Tag Archives: potato

July 18, 2024 · 1:47 pm

Gardening Wonders )O(

Merry meet all,

My garden is  beautiful. I can’t wait to enjoy peas, beans and cucumbers I grew myself. I can’t wait to harvest potatoes in the fall. The potato vines are about to flower. I have never seen potato flowers before. There is one bud that is about to bloom. Hey I might even press the potato flowers. I want to let one go to seed. 

This year I want to save as many seeds as I can from my garden. I want to save the seeds of the veggies, flowers and herbs. The plants will be adapted to the climate and conditions of my garden. I would have a better chance of growing plants that are acclimatized, especially herbs. I am seriously thinking about starting a herbal tea business. I want to save good healthy seeds from the herbs. I will keep a chart of the herbs that I saved seeds from. That will help me determine which herbs are the healthiest and what herbs grow well in my garden. 

I just came in from adding fertilizer to my herbs and veggies. There might be a thunderstorm and rain today. The rain will help the fertilizer be worked into the soil and let the plants get the nutrients they need. I use worm castings, Gaia green and greensand.

Gaia Green Greensand is mined from ancient, nutrient-rich deposits of oceanic sediment. Over time, this sediment developed into glauconite, which is highly effective as a slow-release fertilizer used to improve the mineral content of soil and other growing media. Greensand is gentle on plants and won’t cause root burn. Greensand is recommended for use on lawns, household plants, golf courses, greenhouses, nurseries, and urban gardens, and is suitable for all plants. I also fertilize with Neptune’s Harvest fish emulsion which leaves a bad scent but works wonders on herbs, flowers and veggies. The Neptune’s harvest fish emulsion is liquid and made from fresh fish, seaweed, molasses, yucca extra and humic acids, this formula was uniquely designed for plants with intense growth or “vegging” stages. I just added the emulsion to my plants in my garden. 

I also now have a compost tumbler. Lots of beneficial microbes and insects are working hard in the soil aerating it and enabling the earthy matter to turn into nutrient rich soil. I will love adding the compost to my garden and watching the veggies grow amazingly. It does take a few weeks. I will know when the compost is ready to be added to my soil when the compost looks like soil. I hope that will be soon. 

I spied a huge bag of worm castings. I plan to buy it and add it all to the veggies in my garden. I like to mix growing veggies in the soil and in containers. I tell myself that will keep out slugs but it doesn’t. Crumbled sterilized egg shells provide protein and calcium to the soil as well as ward off slugs. The slugs don’t like the hard edges of the eggshells. I also arranged copper tape around the base of my cucumber and cabbage plants and around a few other plants. 

With all that, it’s no wonder my garden is growing so well. The purple coneflower is ready to bloom almost. I had lost hope that the marigolds would bloom again but a marigold just blossomed. The cosmos are gorgeous and I hope my elecampane grow flowers this summer too. Summer is wonderful! So much to love about it. 

I will keep you posted about more of my garden adventures! Til then, have fun and enjoy the sun

Blessings, Spiderwitch

 

 

2 Comments

Filed under Uncategorized

June 12, 2022 · 11:48 am

Garden of Life

Merry meet all,

Wow! My garden is so beautiful and lush, rich with green verdant life! I just strolled through it and wrote on a chart was growing well. I decided to make that my post. So here it is!

The witch hazel grew bigger this year. The ferns claimed lordship over the dark spot of the garden. I am letting them grow wild there, because that makes great ground cover. The hosta plants there are growing well too. I transplanted Solomon’s seal and I spied new leaves on the stems. Broad leaved dock is growing well too. The astilbe are sporting new buds and the lungwort flowered beneath the witch hazel. It was just lovely. Lungwort comes back bigger and better every year. 

The tickseed is showing lovely orange- yellow flowers. I plan to save the seeds. The purple coneflower has nice leaves so far. The lady’s mantle by the back door is growing quite nicely and showing new flowers and buds which will emerge soon. The buds of the tiger lilies are coming up. I am not sure about the Asiatic lilies. The calendula is slow but coming along, as well as the heliopsis and the red clover. The bleeding heart survived the transplant. It has grown bigger this year! The mullein is tucked in beneath the large rhubarb leaves. Dandelions are everywhere and the periwinkle is growing nicely on its own too. 

I hope my elecampane flowers this year. It’s sporting new leaf growth. Bees are busy pollinating the comfrey. I planted nasturtiums all over the garden as I do every year. They are taking off and will soon show their lovely flowers. The sage I started from seed is much bigger now and the lovage is taller. The other herbs growing well are lavender, lemon balm, chives, mint, parsley, and woodruff. Dill, oregano, chamomile, rosemary and purple sager recent newcomers to the garden. I hope the thyme comes back. I potted up the thyme, cut it back and added fresh soil. I just bought 2 pickling cucumber plants. I set them by the large box and put a plant support there. I want the nasturtiums and the cucumber plants to grow up the plant supports. 

The pumpkin plants are growing well. The rhubarb is showing off its big leaves. I added a pepper plant, tomatoes started from seed, scarlet runner beans, green beans, purple beans, potatoes, kale, winter squash and leeks. I hope all the veggies grow well. I have root veggies – radish, turnips, etc., in a box. The potatoes are growing in the large black cloth bag with beans. Beans and potatoes are companion plants and I hope that this deters the raccoons. The scarlet runner beans are germinating! The root veggies green tops are showing now. Soon I will thin them out. I just planted a chunk of ginger in the box with the root veggies. 

The haskap berries hung on to the stems during the rainstorm. They are still green. I enjoyed one purple/ blue haskap. I can’t wait to harvest more. Same goes for the strawberries. The blueberry plant is flowering. I hope the second blueberry plant flowers soon. The raspberry plants are up but not flowering yet. Soon they will. 

Every insect in creation is helping my plants grow or warring with other insects. The garden teems with life. It is so rich and lush out there. I enjoy being in my garden. It is such a stress relief. I do remember to wear insect repellent. I have to get sunscreen too. Protect yourselves, people! I look forward to hearing how your gardens are doing. Let me know in the comments below. 

Blessings, Spiderwitch

Leave a comment

Filed under Paranormal and Witchy Fiction

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

March 28, 2022 · 4:26 pm

Seeds of hope

 

Merry meet all,

I’m busy sprouting seeds. I have sprouted way too many seeds but this does mean that I get a better harvest come autumn. !! I have sprouted brandywine tomato, Scotch Bonnett peppers, kale, leeks, german chamomile, lavender, cucumber and purple echinacea. I can’t wait to grow them in my garden! I have too many starter seeds here. The more, the merrier. 

Tomorrow I plan to sign up for the Botanical artwork class at the Herbal Academy. I’m buying the sketchbook for the course too. I want to get the apothecary labels for bottles and jars too. I can’t print in color. I want to order rue and yarrow seeds. Yarrow is good for our health and rue is witchy and guards the home!! 

I also want to grow lemon basil, and start growing the witchy seeds I ordered months ago. Black cumin, howden pumpkin and vietnamese cilantro are just a few. It sounds so tasty! I have a few big starter pots sporting my tender seedlings. I don’t have enough starter pots for the seeds. I have successfully pre-germinated chamomile seeds on a damp paper towel in an old pet food bowl. It worked!! There are so many tiny chamomile seedlings I can’t even count them all. They will grow into the beautiful daisy like apple scented herb we all know and love. It is too exciting!

I sterilized a pot from the garden and washed it well. I use bleach to kill any possible insects/ insect eggs that may have hibernated in the pot over winter. Then once clean, I filled the pot with soil. The pot was 12 inches in diameter. I put pre-germinated parsley seeds, and added sage seeds, basil, dill, radish and carrot. Mmm I can just taste it. The pot sits on my kitchen counter. I just can’t wait for the seeds to germinate and fill the pot with their earthy goodness. I may move the pot out once the warm weather arrives. But for now, the pot is indoors. It is too cold yet. I want to plant  potatoes in a grow bag. I can start that in mid-April. I have to grow the tubers at my Mom’s to protect them from ravenous raccooons. The masked thieves just bite a potato then toss it. It’s wasted. Nope not this year. I will be ready for those bandits. 

I want to start nasturtium seeds early this year. If I wait till later in the summer, they will take forever to get growing. The time to start seeds is now. I have lovely scarlet runner beans in air dried brown pods. I plan to grow those this year too along with green beans and purple beans. The purple beans turn green when cooked! 

That is a good start to spring! Beginning a plant from seed saves you tons of money later. It can be expensive to buy lots of transplants. There is a time and place to transplants though. I do it too but later in the season when the perennials have filled the garden. I know what to plant and where I can plant. Put your intention into the seed starting! Happy planting!

 

Blessings, Spiderwitch

Leave a comment

Filed under Paranormal and Witchy Fiction

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,