Hali work party bugs

Last week’s work party at Haliburton Farm was a bit of planting – some fingerling seed potatoes going surplus. The smartweed had taken over a lot of the prepared beds so we weeded as we went, and came upon a few hungry bystanders: cutworms,

slugs,

and a few (but only a few, fingers crossed) of those potato-loving wireworms, the bane of organic gardening.

Wandered around a bit afterwards, noting the onion flowers

and the proximity of strawberry time!

The farmhouse, with the rebuilt farmstand on the right.

Tried an experiment with dock (yellow dock, I think?)

whose roots were the size of carrots.

Kind of looked like carrots too, once cleaned up.

Rather pretty and very aromatic – a kind of perfumed soapy smell.

You can eat the leaves, and make a tea from the root which is said to be good for the liver and digestion. I’d had some burdock & dandelion root tea in Duncan at Seedy Saturday, but mine was fit, I’d say, for the plants, a kind of deluxe compost tea maybe. Very bitter roots; like a lot of plants, some parts are bitter and others edible at different times of the year.