It's been a beautiful, busy summer- too busy to blog much in-fact! Its been full of travel, harvesting & medicine-making, time with my daughters and family, swim-dates, and teaching.

It's that special time of year again when the Valley is awash with the scent of Wild Rose (Rosa Multiflora). Have you been lucky enough to catch it wafting on the wind like thick perfume?

Violet Oil is one of the first herbal infused oils I ever made...my first apprenticeship was with Tonya Lemos at Blazing Star Herb School dove deep into this herb.

Medicinal mushrooms are so abundant here in the Northeast, and Chaga (Inonotus obliquus) is definitely one of my favorites. Last weekend we were out on an early spring walk and I was so thrilled to find Chaga so close to home!

Gomasio is a traditional condiment traditional in Japanese cuisine. Its rich base of roasted sesame seeds and seaweed provides a perfect canvas for blending other delicious and medicinal seeds that cross easily over into the "food as medicine " realm.

This is the time of year here in New England when we all longingly look out our windows yearning for spring! To me it's all so visceral and wrapped-up in the senses- the smell of mud and the earth waking-up, the colors (forsythia! daffodils! lilacs! red maple buds!), the feel of my feet squishing into a thawing earth, the sharp tastes of the earliest spring chives and garlic leaves.

Making wild salad can easily become a cherished spring ritual.  It’s relaxing and fun, and I’d say that collecting your dinner is a medicinal act in itself, not to mention the benefits of eating it! And while of course many wild foods are in season from spring through fall, there's something about the exuberance of the spring and the undeniable vitality of the plants right now that makes the spring my favorite season to imbibe in wild foods.  And when we make dishes with raw wild greens we've foraged or even picked from our gardens or bought at local farmers markets, we're infusing our microbiome with our bioregional, wild microbial "terroir” present on the leaf surface of these plants.

We've had a great growing season here at Milk & Honey Herbs- it was our first year providing the community with potent, live medicinal plants! Our plant list is growing every day and we look forward to another exciting year of growth for the nursery in 2014.

When we eat in a disturbed or busy environment, on the run, driving, or when we’re stressed, angry, or upset, we cannot adequately digest our food and receive the most nutritionally from our meal!