It's thundering tonight, with a lot of lightning flashes across the sky. I am really happy that my plants will be getting a good dose of Nitrates in the soil from the rain. I had thought about putting my indoor medic garden outside for the duration of the thunder storm, but decided against this as some of the plants are not ready to get bashed about by the huge rain drops that often fall during a thunder storm. Instead I have placed a container outside to collect the rainwater that's falling during the thunder storm. I will use this to water my indoor plants with. How do Plants Benefit From Lightning?Lightning releases gasses into the air, one of which is nitrogen, the nitrogen bonds with oxygen particles in the atmosphere, and falls to the ground with the rain. Nitrogen is a very important for plants, it encourages healthy root and plant growth, and encourages the plant to produce chlorophyll. If you have any plants that are not looking healthy, have yellowing leaves, and stunted growth, then your plants may well have a nitrogen deficiency. It does not lightning much around here though, so what about those times when you cannot use the nitrogen rich rainwater? Easy DIY Organic Nitrogen FertilizersThere are two really simple ways to add nitrogen to the soil that are pleasant enough to use in my indoor containers...(ie, not smelly or gross!)
One is to use coffee grounds sprinkled on the soil, or mixed in the top layer of soil. I don't do this often, just every few months or every quarter. Or if the plants are looking sad and like they need a boost. Another way is to use a comfrey infusion, or tea. Make this with fresh or dried comfrey leaves, tear them up and place in a pan with boiling water. Leave to infuse and cool, then decant into bottles for watering the plants with. You can make this without boiling the leaves, just leave to infuse for a few weeks in a bucket - but this does smell! Comfrey is an awesome plant that has a lot of medicinal uses, which I will be covering on the main website soon. It is even said that growing comfrey with other plants will help them retain nitrogen in the soil.
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In my last post I talked about taking a load of slugs and snails away from my medicinal garden, and releasing them far from my house.
I thought that the slimers I removed would soon be replaced by new ones, eager to eat all my herbs, but so far I have not seen any snails and only 1 slug! I am looking every night and they have not returned :) Tonight it is raining, this must help the slugs and snails propel themselves across the ground quicker. I have a feeling I may have some visitors tonight, and will do the same as before. Collect them up and place them far away from my plants! The night before last I popped out to my medic garden to see how many snails were around. I had noticed more and more plants vanishing, and the plants that were still around had big slimy trails all over them. It kinda put me right off the mint, seeing it with snot all over the leaves.
Anyhoo' I popped out at about 11.30pm and the place was crawling in slugs and snails! My herb garden is surrounded by concrete, so I was quite surprised to see so many of the little shits! I began gathering them up into a jar, but had to go and get a bucket, as clearly all the slugs and snails were not going to fit in the jar. Off of 6 containers outside I picked up 14 snails, and 11 slugs!!!! I tossed some salad into the bucket with the slugs and snails, and placed a cover over the top. Next day I took the dog for a walk and took my bucket of snails with the plan to release them in thick undergrowth away from my home. I took them across 3 roads and tipped he bucket into a nice patch of weeds and nettles. Only thing was all the slugs and snails were all still attached to the bucket and I had to pick each one out one-by-one and put them in the nettles. By this time the bucket was full of this watery slime and although I actually find snails cute, I was really wanting to heave! I was also getting a lot of strange looks, as I had decided to release the snails during the peak time for people walking their kids to school! Last night I expected to find the same huge numbers of slugs and snails, and had my bucket all ready... I had also heard horror stories of people marking snails with nail varnish before they have released them into the wild, only to find the majority of marked snails back in their garden within days. Wouldn't it be funny if a few people in that area had marked snails with nail varnish, and the snails they thought had returned were actually someone elses marked snails! I think if I try the marking experiment I will place a big C on them, then I'll know they are mine. The next time they return I will paint their shells so brightly and so temptingly for birds.... That way I won't have to deal with them At the moment I have 5 different types of mint growing in my medic garden. Mint is useful for all kinds of things and a few leaves eaten raw can really help with indigestion.
Mint seems to do really well indoors, at least where I have it, in a north facing window, that gets reflected sun. I have the plants in wall hanging planters, in the kitchen, and in a stacking planter with other herbs, the mint plants like to trail when planted like this, and look pretty dangling down. I like to use mint on cooking too, and enjoy a glass of mint tea on a hot summers day. Check out my peppermint remedy page for more info on the benefits of mint. and a recipe for a simple mint tea. I have; Wild mint, which I think is apple-mint Garden mint Eau de Cologne Mint (a very strong peppermint) Peppermint (a beautiful perfect peppermint) Mild peppermint (this one is like a cross between a garden mint and a peppermint) Some of these mints are probably sub species, or crosses, like the mild peppermint one, and maybe the wild mint. I know that mints like to cross-pollinate, so I remove the mint flowers before they get a chance. It might be interesting to try and breed a new mint though...I wonder if mint will cross pollinate with other members of the mint family, like ground ivy, or dead nettle - I doubt it., but it would be cool to have minty deadnettle plants. The next mint plant I want is a spearmint, these like a lot of root space so that one will probably be going outside. I have been wanting to make some simple plant markers for a while now, the ones I had made previously (from canvas stretchers, that I had left over) have rotted into the soil and are no longer readable.
Tonight I went through all of my plant pots and pulled out all of the wooden canvas stretchers. I decided to utilise some of my recent beach combing and river walking finds, and make some more markers. These ones will last much longer than the wooden ones, and were so simple to make. Just write the plant name on to the stone, river glass, or pottery shard, with a sharpie. My herbs seem to be doing well this time around! (touch wood) Though already this year I have lost quite a few to pests.
Yesterday I had to bring all of my sweet violet plants indoors, wash them, and re-pot them. They were covered in white fly, and had begun to look sickly. I managed to remove all of the white fly from the violets, and am keeping them indoors for the time being. The pictures show my indoor herb garden this year. It is half the size of what it will be at the moment, as I have had to re-sow the plants that I lost in March and April. Amongst these herbs are other wild medicinal plants, such as self heal, red deadnettle, and ground ivy. Outdoors I have the rest of my medic garden. I have Herb Robert, white deadnettle, Rue, Pot Marigold, and Fennel, out there at the time being. Planting And Growing A Small Medicinal GardenChoosing Plants For My Medicinal GardenAs well as a medic garden featuring al of the culinary herbs, I am going to be making one with some of the commonly seen wild plants too. - A lot of these plants were considered herbs in the olden days, and also used in the kitchen. I started my medicinal garden plans by looking through some books of medicinal plants and their properties, I am mainly using 'Culpeper's Complete Herbal' as it is more fun that way! I love his descriptions, and I have a good knowledge of plants, so I am not worried about poisoning myself. After reading up on all the plants I made a list of the ones I was interested in, I am making this medicinal garden very personal to me and have chosen plants that will help me with some of the problems that I suffer. The wild plants I am having for my medicinal garden are... Sweet Violet Red Deadnettle White Deadnettle Borage Chamomile Bugle Ground Ivy Calamint Lady's Mantel Self Heal The Plants I Am Including In My GardenRed Deadnettle"It makes the heart merry, drives away melancholy, and quickens the spirits." That is what Nicholas Culpepper had to say about this commonly seen plant, and I sure could do with some of that! In times gone by, the red deadnettle was considered a food source and was even cultivated for this purpose. You can find this plant growing almost everywhere, it thrives in hedgerows, borders of fields, along the banks of streams, on waste ground... Ground IvyAccording to Culpepper this little weed is useful for pretty much everything... Personally I am most interested in its use for 'exulcerated-lungs', the way it 'easteth all gripping pains', and it's power to 'drive away melancholy.' Groud ivy had previous use of flavouring beer and was also eaten, there is an interesting recipie for ground ivy leaf in tempura, which I really want to try! This is another plant that you can find almost anywhere, it likes shade, and light, and it grows in woods, fields, in fact, it grows in every space it can, look out for its delicate purple flowers winking up from the grass. Ladys Mantel"And such women as have large breasts, causing them to grow less and hard." This statement from Culpepper concerns me as they have gone small enough already and don't fancy them being hard as well as small! Anyway I am only interested in this plant purely for its 'celestial waters' which it produces through its leaves, an old wives tale states that if you douse your face in these waters at dawn you will not age....well, I did this when I was young, and now I am 33 and still getting asked for ID to buy cigarettes and lottery tickets! I want to splash enough of it on my face to keep me going till I'm 90! Sweet VioletAhh, the sweet violet, one of my favourite plants! "It eases pains in the head caused by want of sleep, is effectual in the pleurasy, and all desieses of the lungs, horsesness of the throat, and all pains of the back." - This is infact a short summery of what Culpeper had to say about the sweet violet plant, he lists many other benefits. One of the properties that I have heard about sweet violet having, is an ability to breakdown cancerous tumours..... Sweet violets don't seem to enjoy direct sun, you can find them growing on laws, verges, banks, and other grassy areas, it is easy to confuse these with dog violets, dog violets have smaller, glossier leaves, and they have pointed sepals, sweet violets have rounded sepals. The sepals are the green bits on the back of the flower......I will draw a diagram to explain.. White DeadnettleCulpepper calls this plant 'white archangel' it has the same properties as the red deadnettle, and can also be eaten in a salad, deadnettles are in the mint family. You can find this plant growing by streams and rivers, in fields, hedgerows, and also in the woods, it loves the damp and dries out quickly when not watered. Bugle"The decoction of the leaves and flowers made in wine, and taken, dissolves the congealed blood in those that are bruised inwardly by a fall, or otherwise is very effectual for any inward wounds, thrusts, or stabs in the body." - Nicholas Culpeper Seeing as I was stabbed myself and am not fully recovered, I thought it would be prudent to include this useful plant, Culpeper also states that 2 spoonfuls of bugle syrup will sober up a drunk, and from what he seems to be saying (though it's hard to understand what he is going on about sometimes,) is that it also cures some sort of psychotic episode too, not that I need it for that, I don't want to cure my psychotic episodes, I enjoy them ;-) This plant grows in meadows, woods and on wasteland, I have not managed to locate any of this plant yet myself. Self Heal"The juice hereof used with oil of roses to anoint the temples and forehead, is very effectual to remove head ache." Says Culpepper! And that is why I am planting it in my medicinal garden, I suffer with headaches a lot and am willing to experiment with different ways of shifting them. Self heal is also well known for its ability to heal sores, cuts, ulcers, and other conditions, it is used in oncology too which I will be reading into more. Self heal loves to grow on lawns, it has a thick matting spread that roots very easily, you can also find it amongst paving slabs, on wasteland, and in fields and meadows. Stacked Planters Are Ideal For Indoor And Outdoor Medicinal Gardens.I have a few stacked planters in my house, I really love them, these pots keep all your plants separate and make it easy to tend to them, I am not sure how the plants at the back of my planter will do indoors, I keep turning it, so we will see.
As well as using a stacking planter for my herb garden, I am also using one to make a 'salad bar.' Each of the compartments has a different salad leaf. Instead of filling up my main site with tales from my medicinal garden, I am going to post here, and keep the main site for the plant descriptions and remedies. I started this particular medicinal garden two years ago, and it has had it's ups and downs! At one point my garden was thriving, but was completely wiped out last year by aphids and soil gnats :( This year I started my garden early, it has begun to thrive, despite three aphid attacks, and the ever present soil gnat. I am hopeful that it will continue that way. Plants In My Medicinal GardenThe plants I have so far are... 5 types of mint, including wild mint. curled parsley flat parsley chives garlic chives oregano thyme lemon thyme lemon balm basil (this is not doing so well thanks to aphids) sage purple dead nettle self heal bay wood sorrel aloe vera cayenne pepper ground ivy sweet violet garlic mustard rue pot marigold fennel Plants I Have Lost To Pets And Mould This Yearself heal x 3
thyme x 5 lemon thyme x 3 sage x 2 mint cinnamon basil lemon basil coriander chives lemon grass birds eye chilli marjoram lavender rosemary |
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Blog ArchivesTea Of The MonthThis beautiful Earl Grey from Bigelow is the tea of the month for July.
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