From the Garden: Of Seedlings, Snails and Yarrow

The autumn crop of Brassicas are now well up within the frame. Because the cabbage family is more amenable to cooler weather we are obliged to construct lathes to shade the seed bed and temper the excessive heat that so typically afflicts the coastal plain of Virginia at this time of year.

The lathes also exclude the cabbage white butterfly from laying its eggs upon the seedling plants which are so susceptible to injury in the nursery stage.

Nevertheless, one must be constantly vigilant for the depredations caused by slugs, snails and other creeping vermin that thrive within a shady moist situation. We have found that simple traps made from boards, laid upon the ground amongst the seedlings, provide refuge for these annoyances which they retreat to as the sun rises and then are easily destroyed with daily inspection.

In the herb garden the Red Yarrow is now in bloom.

This curious variant of the familiar white flowered Yarrow was first described by John Gerard who recorded in his massive tome The Herball, or General Historie of Plantes published in 1597: “red Milfoile groweth in a field by Sutton in Kent called Holly-Deane, from whence I brought those plants that do grow in my Garden; but it is not common every where as the other is.”

Gerard names the plant Millefolium though later botanists have renamed it Achillea millifolium in honor of the Greek champion Achilles who is said to have treated the soldiers wounded at the siege of Troy with a poultice made from the foliage of this plant.

Although it has a long record as a wound herb for the staunching of blood, Gerard also calls it “Nose-bleed” observing; “The leaves being put into the nose, do cause it to bleed, and ease the paine of the megrim.”