Marti Williams, “The Herb Lady,” has created her own artistic herbal healing garden in Tyler.

I love gardens and I love stories. I especially love real gardens with interesting stories behind them. So, imagine my delight when I spy an artistic herb and vegetable garden out of the corner of my eye at Hwy 31 West and Pioneer Drive. After visiting several times, I asked Marti, “The Herb Lady,” if she’d write her story for the paper. Luckily, she said yes. Here it is:

What do old women do when they can no longer ride horses in the mountains, take care of patients for 12-15 hour shifts, or chase after grandchildren, who’ve moved away? How do we spend our days without going nuts? We garden. That’s what old people do; and do well.

I’m so glad that Google is able to handle all my questions (there are many) regarding how to grow, what to grow, and when to grow it. It’s not just about old people doing something either. It’s about teaching the next generation how to feed themselves and how to create functional beauty.

Our garden isn’t just a vegetable garden; it’s a labor of love. Our herbs are powerful enough to help you sleep and to help you heal. Learning all of this at my age in life (nearly 70) has been a challenge, but also a delight. Learning that blue star flower (borage) is good for depression and makes a delightful cup of tea along with lemon balm (an antiviral) has helped keep me safe from viruses, including COVID-19, this past year. We want to help other people in our community learn to enjoy gardening, in order to stay safe, healthy, happy and well fed.

Being able to visualize beauty and then create it is an artistic blessing. Art comes in many forms, as I learned when I began to quilt a little over ten years ago. If you can think it; you can create it. It then becomes a thing of beauty for everyone. So it is with our garden. We (Lisa Marie Tisdale and Marti Yowell Williams) go out into the garden and think what we could do with each empty space. We have lots of ideas! We are certainly not professionals; but this is a labor of love for both of us. Everything we plant we try to have as a functional unit in our garden. The herbs that we grow are about 99% edible and our flowers about 75% edible. Learning to enjoy a hot cup of tea has been a pleasure. I am now experimenting with tinctures and will soon do so with salves. You are welcome to come by “The Herb Lady’s” garden most anytime and learn how, with a very small amount of land, you can feed your family, grow your own medicines, and enjoy the many benefits of gardening. –Marti

Thanks so much Marti, and keep up the good work. If you want more information on growing your own vegetables and herbs at home, check out the “Vegetable Resources” page on the Aggie Horticulture website at aggie-horticluture.tamu.edu. My mentor, Dr. Jerry Parsons, retired vegetable specialist and Extension Horticulturist Emeritus with the Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service has plenty more at plantanswers.com.

Greg Grant is the Smith County horticulturist for the Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service. He is author of Texas Fruit and Vegetable Gardening, Heirloom Gardening in the South, and The Rose Rustlers. You can read his “Greg’s Ramblings” blog at arborgate.com, read his “In Greg’s Garden” in each issue of Texas Gardener magazine (texasgardener.com), and follow him on Facebook at “Greg Grant Gardens.” More science-based lawn and gardening information from the Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service can be found at aggieturf.tamu.edu and aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu.