The longest day will be here soon — the solstice is upon us on the twenty-first — and for the next stretch the evenings will hold their light until nearly nine. Around here in the Mid-Atlantic, that long light is doing exactly what you'd hope. The milkweed is opening for the monarchs, the fireflies are up over the lawns by dusk, and the gardens have hit that lush, slightly unruly point of full summer where everything seems to want picking at once. The solstice is also my reminder to prune my fruit trees to contain them to a manageable size.
Two of this week's herbs are on the clock. Chamomile is flowering now, and it'll keep throwing new blooms every few days as long as you keep picking it. Out in the grain rows, oats sown back in April are reaching their brief "milky" stage — a window that, on any one plant, lasts only a few days. That short window is the whole reason milky oats made it into this issue: miss the milk and you've missed the medicine until next year. Our third herb, yerba mansa, is in full bloom across the wet, alkaline flats of the West right now — a plant most of us east of the Mississippi will never grow, but one well worth knowing.
There's also a small homecoming this week. I always want to bring you something new, but chamomile was far and away the most-requested herb this week — and there's so much good research behind it that it earned a return, while keeping things fresh.
Let's get into it.