I of course have no insight into your relationship and how long you've been together so an engagement could be inappropriate right now.

I'd have to literally import material to make a good hugelkultur as the local trees here do not decompose well. That is why I don't have one nor plan on making one anytime soon.

If one of our oak trees fall one day maybe I will give it a try.

Chuck Boyd wrote:My understanding is that Bocking 14 is sterile and does not produce seeds.

Welcome, Chuck, to the forum!

I didn't even know comfrey came in such varieties before you revived this thread. Wonder what mine isI Like KC Simmons, I just got mine from the local nursery and it was labeled "Comfrey".