From a generous gardener in the neighborhood…
To a creative gardencentric therapist…
whose sign I found posted on the “community board” at Flatbush Food Co-op on Cortelyou…
To Friday night mighty jazz jam sessions at Williamsburg Music Center at Bedford & S. 5th (it’s a non-profit org founded and run by the amazingly talented and community focused, greener-than-green thumb, Jerry Eastman)….
To blueberry cake in the fridge when I get home, to be married with the most delectable ice cream anywhere to be found (a sinful scoop each of Brooklyn Bell’s brown sugar whiskey vanilla and BB’s black chocolate) …
Sour cream and maple frosting topping it in and off…
To the sunlight through the edible leaves…
To sage to burn (or smudge) to keep out pests (mosquitoes detest this) and establish harmony in the heart and home….
To Wednesday morning jazz and eggs to break Tuesday’s fast. Topped with herbs from the garden…
May you welcome summer this week with a celebration of all your tools of healing, peace and power.
revelgardener 
I don’t think I’ve heard of burning sage for bugs before. I don’t have much sage growing or I would try it. I should start to dry some wormwood leaves. Supposedly it’s dried out leaves keep bugs away. I planted some seeds from my bug eaten robes and they are starting to grow. Time will tell if the bugs find these on the deck.
It’s a good thing I was eating supper while looking at all those pictures of food. Looking at those pictures can make one hungry. SSShhhh, don’t let our ‘illustrious’ mayor see this or you may be responsible for another food law and/ or tax. I still think it would be a great idea for people to take their empty soda cups and mail them directly to ‘the little dictator’ as a way of telling him to keep his nose out of our affairs and do something productive like ….. FIX THE BUDGET.
The picture in the jazz club reminded me that I forgot to look into it. I’ll have to stop there on one of my ‘burg outings.
A couple weeks ago I transplanted my mint into a different pot with some new soil and more space. It started growing like crazy compared to before.
Aside from using mint in salads, I just tried taking some fresh mint leaves and brewing a tea from it. I looked online yesterday and it said to use a tablespoon of leaves to make either 1 or 2 cups of tea, I forget which. Anyway I put maybe a half dozen or so large leaves in my tea ball and let it steep until it was cool enough for me to drink. It looked similar to green tea, a watery/ green color. The smell was obviously mint and the tea had a somewhat weak but nice mint flavor. When finished I wasn’t left craving water which sometime happens with coffee.
If anyone likes spearmint (it probably works with peppermint too) get some fresh mint leaves and give it a try. Eventually I may try drying some leaves and try those too, but as long as fresh leaves are available I’ll use them.
From: The Physiomedical Dispensatory by William Cook, M.D., 1869
MENTHA VIRIDIS
SPEARMINT
Description: Natural Order, Labiatae. Generic characters as in the mentha piperita. Stems
usually in tufts, from one to two and a half feet high, square, green, (not purple, as in
peppermint.) Leaves almost sessile, oval lanceolate, incisely serrate, much lighter green than in
peppermint. Flowers forming long (not blunt) terminal spicate whorls, slender, loose, and
interrupted. Corolla light-purple, nearly white.
This plant, like peppermint, is common in wet places and along water courses. Distillation yields
a free quantity of volatile oil, which is at first scarcely tinted yellow, but by age becomes
yellowish-green. This oil has some of the aroma peculiar to oil of peppermint, but lacks its
penetrating pungency.
Properties and Uses: Spearmint is largely relaxant, of the distinctly antispasmodic order; and
though usually supposed to be identical with peppermint, is widely different from that article,
and much more soothing and acceptable to the stomach. It is admirable for allaying nausea and
vomiting, and relieving the colics of children; but is not so strongly carminative as peppermint,
nor of so much use in spasmodic troubles. Its action is quickly diffused throughout the
nervous system, especially influencing the nervous peripheries, while it at the same time
promotes a free discharge of the watery portions of the urine. These qualities make it an agent of
much service in sudden cases of nervousness, and hysteria of a mild form; and it may be used as
a common drink in nervous forms of fever, and in recent suppressions of urine. Its whole
influence is soothing; and though but transient, is admirable for a large variety of light and acute
cases. If the stomach is nauseated, it may be given in quite small quantities of a very weak
infusion–as a drachm to a pint, given in doses of a tablespoonful or less every fifteen or ten
minutes, which rarely fails to arrest sympathetic vomiting; and is excellent for quieting the
stomach after an emetic, and after the acuteness of a cholera morbus has been relieved. Being so
largely relaxant, a too strong infusion may prove objectionable to most persons; and occasionally
a patient is met who can not endure its taste at all. Two drachms to a pint make an infusion of
suitable strength for most cases. When used for hysterical or other nervousness, it may be
combined in smaller quantities with ginger.
The oil possesses the pleasant relaxing virtues of the herb, and is used for the same general
purposes, though not always so agreeable as the infusion. It makes an excellent external
application in the form of liniments; and will be found of much service over painful and
neuralgic parts, especially over the spine and the large nerves when irritated. Combined with
lobelia tincture and oil of rosemary, it forms, an admirable nervine liniment; and may be
combined with similar agents in lard to make a nervine ointment. For inward use, it is
commonly prepared as an essence, or in medicated water.
The Physiomedical Dispensatory by William Cook, M.D., 1869
Medical Herbalism journal and medherb.com