Field Notes · The garden edge · August 2026

Yarrow at the garden edge.

Flat white heads and a ferny leaf. A field plant we dry for the winter pot and the tin.

Quick guide to

YARROW

★ in Alaska ★

Ferny leaf, flat white head, late-summer ditch. A kitchen plant.

Fact	On this place
Latin	Achillea millefolium
Where it stands	Garden edge and ditch
How you know it	Feathery leaf, flat continent of tiny white flowers
When we work it	Late August, heads gone papery
What we take	A handful of heads from the edge, a handful from the ditch. Leave the root
In the shop	Teas. A small note in the tins
Who else uses it	Bees on the last warm days. Seed for next year

Yarrow stands at the edge of the garden and along the ditch as if it were invited. The leaf is feathery. The head is a flat continent of tiny white flowers. By late August those heads have gone papery and the smell, if you rub one, is sharp and green. We cut a few, hang them in the shed, and crumble them into the winter pot and into a jar that waits for the kettle.

Plenty of old manuals list yarrow as a kit plant.

How we take it

We cut the stem above a leaf, leave the root, and never strip a stand to the dirt. A handful of heads from the garden edge and a handful from the ditch is a year's household jar. The rest stay for the bees that are still working the last warm days, and for seed.

Dried, the head crumbles into a pale, almost dusty flower that looks like nothing until it hits hot water or warm oil. It goes into our teas. In the tins it is a small part of a larger pot. The label of each batch carries the list.

You will see yarrow named in the winter blend and in the harvest cards. That is the whole claim: we gather it, we dry it, we put it in the pot.

Teas on the shelf

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