There's a lot going on around the homestead and as we move into mid June, there's a whole new set of wild and perennial trees, plants, herbs and flowers to turn our attention to.

As the dandelion go to seed floating around the garden, the chive blossoms begin to bloom and new choices present themselves. I am constantly studying plants and expanding our culinary and medicinal repertoire. Some day I hope to know all of the plants that grow around us.

At the moment the rhubarb is begging to be harvested as are the spruce tips. The sour sheep sorrel is hard to resist and we can't forget about the pine pollen, a free source of super nutrition growing right in our yard.

Sheep sorrel (Rumex acetosella) also known as red sorrel, field sorrel, and sour weed grows wild on our land. We harvest it to make a family favourite: sour leaf soup. To dis cover more about this plant including the nutritional benefits, warnings, medicinal uses you'll want to read Garden Sorrel (Rumex acetosa) Early Perennial Greens where we cover both varieties.

Rhubarb is a favourite of ours. We'll make all kinds of delicious things and it freezes well for later use. Tonight we had a stir-fry that included rhubarb and yesterday we enjoyed a lovely rhubarb lilac lemonade. Rhubarb fruit leather is easy to make if you have a dehydrator.

We are patiently waiting for the male pine cones to be ready to release their pollen. This is a potent "super food" that people pay a lot of money for in the health shops. Why not harvest some for free right? I'll write about it once the pollen is ready

We've been enjoying conifer tips the past few weeks and I made a tincture and oxymel with them to preserve some of their medicinal benefits.

We are feeling nourished once again after such a long winter and I am grateful to have so many wonderful things at my doorstep. I have to tell you, I am also exhausted from all the gardening we've been doing. It's been back breaking work and for the first time ever I actually hurt my back which is making life a lot harder.

I find it incredibly reassuring to know that even if we were unable to plant the garden that there is nutritious and healing perennial food & medicine growing all around us.