It might not officially be summer just yet, but in my garden I can tell spring is waning. Its light past nine o’clock and the solstice is around the corner. In my region — the Mid-Atlantic and the broader eastern coast — this is the week the season tips fully into summer. Elderflower is going by, the milkweed is opening for the monarchs, and the tickseed plants are waving their yellow heads along the road edges.
That timing is why this week's three herbs feel so right. Mullein is sending up its tall second-year stalks while first-year rosettes sit fat and ready at ground level. St. John's Wort is opening right on schedule for the solstice — the bloom that gave it its name. And out west, narrow-leaf coneflower is in full prairie bloom too, even if most of us can't grow it. So this is a week for paying attention to timing. Some harvests wait for you; a couple of these really don't.
“Let them choose herbs!”
Each issue, the first of our three herbs is the Community Pick — chosen from what new folks in the Facebook group “Growing and Harvesting Medicinal Herbs and Teas” asked about when joining the group. If you're already in the group, you helped shape this just by posting. If you're not in yet and want a say, the door's open: join here.
Here's how the requests ranked. It seems that our group members have a few favorites that keep surfacing. A few of these were chamomile, lavender, mint, and lemon balm… the good news is that all of these favorites were already covered and will live forever for reference in our archive.
Though another new favorite emerged- in perfect timing: mullein. A plant nearly everyone has walked past without knowing it, with one quirk beginners get wrong constantly. Let's fix that.