Notice the gigantic leaves it has!

Some of the first harvest of comfrey leaves this year went towards making a liquid fertilizer. While this stuff did seem to be awesome in regards to how the plants responded to it I do not know if I will be making it again for the stench was simply awful! Enough to turn my stomach and keep everyone away for several feet! I think when it comes to homemade liquid fertilizers I will stick to my favorite alfalfa pellets and molasses brew.

The second harvest of comfrey leaves was chopped up and spread about the garden as mulch. I really liked it for this. The leaves have all since been worked into the soil and there was nothing like growing my own mulch.

For this third and final harvest (and what appears to be the biggest) I am going to use most of the leaves and stems as mulch. A few leaves and stems I will use fresh to make a comfrey salve. Some of the leaves I am going to dry for multiple uses. I want to have some dried leaves on hand for making homemade cosmetics as well as my well-loved multi herb salve. The second reason for drying the leaves will be for use in dyeing my yarns. I have used fresh comfrey leaves as a dye over the years but have yet to try them fresh. It will be nice to have the dried leaves on hand for use during the winter.

Finally, I am going to experiment a bit with the dried leaves brew a tea from them for feeding all my potted plants. I plan on just placing a handful of leaves in some boiling water and allowing it to steep overnight before I strain and use it on my too large container garden.

This really is one useful herb that I just love having on hand. Being so productive is making it all the better too!

All around where I live Tansy (Tanacetum vulgare) grows like a weed and is in full bloom at the moment. The cheery yellow buttons that are its flowers can easily be spotted from quite a distance away.

Tansy has a rather interesting history as an herb and its uses date back for centuries. At one point in time it was used medicinally as a bitter herb and a way of ridding the body of parasites. These practices are no longer used as the herb in recent times has been found to be too potent for consumption.

In the Middle Ages, Tansy was quite popular as a strewing herb. It was dried and sprinkled about as it was believed to repel pests such as ants and flies. In many a home, one would find bouquets of Tansy hanging to dry. The leaves were also rubbed on meat in attempts to preserve it longer.

In the modern day herb garden Tansy is a welcome- if not somewhat invasive- pretty flower to grow with lacey, fern-like foliage. In bloom, Tansy attracts beneficial insects like no other plant seems to be able to. The flat and tiny blooms appear to be irresistible to our garden allies.

Today Tansy is mostly used for its ornamental purposes both in and out of the garden. Dried, the flowers are excellent in arrangements. One could also place the dried leaves in sachets to be used as an insect repellent. If it grows a bit out of hand, as it does spread by underground rhizomes, it can be pulled and added to the compost head for its potassium content.

My main interest in Tansy is for a completely different reason than the ones stated above. I grow it not only for its historicalness but also for the fact that it makes an excellent dye for wool. I have used Tansy in my dye baths multiply times and have yet to be disappointed. I have been able to yield gorgeous shades of green and yellow from this one simple herb. I recently gathered a large amount for dyeing and was able to produce the results shown in the photos below.

I love herbs that have history behind them and Tansy is no exception. To some, it might be considered too weed-like for their garden but to me it is one herb I would never leave out. After all, if it gets too out of hand I just toss it in the dye pot!

*EDITED:   There appears to be some confusion over the Tansy I am referring to in this post. Please do not mistake the Common Tansy I write about, Tanacetum vulgare, for the dangerous and harmful Tansy Ragwort or Senecio jacobaea.  Below I have supplied a few links to help clear up some of this confusion.

• Why you should definitely avoid Tansy Ragwort if you have horses and why Common Tansy should also be kept from them.
• Information on Tansy Ragwort
• More useful information on Tansy Ragwort
• Oregon Department of Agriculture’s info on Tansy Ragwort
• Google image search for Tansy Ragwort for identification help
• Google image search for Common Tansy for identification help

This year I grew onions in the garden and there are all but two left that I finally pulled up just this week. We managed to eat up all the rest rather quickly. They were so good on tomato sandwiches! I now know that for this house, I need to grow lots more onions next year.

 We do cook with onions a lot in my house. They are such a versatile ingredient that adds so much to one’s cooking. Leave out onions and you are leaving out a lot of flavor. As tasty as they can be I have yet another reason for loving this simple crop.

Briefly on this blog I have mentioned my love affair with knitting but I have failed to mention yet another passion of fiber I have. This passion happens to combine my love of gardening with my love of knitting very well making it a power packed craft for me. What is this craft? Well, for a few years now I have been using herbs and other various plants from my garden to dye my yarn that I use in my knitting. It has been an incredibly addicting thing for me to do. All I want to do now is fill my garden up with plants that I can dye with.

That brings me back to the humble little onion. Not only is this one handy veggie crop to grow for eating BUT it can also be used for dyeing. The skins from yellow onions make an amazing dye and the colors you achieve from them are very beautiful. The picture below shows yarn that I dyed with onion skins just recently.

Every time I pull out these skeins of yarn I am amazed that I can achieve this range of color just by using simple onion skins. So, the next time an onion starts to bring tears to your eyes as you cut it up keep in mind just how useful they really are!

For those that may be interested in how I go about dyeing yarn you can visit my other blog to read more (the blog that sadly never gets updated anymore). Here I posted more detailed instructions for using onion skins as a dye.