{"id":2147,"date":"2019-10-09T04:22:26","date_gmt":"2019-10-09T04:22:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/greenmanpublishing.com\/?p=2147"},"modified":"2019-10-09T04:28:01","modified_gmt":"2019-10-09T04:28:01","slug":"catnip","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/greenmanpublishing.com\/index.php\/2019\/10\/09\/catnip\/","title":{"rendered":"Catnip"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Nepeta cataria<\/em> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lamiaceae<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Food: The tender new spring shoots of Catnip\ncan be added to salads.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tea: Catnip tea has long been\na popular beverage in Europe. It’s should be quite strong, with about two\ntablespoons of dried leaves to a cup of water. Like most members of the Lamiaceae<\/em>\nit should never be boiled.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Medicine: Doctors recommended Catnip tea as a\nmild sedative, diaphoretic and carminative until relatively recently. It is\nstill used to treat diarrhea and in enemas for cleansing the colon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Smoke: A belief among\nimpoverished pot smokers of the 1960’s was that if you smoked the dried leaves\nof Catnip, you would get high (just like a cat). This is not true, but some\npeople like to smoke them for their own virtues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cat bait: Catnip gets its name for its intoxicating\neffect on Cats. This is apparently due to a substance called\nnepetalactone and has four distinct phases (sniffing, licking and chewing, chin\nand cheek rubbing and finally head over rolling and body rubbing). Curiously\nthe plant affects only about 60% of cats.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because\nof its feline attraction, the plant has been used as bait to catch feral cats.\nThe dried leaves are often added to commercial domestic cat toys to make cats\npay attention to them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Repellant: It is said that Catnip has a\nrepellant effect on rats and that a row of plants around\na building will keep them away.  Maybe\nthe plant reminds them of cats and makes them uncomfortable. It is also\ndisliked by many insects and is sometimes used as a repellant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cultivation: There is an old saying about\ngrowing Catnip “If you set it the cats will get it, if you sow it the cats\nwon’t know it.” This probably means the disturbance during transplanting\nwill release enough scent to let nearby cats know it is around. If you sow seed\non the other hand, they won’t know its there until it is well established. In\nmy experience they will pretty soon find out and come from all around to roll\nand chew the plants. Fortunately it is a pretty rugged plant and takes such\nabuse quite well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Catnip\nwill grow in most soil types, but prefers rich, moist soil with full sun. It is\nvery hardy and pretty much looks after itself. Individual plants are not long\nlived and often die after flowering, so keep dividing it and cut off the\nflowers before they set seed. It self-sows vigorously.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Garden uses: Catnip is sometimes grown with\nvegetables to repel ants, spittlebugs and other pests. It is also made into a\nspray for this purpose.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Nepeta cataria Lamiaceae Food: The tender new spring shoots of Catnip can be added to salads. Tea: Catnip tea has long been a popular beverage in Europe. It’s should be … Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2148,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2147","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-herbs","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/greenmanpublishing.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/Catnip.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/greenmanpublishing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2147","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/greenmanpublishing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/greenmanpublishing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greenmanpublishing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greenmanpublishing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2147"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/greenmanpublishing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2147\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2150,"href":"https:\/\/greenmanpublishing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2147\/revisions\/2150"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greenmanpublishing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2148"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/greenmanpublishing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2147"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greenmanpublishing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2147"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greenmanpublishing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2147"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}