Some of My Favorite Wildflowers

I was beginning to think that this year of very strange weather was going to take a toll on the wild flowers. Several of my favorites seem to have disappeared this year. However, this week three of my favorites are blooming at last - anywhere from two weeks to six weeks late - but blooming none the less.

One of my favorites is Greater Blue Lobelia. It seems to prefer moist soil and some shade though I've seen it blooming in the cow pastures in full sun. It is usually blooming here in August.

Another favorite is wild White Aster. It reminds you a little of Baby's Breathe. It's one of the plants that likes fence rows so I am always careful not to cut it down. The same goes for the Golden Rod. Both of these are good dye plants. White Aster gives a soft clear yellow with an alum mordant (fixative). Golden Rod is a brassy yellow.

The last of the three to bloom is the Purple Aster. I always love to see the fence rows full of Golden Rod and Purple Aster with the White Aster underneath. Both the Purple Aster and the Golden Rod are tall, while the White Aster is shorter.

An update on the cider. My sister and I decided we might just try pressing only one or two gallons as apples are expensive and it takes a bushel or so to get a gallon.  We can go to Irons Fruit Farm which is next door to us and get their cider blend of apples to press our own cider. They make really good cider but the law now makes them pasteurize it. I suppose that's the best thing to do now days since we have so much wildlife poohing all over the place.  Irons wash their apples thoroughly, but its better to be safe than sorry. We will wash our apples as well, we always do, and we've never had any problems. And too, if we make it into hard cider the alcohol will kill any bacteria.

When I was a kid we went over to Iron's to get cider every fall. We'd bring our own jugs or they would provide one. Leon's sister would be sitting inside the big old barn up against the wall where there was a tap in the wall. You gave her your jug and she opened the tap to fill the jug with fresh sweet apple cider. That was the best thing in the world!  It's still good, but not as good as that fresh raw cider way back when. Hopefully my sister and I can come close with our cider. Our mother reminds us that back in the 1950's was a time of DDT and consequently we didn't have the wildlife we have now.  I'll take the wildlife anytime and be glad we have forstalled the "Silent Spring".

Cider Wine

I subscribe to "Early American Life" magazine and "Organic Gardening" magazine. EAL is all about 18th and early 19th century antiques, houses, and well, articles about early American life. This month's issues of both magazine have articles about cider - not sweet cider like you get at your good apple orchard farm, but what we in this country call hard cider or cider that has an alcohol content. Since these are two widely diverse magazines in general content I found it very interesting that both had articles on this relatively unknown product in the United States.  Am I sensing a trend?

The EAL article talked a lot about the history of cider as a drink in this country. It was fairly common in the "old days" as it was a safe liquid for all members of the family to consume - especially when water supplies were easily contaminated and apples were easy to grow. Thomas Jefferson grew specific apples for cider, one of which was a large fruit crab apple called Hewes Crab.  This sounds like a great apple to add to the my orchard so I'll be on the hunt for it this fall.

You could press your own cider or you could take it to a cider mill, store it in wooden barrels and let the natural wild yeasts turn your cider into what is, based on the alcohol content of about 7%, cider wine.

Our family has a home cider press and we regularly press a few gallons each fall. We drink it sweet and quickly freeze what we can't drink because we don't want it to "turn".  Now in my experience, if I forget a jug of cider in the back of the frig it tends to go to vinegar, not cider wine. I keep thinking its "turning" to vinegar, but maybe it's really making alcohol. I think I need to experiment a little.

I'll keep you posted.

Wildflowers

Its been an unusual weather year with too much rain in the spring and now early cool temperatures in September. Many of the wildflowers I usually see throughout the spring and summer made no appearance this year, so I was glad to see the golden rod, the wild white aster and the Jerusalem artichoke this month.  In fact, the stands of these flowers seem more lush than usual. The one fall wildflower I've not seen  yet is the purple aster, but it often blooms later in September, so I hold out hope for it.

I keep a copy of Robert Henn's "Wildflowers of Ohio" book on hand and like to see how many wildflowers I can find. It's a great book with color pictures.  However, not everything is included in the book so I am on the hunt for additional sources. For example, this year I found a sweet smelling blooming vine in among the asparagus. It had little white flowers with a light sweet scent.  I consulted Henn's book and thought it might be Virgin's Bower, but now with it setting a large seed pod that looks a lot like a milk weed pod, I am not sure.  If any of you have any please let me know.

Many of the fall wildflowers are classified as weeds, though some of them are really quite pretty. Golden Rod is one of those. It also gets a bad rap because a lot of people find its irratates their hay fever. Some sources say Golden Rod isn't the culprit, its rag weed.  I remember bringing a big bouquet of Golden Rod into the house once and my sister immediately started sneezing, so I'm pretty sure its a hay fever plant, though maybe not so bad if its kept outside. According to Henn, Ohio is home to several different species of Golden Rod and if you check out the fall perennial plant catalogs you will find Golden Rod listed as a garden plant.

All of our garden plants were wild plants originally. Somewhere along the way they caught the attention of plant enthusiasts who selectively bred them for various reasons. The herbs, vegetables and flowers we purchase and spend hours nurturing in our gardens all are the progeny of ancient wild things.