Minnehaha Avenue Medicinal Garden Log 2005

February is the primary planning month, grant written by Sandy.

March funding received! Thanks to United Plant Savers. Plants, seeds, and bulbs were ordered.

April Plants have arrived. Preparation of the area takes place.Sandy put them in.

May Plants including Witchhazel shrubs went in this month at the Minnehaha Avenue Community Garden. Ms. Kari's Summer Greenthumbs started early and turned some plots to make room for what Sandy is seeding. We all got a first harvest of Nettle to start our internal organs on a Spring Cleanse! Thank you Sandy.

June - Ms. Kari's Summer Greenthumbs begins the week of June 14th, digging, pruning, and samples of plants collected.

July - Sandy gets a day of help from the Greenthumbs. Otherwise, she really did all the work herself...

August - American Community Garden Association's National Convention is being hosted in Minneapolis this month. Kari will bring the products of the Medicinal Garden (housed at Minnehaha Community Garden) and present a workshop about the healing of Medicine Gardening on Friday.

Then, come visit the gardens, meet Sandra Arseth, apply your knowlege, and get a free sample of plant medicine at the Garden Tour on Saturday.More info

Lise Wolff class held in the garden space.

September - Some watering help needed. Harvesting done.

October

November - wrap up letter to UPS from Sandy Arseth

United Plant Savers (UPS)
End of the Year Letter from Sandra Arseth

Greetings from Minneapolis,

It is November and the weather has been extremely warm for these parts and I must say our Minnehaha Avenue Medicinal Garden Herb bed is still awake and thriving.

Although I do sense the winter drowsies creeping in and wanting to take hold. This season was very busy for the herb beds. Thanks to UPS grant we were able to increase our herb species and labels for plants for easy identification and education.

Here is what happened at our inner city garden.
1. Kari Tauring had her green thumbs class throughout the growing season working and learning about medicinals at our garden site. The children in the class were boys and girls 6 - 11 years old. They made their own books on what they learned and made drawings of the plants. Then during the ACGA Conference e in august they helped Kari give a seminar on Plants as Medicinals. They were wonderful. They were a great help on watering and plantings some of the plants we got this year for the medicinal beds.

2. Lise Wolff, a well-known local herbalist, utilized our herb beds and walkways for one of her classes this summer. Her students seemed to soak in the knowledge she so expertly shared and of the plants that so lovingly gave of themselves. They returned the gift with gentle hands, careful feet, and many-murmured thank you's to the plant beings.

3. ACGA Conference came to Minneapolis in August and we were a stop for a couple of the tours that were held. People came from all over the world and wandered throughout the Minnehaha Ave Community Medicinal beds. They learned of our little project, of UPS, and that medicinals are everywhere you look. That growing and harvesting sustainably is vital for our survival and that our "weeds" need to be looked upon in a whole new light. One of respect, love, and knowledge not of rage and distain. One man from Ohio after learning about Yellow Dock and Burdock could barely contain his excitement. It had never occurred to him that these two "noxious weeds" as they are called in some circles, had a purpose, a reason for Being, which is their act of love in trying to correct the imbalance in the areas they proliferate. He asked me to get a hold of him if I ever found a reason for foxtail to be allowed to grow like it does. He seemed to want to learn of its purpose and hopefully change the way he viewed it and understood it.

I was grateful to meet with such a wide variety of people and show them that an inner-city medicinal herb bed is possible and produces plants of great health and energy. I know some people think that nothing healthy, balanced, and energetically potent can come from land that has been so abused for so long. I beg to differ, loudly. I see it each morning, parking on a busy inner city street of Minnehaha Avenue, walking into the gardens and being greeted by rabbits, humming birds, morning cloaks and swallow tails. Even a hawk now and then swoops by in acknowledgement. I hear it in the plants as they speak to me. Beneath my feet in a language of vibrations that I have not heard for such a long time. It brings me to my knees in joy and gratefulness. It is possible; it is a labor of love.

Participating in the restoration with the land and Beings in our Metropolitan cities is healing from within and radiating outwards with it. I believe health, balance, and magic and sustainability can be restored but it takes work, belief, and unity of many Beings to make it happen. I thank you from the bottom of my soul for your help in our Medicinal Herb Beds, in making it a better teaching space, a place of great beauty and balance. A place of healing that ripples outward and touches so many lives in a good way.

Thank you x3!
Sandra Arseth

December - we rest, update the web, think and read.

January 2006 - plan for the spring, order our seeds etc.

February - Imbolc/Brides bed, we bless our seeds and begin indoor seed starting. What will happen next?