Lynn Smythe
Evolution of a Green Witch and Writer
November 2nd 2007 07:11
Your I Love Herbs Blogger
As a young preteen and teenager I spent many afternoons wandering the undeveloped forests of the Adirondack Mountains of upstate New York. In the fall I recall feasting on a variety of wild blueberries, blackberries and raspberries. At Christmas time I would help to collect pine boughs which were used to make aromatic balsam pillows and garlands that were used to decorate the house. In later years my mother became interested in the identification and collecting of wild mushrooms. I remember her serving plates full of wild puff balls which had been sautéed with lots of sweet butter and fresh garlic. I remember seeing and avoiding the hallucinogenic fly agaric mushroom (Amanita muscaria) on many of my journeys. Although I have some experience in the proper identification of wild mushrooms I would still rather buy my mushrooms from the grocery store just to be safe!
I have enjoyed cooking and gardening for many years. As a child I helped my mother weed her vegetable garden and always dreaded the zucchini harvest. We had so many zucchini from that garden that my mom even found a cookbook with over a 101 ways to cook zucchini including a recipe for chocolate zucchini cake. It was quite an interesting item for a young girls palate to experience but it didn’t make the zucchini disappear any faster. When I was much older I commandeered my friends front yard and turned it into a garden which I filled with a plethora of bulbs and alpine plants. In the summer of 1991 I relocated to the south which was a bit of a shock. I went from a zone 4 garden in the Adirondack Mountains of New York to a zone 10 garden in south east, Florida.
A few years ago I began to suffer from Irritable Bowel Syndrome and researched the many herbs such as dill, fennel, ginger, mint and chamomile that could help with various digestive problems. I began growing a multitude of herbs in order to keep a ready supply of medicinal herbs on hand for making my own tea blends. I joined my local herb society to learn what herbs grew well in the hot and humid south and began to write a monthly column for their newsletter in order to share my growing knowledge of herbs with my fellow society members.
My friends, neighbors and family members began to ask me for advice on minor ailments such as upset stomachs, insomnia and headaches. They also started to come to me whenever one of the recipes they were following called for fresh herbs or for advice on growing their own herbs and flowers.
A few years ago I started writing articles for publications such as The Herb Quarterly and Llewellyn Publications annual Herbal Almanac. In the fall of 2007 I began to write articles for a variety of online publications and started the I Love Herbs blog on Orble.
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