Gardens in a time of virus
Do you know about lobelia? My favorite kind is the short variety with tiny purplish-blue flowers. Hunker down four or five of those beside salad burnet and put them in front of blue collards and red kale, and when the lobelia is flowering you’ll have a stark contrast and comforting antidote to the angst and uncertainty hanging over our zeitgeist.
Imagine a contagion of lobelia or a wave of crucifers – put that on the evening news. Anderson Cooper would tell us about the surge of kale sweeping coastal California with another wave expected in autumn. Antioxidant consumption will be rampant everywhere, cholesterol levels will be ravaged, and Vitamin K numbers would reach an all-time high.
Fox News would claim Donald Trump invented lobelia, CPR and the color purple, and they would tout his recommendation that we sprinkle lobelia leaves on pizza because “what have you got to lose?” Native Americans used lobelia to induce vomiting, so your lunch is what you might lose, and immoderate consumption of lobelia has been fatal. It has been used for herbal remedies but in sensible doses and for specific reasons, and it is important we follow the guidance of folks who know what they’re talking about.
The vomiting part is not an issue for gardeners who know better than to eat it and simply appreciate the gentle blue flowers for what they bring – comfort and calm to a corner of a garden bed. There are many other choices and each gardener has favorites.
Another tidy herb with a story to tell is Spilanthes, a short member of the daisy family known as the toothache plant. One variety has flowers resembling a yellow thimble with a red hat. The buds have earned the nickname buzz buttons because chewing them causes a tingling or numbness in the mouth and is actually useful for treating mild toothaches.
Not just a novelty, all parts of the plant can produce an oil used to flavor food, gum and shampoo. Researchers get all twittery about its medicinal possibilities, but I like the exotic flowers, its well-behaved nature in the garden bed and the cool numbing effect. Fireflies are attracted to it as well.
Plants can calm us. Just like Spilanthes softens toothache pain, peppermint tea calms our nerves, and the scent of lavender eases anxiety. Marijuana can be prescribed medicinally for anxiety, cancer, epilepsy, nausea, pain, multiple sclerosis and many other conditions in 33 states and the District of Columbia.
In Arkansas, you can grow Spilanthes, peppermint or lavender without a license, but don’t grow the other one because it gets the sheriffs and deputies all helicoptered-up and edgy.
Back to crucifers with an eye toward health, thereby calm and serenity. Wikipedia lists 40 different crucifers but omits two I have growing in my garden. The Baker Creek catalog lists 70, and there are others. If you eat kohlrabi, rutabagas, arugula or tatsoi, besides getting to say fun words you get a megaton of glucosinolates (another fun word) and that is a good thing because the brassica bunch battles the cancer-causing crowd. They provide fiber, vitamins and nutrition and there are plenty recipes so don’t try to hide behind a narrow, discriminating palate.
Also, a study in 2015 found sulforaphane, a phytochemical in crucifers, produced “significant benefit for depression” and could even prevent the onset of behaviors associated with depression.
Which brings us back to our zeitgeist. There is a crisis going on. Spilanthes and lobelia aren’t flowering yet, but they will. In the meantime, lavender and sage are available to freshen the air, and redbuds and sassafras are blooming like a Japanese watercolor.
Those who need a pick-me-up can sit among these wonders with a plate of sulforaphane-loaded Ragged Jack kale tempered with olive oil, lemon juice and garlic, staying six-feet from your neighbor and listen to Jerry Garcia sing “Ripple” . . . calm in the midst of a crisis.