Gill-go-over-the-ground

This spring has been springing in what feels like slow motion.  That may be because I can spend time outside every single day walking in the forest and on the trails.  It could be because it has been a cold spring and plants have been waiting for the warmer weather.  Maybe it is both.

I have been on the look out for wild edible plants.  I like to eat wild plants in the spring as a spring tonic.  And this year when we can’t go to the grocery store as often, I am looking for fresh greens.  The first green that I noticed was Motherwort.  It is not edible, but a tincture can be made with the leaves for anxiety.  There is Motherwort everywhere and anxiety everywhere.  Makes me think our Mother is looking out for us.

Ground Ivy

The next green that showed up on the trails was Ground Ivy.  This plant has many names such as Gill-go-over-the-ground, Robin-run-in-the-hedge, Catspaw and Creeping Charlie.  I am familiar with finding it in lawns.  But this year, I noticed it all along the paved walking and biking trail.  Later there will be Poison Ivy in the same place.

We were walking in our new favourite forest and I have been noticing Ground Ivy growing along the side of the first part of the forest trail.  I was curious as to why it was growing in the forest since that is new to me.  For the past few weeks, it has been growing larger and more of it is showing up alongside the trail through the pine trees. The other day, as I pondered this, the idea popped into my head that perhaps it is a plant that was brought here by the settlers since it was growing near the old farmhouse foundation.

Once at home, I learned that indeed Ground Ivy is an alien species.  It was brought by the early settlers to eat and for medicinal purposes.  A tea from the dried leaves is a mild expectorant and good if you have a cold.  And the leaves can be eaten like spinach.  And here is the really funny part: Ground Ivy was valued because it lasted late into the fall and was one of the first green edible plants that appeared.  This would have been a big gift for settlers who had made it through the winter.  As I checked every green thing that I saw coming up, I was growing impatient that it was always Ground Ivy.  “Why can’t an edible show up?” I wondered.  I can now laugh at myself.  There was an edible, Ground Ivy, showing up and waving at me.  What else am I missing of the old knowledge? So, the next day, I picked some of the Ground Ivy in the forest to make tea and to add as a mildly bitter cooked green for supper.

A few weeks ago, I was going through my seed box to see what I had, when I came across a big envelope of Common Milkweed seeds.  I had saved them a few years ago with the idea of Guerilla Gardening them to help create corridors for the migrating Monarch Butterflies.  I decided to take them with me on one of our walks along the bike and walking trail.  I thought about where I had seen Milkweed growing and looked for similar spots.  I know they do the best in full sun and they seem to like fields and grassy areas.  So every time I came across a spot like this, I cast out some seeds.  At one spot, my partner noticed the old stalk and opened seed pod from last year’s Milkweed, just to confirm that I was correct in my assumptions. 

Who knows if these seeds will sprout?  They sure won’t sprout if I leave them in the paper bag, that I know for sure.  I thought about casting seeds. Picking a suitable area for the plant to get what it needs is a good start but I have no control over the rest.  I got to thinking about the seeds of ideas that are being cast and planted during this COVID time.  Some will grow into mature plants and create more seeds of their own.  Some will start to grow and get eaten or killed.  Some will not grow at all.  If I really wanted to grow them, I would do it in a more controlled way and make sure that I watered the young plants and protected them.  What is being seeded within me during this time?  How do I nurture that?  What crop will come of those seeds over time?  I have a lot of questions at the moment.  I seem to just make space for them and then watch for the intuition that leads to an answer.  Just like with the Ground Ivy.

The water levels in Georgian Bay are very high at the moment.  Some experts say that they will peak this year and then start to recede in an age old pattern but I will wait and see.  Every time the wind blows from the west, the water in the channel where we have a small piece of land and a dock, rises.  Since the water level is already high, the rise brings lake water up onto my indigenous and medicinal plant garden.  I planted some Wild Ginger at the edge of the lake a few years ago, under the Highbush Cranberry and the Cedar tree.  I had planted it in other locations as well, but by the water’s edge is where it thrived the best for the past few years.  Happy that I had figured this out, I felt like a good gardener.  The dark green fuzzy, heart shaped leaves seemed to send out love to me.

In March, we had high winds and the water rose and then fell.  The soil around the roots of the Wild Ginger was washed away and I could see the thick root structure that looks much like the commercial ginger we buy in the store.  It was quite fascinating to see the leaves starting to emerge straight from the root, but roots needs to be covered up.  So I got a bucket of composted earth, covered them and tucked them in.  I felt like a good gardener.

Wild Ginger roots

In the beginning of April, the west wind came up again and the water rose, then fell.  Once again, the roots of the Wild Ginger were exposed.  I faithfully got a bucket of composted earth and tucked them in again.

Later in April, (yes, you saw this coming didn’t you?) the wind came up, the water rose and then fell and the roots were exposed again.  I was starting to see a pattern.  I was starting to get the message.  Although the Wild Ginger had been so happy there in the past, conditions had changed and it was no longer going to be happy with no soil.  So we carefully dug up the root mass and transported it up the hill to the yard behind the house.  Wild Ginger can be found in mixed hardwood forest and in the yard are Maples and Red Oaks.  So I prepared a dug bed under the trees for the migrant ginger.  I thought about all the human migrants that are being forced from their homes by rising water due to climate change.  I thought about how COVID is revealing the structures, the roots of our society.  I thought about how we have to be flexible and read the signs.  And I thought about the impermanence of life.  

Wild Ginger leaves

About one week after we moved the Wild Ginger up to the house, I noticed that the Wild Ginger I had planted there last year, was sending up leaves right beside the relocated plant.  It's nice that they already have family in their new home.  And then wonder of wonders, I discovered some surviving Wild Ginger in the garden by the lake that had somehow migrated on its own to a safer place in the garden.  So much for thinking that I am in charge.

Now that Ground Ivy has joined the Wild Leeks in our diet, dandelions are in full leaf (they are best eaten before they flower) and the Garlic Mustard has shot up as well.  The neighbours must wonder what I’m picking as I bend over the "weeds".  In fact one man in a pick up truck stopped to ask me what I was doing when I was picking Garlic Mustard by the side of the road.  We had a nice chat about how the plant was brought by the settlers to eat but now we don't eat it anymore and it is called invasive.

My Stinging Nettle plants are emerging behind the shed.  I make a dark green infusion from their new leaves and they can be added to soup as well.  I know that these wild greens are nature’s way of keeping us healthy in the spring and until my kale, spinach and lettuce plants are a lot bigger, they will feature in our diet.  By that time, the leeks will be gone, the dandelions and garlic mustard will have flowered and the Ground Ivy leaves will be past their best.  I will still pick the new nettle leaves until they flower and then go back to drinking tea made from the leaves that I have dried.

In this stay at home time, the natural community all around me has been teaching me.  It has posed questions and provided answers.  It is feeding my body, my mind and my spirit.  And then, something very beautiful appeared on the trail this morning.  It was a large green leaf folded in half right on the trail in front of me as I got close to the car.  I hadn't seen it on the outbound journey a little earlier.  I bent over to pick it up and unfold it.  There in my hands was the beautiful emerald green, heart-shaped leaf from a Wild Ginger plant.  It felt like opening a love letter from the forest, a love letter beyond words.