Gardening

Beginnings, endings and continuations

 in Aromatherapy / Biodiversity / Food / Gardening / Healing Herbs / Wild Harvest by

Secretly Sleeping in December 2016

I wanted to put together some photos that showed the garden and greenhouse in the beginning as they were being put up. We hand dug all the beds and created the soil.  The results are pure magic. We were only caretakers of something already there, even though you can’t see it.  Something that is available to all.  Nourishing.  Healing.  Teaching.

Now my journey will take me along again.  To build again.  To connect again.  I think I will miss this more than the many other gardens that I have left behind.  It has touched me in a special deep healing way.  It has such life, a higher power lives here, even now at the end of January,  especially now.  Feeding the soil,  feeding the birds,  resting and preparing to come back again in all its glory.  It will keep on teaching, keep on healing, like pure magic.

greenhouse being erected and only two beds dug at the top.

greenhouse being erected and only two beds dug at the top.

A blessing as always to work together as a family. This represents the deep change that is part of the season.

A blessing as always to work together as a family.  Early Spring.

After the first season.

progress

2016

2016

Sept 2016 greenhouse

Successful Experiment: Sweet Potatoes

 in Food / Gardening by

I love all the new things we try and this one turned out really great.  If we had had a bigger hole I think we could have had more veggie and less crazy loopty shapes,  It all tastes super great anyway!

Just beginning to dig, I wasn't expecting it to be this amazing!
Just beginning to dig; I wasn’t expecting it to be this amazing!
Sweet Potatoes!
Sweet Potatoes!
The hole and about 1/3 of the sweet potatoes.

The hole and about 1/3 of the sweet potatoes.

Harvesting Tulsi Holy basil

 in Aromatherapy / Distillation / Gardening / Healing Herbs by

Nearly every day I harvest baskets full of tulsi. Some goes on to the drying racks and some into the still. The action of harvesting is aromatherapy from the source; it transports you into a meditative state of mind.  Crisp and transforming, it is easily a replacement for the morning coffee as far as my mind is concerned, but my kapha type body needs a little more right now as the temperatures cool down and the seasons begin to change.  A ritual of herbal teas, aromatherapy and exercise (yoga or a walk in the woods) is helpful to support the body and mind at this time of transition.  I have a new blend in the webshop called Transition which is appropriate for personal or seasonal changes.

A sea of Tulsi.

A sea of Tulsi, with a very large Sweet potato tied up in the back corner.

 

Stuffing Tulsi into the 5 liter glass for distillation.

Stuffing Tulsi into the 5 liter glass for distillation.