herb gardens – Books Can Save A Life


as we round the midpoint between autumn equinox & winter solstice,
the leaves blaze lighting up the darkening sky
before they dance towards the earth.
the moon waxes full as we bask in the light of the beaver moon, a supermoon.
soak in the luminous glow & energies.

times continue to be be unprecedentedly wild
as the cold sets in. this season of release as the light fades
& the leaves fall leaving a bare lacework of branches.
this liminal season, a threshold.

i am reaching out with an offer of winter comfort.
bolstering against both the winter chill & the heartache from the news cycle.

remember always to lean in to the plant allies and the potency of community.

- Polly Hatfield, herban enclave November newsletter

Every CSA (community supported agriculture) venture is unique, but Polly Hatfield’s home-based, herban apothecary in the heart of Portland, Oregon is SO special. You can think of it as community-supported alchemy as well – read on, and you’ll see what I mean.

I was thrilled to have the chance to meet Polly and her teeming gardens, front yard and back, when I was in Portland at summer’s end.

I’d been on Polly’s mailing list for a few years, delighting in her poetic, strikingly visual seasonal newsletter, and occasionally sampling her offerings or sending them as gifts. Every year when I enroll in artist Suzi Banks Baum’s Advent Dark Journal workshop, a packet of Polly’s homemade bath salts is tucked into the envelope of art supplies Suzi sends us. (You’ll meet Suzi and Advent Dark Journal in a future post.)

Portland neighborhoods can be one delight after another: poetry boxes, little free libraries, sidewalk chalk drawings galore, pocket gardens, and other inventive gifts to be shared with the community. But herban enclave stands out. The moment I turned down Polly’s street, I guessed which home was the one I was looking for. Clearly, this was a neighborhood of gardeners, but one lot in particular burst at the seams with late-summer plantings.

No space there is wasted, and I marveled at how Polly and her partner managed to grow and lovingly handcraft so many offerings on this modestly sized patch of land.

For example, in November, herban enclave’s winter csa care package (available to order until November 21) includes:

syrup made from aronia berry, rose, and holy basil
nasturtium flower finishing salt (with sichuan peppercorns, smoked salt, and rose)
a “winter quiet” tincture of milky oats, ashwaganda root, rose, and wood betony
a replenishing tea of nettles, raspberry leaf, oatstraw, and other plant allies
a soaking salts blend of eucalyptus, lemon, ginger, ashwaganda elixir, and wild rose flower essence
A “breathe deeply” oxymel of nasturtium, anise hyssop, holy basil, and aronia berry

(Photos by Polly Hatfield)

Polly’s conjurings have me heading for the dictionary or to my plant and flower identification app because, quite often, I’ve never even heard of the plants and flowers she cultivates that become her ingredients.

By the way, can you tell from Polly’s newsletter sentiments and herbal conjuring names that she is not just a master gardener, but a published poet, too? (Photo by Laura Glazer)

In addition to a seasonal care package, Polly usually has small batch offerings on hand. These enticements and several others are currently available until November 21:

nocino (an Italian liquor made from immature green walnuts)
a variety of tinctures, topical balms, and salves
an herbal gomasio (look it up!) of jimmy nardello peppers, smoked salt, black sesame seed, and rose
a douglas fir elixir

The September afternoon when Polly and I visited, the weather was gorgeous. We sat outside in the sun and I soaked up Polly’s earth-based knowledge as she told me the story of how she and her beloved found their ideal home, planted the extensive gardens, and established such a unique CSA.

Before our meeting, I’d asked Polly if a particular book had been her “bible,” one that had contributed to a vision for her work and way of living. “Gardening at the Dragon’s Gate,” she’d said, and I ordered a used copy.

As I write this, I’m two-thirds of the way through Wendy Johnson’s classic book about gardening and Zen Buddhism (published in 2008), still wondering how I got to be my age without encountering this extraordinary title. I’m a middling, on-again, off-again gardener with grander ideas than I know how to execute. I’m an insight meditation student and teacher as well (and I admire the Zen school of thought, too.) So Gardening at the Dragon’s Gate speaks to me on many levels. Turn to any page and you’re likely to find a nugget of wisdom. You’ll never plumb all of its depths.

Author Wendy Johnson is one of the first influential, ground-breaking California organic farmers and gardeners who came of age in the 1960s and 70s. Johnson, Alice Waters, Eliot Coleman and others pioneered the farm-to-table movement. She is the founder of the extensive gardens at Green Gulch Farm Zen Center near San Franscisco and a Buddhist meditation teacher.

In Buddhist texts, consciousness is said to be a field, a piece of earth on which every kind of seed is planted. On this field of consciousness are sown the seeds of hope and suffering, the kernel of happiness and sorrow, anger and joy. The quality of our life depends entirely on which seeds we garden and nourish in our consciousness.

Growing a garden, like cultivating the wide field of consciousness, is original work. Each time we plant a garden we are returning to origin, to the source of every garden ever grown. The word “origin” derives from the Latin verb oriri, to rise, as the sun and moon rise in a cyclical pattern in the day and night sky. Originality has a still older meaning described by the upwelling of deep springwater through stony ground. Growing a garden depends on this double force of originality that is both rhythmic and permeating. – Wendy Johnson, Gardening at the Dragon’s Gate

I’ve learned as a meditator that we can deliberately and lovingly set an intention for our days. We can do the work of our intentions in a way that gives meaning and shape to our lives. I think that master gardener/herbalist Polly Hatfield and her partner are doing this every day at herban enclave. I love how the work of gardening and a way of life inevitably become woven together.

I think about other home gardens we enjoy seeing in another part of Portland when we visit extended family. They have a gorgeous new garden, and another more vintage garden that is a vital part of the Montessori school they founded, where very young folks spend lots of time playing, learning, and enjoying nature’s riches.

*Portland is a city of gardens and garden lovers. Here is one of two home gardens created by my niece, sister-in-law and family*. (This is the new garden.)

*The Montessori garden, where children spend time every day.*

As I write this post at my desk, the wind is kicking up, I hear the patter of raindrops, and I’ll need to close my studio window soon. After a balmy Indian summer, the temperature here in North Carolina is expected to drop twenty degrees. We’re entering the cold, dark time, when Polly’s makings (even simply reading about them) can give us warmth and comfort.

And with that, I will let Miss Polly have the honor of signing off:

may you allow yourself to rest.
to sink into a season of dormancy.
& to tend your heart well.

with love & full moon blessings galore,
heal // whole // holy
warmly & always with love, polly

Here is a link to Polly’s newsletter, with ordering information (order by Nov. 21, 2025).

https://mailchi.mp/b57eef719645/rose-magic-summer-spell-solstice-love-12930906?e=b8a80062f5

You can find Polly Hatfield on Instagram, and sign up for her seasonal newsletter on her linktree site:

https://www.instagram.com/achilleaswooning/

linktr.ee/Miss_Polly

“Dear Reader – I write this because I love a garden that gives back. Flowers, fragrance, flavor…all of it. A true giving-garden is filled with herbs. Discover them. Grab a leaf, rub it, hold it to your nose and breathe in. Voila! That plain, leafy plant becomes so much more when you learn ways to use it. This is what I share with you.” Sue Goetz, The Herb Lover’s Spa Book

In the middle of a hard winter I couldn’t ask for a better pick-me-up than The Herb Lover’s Spa Book by Sue Goetz, just published by St. Lynn’s Press. This is a little gem of a book. Looking at the photos and skimming through the recipes for facial steams and oatmeal soaks and lavender heat pillows while the snow fell outside my window was a spa experience in and of itself.

I grow the standard kitchen garden herbs and I love cooking with them. Now Sue Goetz has inspired me to try out recipes for herbal preparations that heal, sooth, relax, and refresh. I’d been making a list of seeds to order for this year’s garden, and I’ll have to expand it to include new-to-me herbs like lemon balm and lemon verbena, scented geranium and camomile. I want to try the recipes and the end products myself, of course, and if all goes well, when holiday time rolls around I’ll have homegrown, handmade gifts to give family and friends.

A well-known garden designer, writer, and speaker from Washington State, Sue Goetz packs a lot of information into this little book, and her passion for using herbs in the home for pleasurable and nurturing spa experiences shines on every page.

The Herb Lover’s Spa Book has three parts: Surround, Grow, and Create.

Surround

You can enjoy the herbal preparations you’ll learn to make in this book in your very own private spa. Sue shows how you can create a retreat in your own home, indoors or outdoors, where you can read, relax, soak, sleep, or meditate. She suggests designs, colors, and textures conducive to rest and relaxation, whether in a garden or in a favorite indoor space.

Grow

You’ll find information about nineteen of the most common and popular herbs used for skin treatments and teas and infusions, including lavender, hops, dandelion, eucalyptus, sage, parsley, witch hazel, and thyme. Sue includes growing tips, healing properties, and suitable varieties for each herb, a list of seasonal herb garden tasks, and tips for harvesting and preserving.

Create

In addition to over 50 herbal recipes, Sue provides information about sourcing and working with common ingredients and materials such as beeswax, baking soda, essential oils, epsom salt, ginger root and jojoba oil.

I loved leafing through the recipes. I didn’t know there are so many varieties of bath brews, each with its own effects. For a relaxing bath you can use chamomile, hops, and lavender. For a stimulating bath, try eucalyptus, lemon balm, mint, rosemary, sage, or thyme. For a healing bath, use calendula, lavender, lemon verbena, parsley, or spearmint.

First on my list of recipes I’d like to try is the Inspiration Bath. When you want to get your creativity flowing, put some calendula petals in a muslin sachet or directly into a warm bath, and add 6 drops each of lavender essential oil and rose essential oil.

Scroll down to the bottom of this post to see the complete recipe for Sue’s Basic Bath Brew. Other tempting concoctions: Peppermint Foot Soak, Midsummer’s Eve Floral Garden Water, Dusty Rose Body Powder, Winter Warming Steam, Chamomile Eye Soothers, Rosewater Cream, and Floral Water Skin Brightener.

Sue includes fascinating tidbits about historical aspects of the spa experience and herbal pharmacopoeia. I’d never heard of a stillroom, for example – a special room in homes of the early American colonies set aside to prepare household products from the garden. Sue says the lost art of the stillroom is coming back, and she encourages us to find a special space in our modern homes where we can store ingredients and experiment with herbal remedies.

I like that a glossary of commonly used terms is included at the end of the book, as well as a list of resources, including places to purchase herbs, oils, packaging materials, plants, and seeds.

I’m so impressed with St. Lynn’s collection of how-to gardening books. I’ve written about a couple of other St. Lynn’s titles here at Books Can Save a Life: Debra Prinzing’s Slow Flowers and Nancy Ross Hugo’s Windowsill Art.

I have a soft spot in my heart for small, inspired publishers with a strong sense of values and a well defined mission – I was an editor for such a publisher eons ago at the beginning of my career. I like St. Lynn’s because they make gardening so inviting and accessible to those of us who are beginners, and because they are strongly committed to ecology and our planet.

Make yourself a cup of tea and browse some of their other titles. (And if you want to know who St. Lynn is, click here.)

Bath Brew recipe — One of many tempting recipes in Sue Goetz’s The Herb Lover’s Spa Book

Do you make herbal preparations from your garden? If so, I’d love to hear about them, as well as books you recommend for those of us who want to learn more.

Tag: herb gardens

Inside an enchanting herban apothecary in Portland

The Herb Lover’s Spa Book

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