No Strawberries in Your Garden? Eat Marigolds!

John Kuhner is back home on Wildcat Mountain, rediscovering his garden:

The garden of course is ten thousand joys, and ten thousand sorrows. Failure is part of the experience, I suppose. Last year I planted strawberry plants; in my clods nine plants have become more than fifty. My Mother Earth News tells me I can get up to a quart of strawberries per plant, which seems an amusing fiction, if not a bitter mockery. I will be happy to get so much as a strawberry per plant…

while there’s not much edible coming out of my garden just yet (more on that anon), I’m always nibbling on something odd. (I’m snacking on marigold flowers while writing this, a colorful supplement to violet leaves and Oswego tea).

The question is: how do those marigolds taste? Backstory on Oswego tea:

…local herbalist Betty Shaver … promised to give us expertise in tea-making, I made sure I could be there.  I was impressed.  Shaver was born in the area and grew up living off the land; and at 73 “and no medications” she was a walking-and-skipping advertisement for country herbalism.  She brought a tea brewed of clover, mint, and violet leaves which was delicious – all ingredients very easy to find.  And she talked about using strawberry and raspberry leaves for teas as well – again, easily found.  Not that I need another task to do every day, but putting out a big jar of sun-tea every morning to bring to work the next day wouldn’t be the worst way to live.