of pests and men!

SO! The herbs are loving the out of doors. I sent them out there and check them every hour with a cold water spray bottle and try to scare away the mites. It seems... that along with the mites having left, the plants have taken over. No one seems to mind them. In fact, there is a local stray/housecat I have dubbed 'Hector' who likes to wipe his face all over the lavender. Its cute so long as he doesn't... you know, do his business on my plant!

Anyway sicne these 4 have done so amazing outside I took the next pot out to get the buggies off of that one too. Even so mom thinks I should leave the cured ones outside because they've gotten so strong in the rich sunlight. Its true ^^

SO! I was reading more about my lavender plant since its been saved from the pestilence, and it seems I'm not going to have flowers this year. They flower only on the 2nd or 3rd year. ALSO! I'm suppose to have been pruning them! Because if you don't prune them in the summer than the next year the plant will grow... 'unruly?' Now I still don't know what the 'woody' part of the plant is, but I think I did well when I took my scissors out there this afternoon. These dried leaves will be an attempt at lavender basil tea. I hear the mix is quite nice. I know the smell is!

*dies of heavenly scents*

Anyway lets hope that the plants enjoy some more outdoorsy time and I get to enjoy the nice smells! Guess the shampoos will wait til next year!

Home Coming...

Ah its wonderful to be home. Yes its been a few days and all, but that certainly doesn't stop me from taking forever to get back to everyone! I am and forever will be! a slow poke.

Anyway! Upon return from FL, I was shocked to find that m plants had grown magnificently! You have to understand, while I was away I requested for the mother hen to tend the babies and please water them according to schedule. I also requested regular updates, which I did not receive, so I was thinking I would be coming home to a ruined wilted garden! But instead, I came home to this beauteous sight!

And then I went to Nicky's house for memorial day and what did I see but these amazing awesome presents! She gave these to me! Because mine are just so wimpy here at home. She gave me a pot of these things called... coleus! She made them from her very own homegrown seeds from last year and says she wants me to have them for the garden at Chris and Kel's! They look painted! Isn't that awesome!?!?!


Also did a bit of research upon coming home to find that my aloe plant needed mass trimming! Apparently once the leaves drop as low as they had its a strain on the plant, so I now have a cleanly trimmed aloe plant that is nice and gooey.


Oh its been so amazing guys! And to let you go, I have a photo op of my basil plant that is now so big that the leaves are as big as the one at the store! LOOK!







EVERYTHING IS AWESOME!

Replanted my lavenders too in nice new pots. Pictures to come!

Beautiful Smells!

Oh my goodness, I did not have a good night. In fact I had a terrible night and couldn't sleep very well at all, but this morning is a little better. In fact much better, because my windows are open and today was phase two!!!

I bought cheese cloth yesterday at Hobby Lobby. Very, very exciting and this morning, I took my lilac oils and hoisted it to the sink and strained! Its so wonderful. I smelled my hands afterward and it was like smelling concentrated lilacs. Its soooo cool. The funny thing about that is remember I said that most places say you can't make lilac oil well HA! The oil that's NOT working is this dandelion oil. I strained it yesterday and I think I let it spoil because it made my stomach hurt like no ones business when I smelled it. Grossness! But hey I have to remember that there are 3 stages so I won't give up on it until then. So far all I know is that the lilacs are working!

Phase One

Alrighty! So I was afraid I was going to have to wait until tomorrow to begin the actual oil making process, but you know what, gosh darn it if I didn't get home in time to make it. It was grand to find that I don't need as many dandelions as I thought for the process, well I mean I'll need 4 times as much as I picked today over the course of a week, but that doesn't change how pleased I was to find that I didn't need an atrocious amount. Hopefully this will work out though.


I used olive oil because I couldn't find anything else inexpensive. I would like to try safflower oil but I can't find any on the shelves and as we are all aware I am broke that kind of makes it impossible for me to buy them. Anyway for this experiment that's what I used and I bruised the flower petals just like I was told. Now I have to buy a cheese cloth or something. For straining. If anyone's curious on my method, here's the places I used for aiding my progress:

http://make-fragrances.blogspot.com/2007/01/how-to-make-essential-oils.html
http://www.rainbowcrystal.com/oils/oils3.html

Its really kind of fun and I enjoyed myself a lot. Emma helped of course because what's better than a 5 year old picking flowers in the field next to our house right? Lack of field, but there's space, lol. Its just a strange thing, but you know it was good. I'm really interested to see how it turns out. I mean if this works out I can make basil candles once those get bigger out of my own materials. I'll let you know whats in the news about it tomorrow!

Catching up

I feel so bad because I disappeared for so long and didn't show anyone my hard work that I've been so proud of. So here we are all my hard garden work:

That happy lady is my momma after we finally put the mulch down and had officially finished the planting part. This section is allll done. But Chris did see it and say something about giving me the front yard to work on too sooooo very awesome right? I'll put up the before and afters after the plants have come up and flowered.

On a similar planting note, these were my presents from mom that you can see in the full garden shots. these are the stones between the larger rocks, 6 in total! And this is my garden snail!

Its all very exciting and I also have pictures of the other things she gave me, but you never know where I might post them!!!!

And in the spirit of spring I am starting my very first essential oils project and I am stating with the smell OF!!!!!

I just figure that there are lots o them to practice with so wish me luck!!!

Planning!

Hellooooo!!!

So today is the day of plan. I didn't update on Saturday, but I have news!

Spent a few hours at Kelly and Chris' house on Saturday with mi madre and Emma. It was great. The kids running around squealing and enjoying themselves, but the best was the fact that little Jonathan was 'help weed!' Hehehe. He had the hand trowel and was turning the soil to get out the weeds. He's a very helpful little man. Where baby Sarah was far more interested in putting the leaves in the brown bag. They were both so amazingly helpful and cute. So as of Saturday, the garden area has been turned and weeded, ready for seeds!

Anyway, with mom's help I have decided the next stage in the works. Sunflowers. We've decided we need far more of them as well as different varieties. This time there will be autumn beauties, but these being planted directly into the dirt. The Dahlias are going around the bench and something purple or blue. Yes that's right this is quite an endeavor and I hope its all worth it in the end. I definitely am still feeling Saturday's shoveling.

SUNDAY! Mom bought us some more seeds. I got another packet of chive seeds to fill in the edges of my pot. Hopefully this all works out because yes I believe I am vaguely jealous of the fact that Nicky's chives are already so huge. I planted those this morning and I will be potting the sunflowers we already have, attempting to give them more space to make it through the next week.


BUT! These are all the beginning stages so I am just riding the wave.

On the other end of the spectrum, I have decided between the most difficult and messy things and those which would yield the most stuff. SO! After mass reading online I have discovered that I can make essential oils WITHOUT a distiller. Perfectly grand. So this year I am making candles. I am going to make basil candles with chive flower accents in them because the flowers have no smell once doused in wax. I'm also going to make some spice candles using the cumin. (which is great because another cumin plant came up the other day)These of course are suppose to have an effect on mood which each different smell.

Candles, sounds fun right? I know I'm looking forward to it!

Sorting

Alright so a few days ago my honey badger/sunflower bunny/MIK, came home. It was great to have him here and show off my little seedies to him. Of course he thinks that its silly no doubt, or my obsession with them is. I think I told him at least ten times how excited I was that, get this, THE CUMIN HAS SPROuTED!!!! Soooo exciting. That's right, two little cumin sprouts.

Now, now some of you might not know just what a cumin plant is good for an apothecary. Wellll, I don't know either! HAhaha, so I'm going to use this time to tell you.

Alright, so first off, apparently as a tea it aids with acute stomach pain. More tea making ^^ And of course this time I get to find out what flavors go with the taste. According to my sources, its a spicy little seed, so making a tea from it should be a new experience. It can help with flatulence, indigestion, diarrhea, nausea, morning sickness, and atonic dyspepsia, AND great for tumors in small animals. If I'd known that I would definitely have been growing cumin before when my aunt's bunny rabbit 'Bean' got sick.

Ooooo! I just found some hugely good news for my sunflower bunny, Mikki. According to several sites, cumin is good for the kidneys and livers. Now this might not seem so oddly amazing but you have to take into consideration, the HSP. Lately the henoch schonlein purpura has been tearing apart his kidneys lately. There has been a large about bleeding there and I think that perhaps if I could get him to try some cumin tea that perhaps it might just help him a little bit. Now the trick is getting Mikki to try it because well, to put it plainly the man does not like tea, nor does he like homeopathic remedies, but I think if I give him this expression, O_O He might just do it so that I'll stop giving him creepy stares.

Also it helps with lung pains, and that's something I REALLY need. I've been using an inhaler and steroids to open up my lungs for years. Anything I can try to help makes me a happy girl. Hopefully I just make the tea tolerate.

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Oh and also for the record. I went to the storage last night and retrieved some pots. his morning I checked to make sure that I had all my soil and such. I'm going to wait until Saturday before potting though because I would like the seedlings to raise up a bit higher. They are still a bit short.

Tomorrow! I am taking my pouch of things to Chris and Kelly's house so that whilst the little one's are asleep i can pull that persistent plant from the ground and pack all the leaves away into a bag. In my pouch, is going: pruning scissors, garden gloves, hand trowel, hand hoe, garbage bag, and bulbs! I don't know if tomorrow I'll get far enough into the cleaning process to plant yet, BUT I want to be prepared.

For those of you who don't understand why this means so much to me. In all honesty its a lot more about finally being able to give something to Chris and Kelly after all the things they have done for me. After the two years I have spent working for them, they have taken such good care me as a person. Paying my doctor's bill when I got sick, and just the way they treat me. They are good people. I want to give them a beautiful garden.

First Day of Spring!!

Its awe inspiring! It's amazing! It's... SUPER SEED! It's almost like having my very own present for the first day right? I mean its so huge and strong looking. This one is a sunflower. One of TWO sunflowers that have popped forth from their tray. I'm so proud. I try really hard every year to put myself down and tell myself my first sprouts are no way going to actually sprout so that when they do, BAM! I'm all excited, but somehow, I had an inkling about this group of seeds. I mean they are as excited to get into the ground as I am to put them there!

Speaking of, I took a before picture of the garden spot that was so wonderfully provided to me, tada! A perfect spot if I do say so myself! I have already pulled those whitish yellow reed things. I had aid from the most adorable little gardeners. Sarah, Jonathan, and Emma. Sarah was more interested in the spiky plant that I couldn't get out of the ground without first getting myself some garden gloves, but I think it was because it was the only plant I wouldn't let her fiddle with. Jonathan and Emma preferred the leaf raking part. It looks nicer now, but next is the huge rock removal.

Very VERY! Exciting.

Oh and then of course, as of yesterday we began the next step of our gardening. The house plants. First it was to farm and fleet to gather some peat pellet replacements, the the window box after it was all arranged. That of course was the planning phase, but the other side of the box was arranged like thus, from left to right: Spice Basil, Cumin, Poor Man's Weather Glass, and Strawberries! That's right I tried out the cumin. Mom thinks its best to do only the herbs right now. She claims its too early yet for flowers and that they might get wind shock. Not that they are going out of doors, but you know. Anyway! That was my exciting first day of spring, how was yours?!

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The Happy Tine!

Bringing in the new Year

Hello 2011! That's right all, new year means new template, means new look. I have moved on from being an unconventional gardener, who knows nothing about plants. To someone who really wants to learn what to do with these things I've grown. Now no worries, I am certainly NOT going to be leaving out the growing sections, because I plan to get more elaborate and attempt all new herbs and plants. I plan on though, adding to what I'm going to do with them and have been called a poor man's apothecary. Which for those of you who don't know, means that I am using my herbs and plants to help with healing and such. Which for others who are just beginning to watch this, I have been in search of many a helpful remedies to help out my brave and strong fellow, Mikki. I have already proved that the basil tea does its job because as of yesterday my tea was drank by a truly head achy and stomach achy individual (mom), and after giving her my new basil tea with honey, she felt instantly better. So we know I can at least do this. Unconventional uses, rather than an unconventional garden.So thus is what I am, and you are joining me in the adventures of my life. A passion I have yet to be bored with this the beginning of time.

This year, I want to makes soaps, shampoos, and teas. Essential oils even if I manage to either build or receive a still for getting the oils out of the plants. This means lots of new flavor complexes and experimenting with new sights and smells. I really am quite excited about this new endeavor and hope that you will all add a little something on your preferred smells and flavors. Lets all hope that this is a good growing year!

Tomorrow begins the planning!