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This part of the site is designed to provide you with some useful information
in regards to your own gardens. �Please see the links at the bottom
to fully enjoy the rest of this portion of my web site.
I live and garden in Connecticut. Gardening is one of my all-time favorite
things to do. If you can't find me here at the computer then just take a
walk out my back door and you're sure to find me puttering around in the
herb garden or the veggie garden or one of the flower beds.
Being in the gardens brings me peace and tranquility. I can't describe to
you how I feel when I'm out there among the plants. The connection I feel
with the Lord and Lady is so real I can almost see it. In fact, I have been
blessed to see it once.
I was out in the herb garden one evening pulling weeds and talking to my
plants..I always talk to them and tell them how pretty they are and how well
they're doing sometimes I even tell them my problems...anyway I was just
out there alone and I felt this overwhelming sense of calm and love. I looked
up and there was a beautiful woman standing upon the rock...the moonlight
shinning down upon her lovely face and bouncing from her long black hair.
She looked down and smiled at me, waved Her hand down over the plants and
smiled wider. She nodded to me as though She was very pleased and happy with
me. Then from behind Her appeared a striking man. Both of Them appeared to
glow with a wonderous inner light that I could only hope to have. He smiled
at me, took Her hand in His, they kissed softly and then they were gone.
It was an experience I shall never forget. I just stood there among the catnip
and vervain starring, wondering if I had really seen what I had seen, my
mouth hanging open. I literally had to shut my jaw with my hand. I know They
were there and I know They were pleased with me and what I was doing.
Wether you're Wiccan or not...there is no more Magickal a place in or around
your home than your nearest garden...be it your garden or your neighbors.
This page is dedicated to all of you gardners out there...wether you're growing
herbs, flowers or veggies it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if you grow
in containers, boxes a roof top garden or a ground garden. It doesn't matter
if you have two plants or two hundred.
As I said I live in Connecticut, now I know a lot of you are thinking "Well,
there's a rich woman. Probably got a few acres of land in the woods somewhere."
That's not true. I'm not rich by anyone's standards and my land is roughly
a half to 3/4 of an acre with the house taking up some of that space. AND
I live in the middle of a small city. What's the point? This is the point..no
matter who you are or where you live you can find the space for a garden.
When I first started growing plants, trust me, no one had a blacker thumb
than I did. Everything I tried to grow died...quickly. Many a poor houseplant
met its untimely end at my hands. I can't say just when that black thumb
turned into a green one all I can say is I stuck with it and it happened.
I'm not really one of those Go Out and Buy a Book type of people either...all
of my growing techniques are good old trial and error. There have been plenty
of trials and errors! But I kept at it and while I can't say that I can grow
absolutely everything now...witness the rosemary's which keep dying on me
winter after winter no matter what I try...I can say that I can grow a lot
of things.
VEGETABLE GARDENING
Our Veggie garden is a rectangle that's roughly 20x8. It sits behind the
main herb garden and receives sunlight almost all day long. This year we
grew Cucumbers, Bell Peppers, Hot Hungarian Yellow Peppers, Eggplants, Tomatoes!,
Snow Peas, Spinach, Garlic and Basil. All of these can be grown in containers
so long as they're big enough and, for the peas, so long as you have something
they can grow up. �Over the fall we expanded our melon patch, it's now
as big as the vegetable garden!
I put Basil in the veggie garden because it's an annual herb and this saves
me from having to make room for annuals in the herb gardens. Pinch off the
flower heads as soon as you see them coming in order to prolong the life
of the plant. Once it flowers it die quickly. When you first put your basil
plants in the ground pinch off the top to promote bushier growth instead
of taller growth. We have gotten a very successful harvest from it this
year...more than enough to pass around to friends and neighbors.
The Dirt Under Your Feet
For veggies and melons you really do want
the best soil possible. For most of us this means you will have to spend
some time amending your soil. If you don't know the Ph level of your soil
go to your nearest hardware shop and pick up a kit for this. The Ph should
be between 5 and 7.
You'll know if you have good dirt of not without testing the Ph the first
time you begin to dig the garden. If you're finding lots of big fat juicy
earthworms...baby you've got gold! The fewer the worms the poorer the soil.
The soil can be amended in lots of ways, adding a generous helping of cow
manure is always good, you can also use horse, chicken and rabbit manure.
Careful with the chicken stuff it's very powerful and too much can actually
burn your soil. For the others you can pretty much toss in as much as you
want.
COMPOSTING
Humus is also excellent for soil amending. If you don't have one already
begin a compost heap. I know a lot of container gardners and apartment dwellers
can't do composting, if this is the case with you try to get together with
a gardening buddy who does have room for one. Ours sits on the side of the
yard in full sun all day, that's very important, it should receive sunlight
at least six hours out of the day. Also important to turn it and keep it
wet to help along the break down process. You can put almost everything in
it, all your kitchen peelings, veggie left overs,fruits leftovers, coffe
grounds, eggshells, hair, breads, ashes if you have a fireplace or woodstove.
You can also put the leftover manure into the pile. Don't put in any meats
or dairy products as they can draw bacterias and all sorts of nasty things
that you don't want in your soil. If you amend your soil well you will have
no need for chemical fertalizers. They're not good for the garden anyway.
Good for the plants yes but not the dirty they grow in. They can actually
zap valuable nutrients from your soil.
HOW DID THE GARDEN DO?
We produced more tomatoes than we could ever possibly use this year.
�More cucumbers too! �The vegetable garden did very well and I'm
very proud of it. I hope to make better use of my space in this coming growing
season, going to try out a�few new veggies as well! �As the growing
season progresses I will post the progress of the gardens here.
Flowers in the yard
We have flowers growing everywhere in the
yard but I do maintain two main flower gardens. One abutts the house under
our bedroom window and is filled with tuplips, daffodills, (actually I've
got the daffs all over the yard, they give really nice color in the early
spring just when you need it most!) gladiolas and hollyhocks. There's almost
always something blooming in that garden from early spring through the summer.
Some people don't want to fool around with bulb flowers, especially if they
live some place where the winters get really cold because that normally entails
digging the bulbs up every year storing them and then replanting them in
spring. I used to drive myself crazy doing just that. But I've found if I
treat the bulbs the same way I do the herb garden in the late autumn then
all works out well, even here in Connecticut...even if I'm growing Dahlia's.
I just cover that flower bed with a generous helping of fallen leaves and
let it tend itself during the non-growing season. It's worked out very well,
all the bulbs have survived and produced daughters.
The other flower garden is my favorite place right after the herb garden.
That's my wildflower garden. It may seem silly to say that you actually maintain
a garden of wildflowers, after all wildflowers are supposed to be...well...wild,
aren't they? I have found that a wildflower garden is not just among
the most beatiful of gardens but also the easiest to maintain. Just allow
the plants that naturally grow in an area to grow and develop on their own
and toss in hand fulls of seeds of plants native to your area and watch it
go! In that garden I put my mints and pennyroyal..they do like to "spread
their wings" and there they allowed to just that. Also there's Queen Anne's
Lace, Wallflowers, Sweet Williams, Foxgloves, Celeandine, Red Clover and
Blood root.
If you want something you'll never have to worry about that will take over
an area, get yourself some back house lillies...othewise known as Tiger Lillies.
There's a big patch of them growing on the side of the herb garden as well,
I never do anything for them and they come back year after year bigger and
better. They're so hardy that you don't even really have to plant them. Last
year I decided we needed some color in front the front deck so I dug up some
of the backhouse lilies to put there. It started to rain and I forgot about
the fact that I had dumped the bulbs in front of the deck. This year...Lo
and Behold...they came up like gangbusters right where I had dropped them
last year.
We pulled the hedges in front of the house last year and I was left this
big bare spot come spring. I hemmed and hawed over just what to do with it
and finally decided it should be a little wild too. I took handfuls of seeds
that I had harvested and purchased a few tubes of wildflower seeds. I've
had color infront of the house all season long, in fact they're still out
there. California Poppies, Mallow, Mullen, Straw Flowers, Bachelor Buttons,
Red Clover, Mugwort , Lupines and many others. It's been truly wonderful,
but a bit unruly...I've had to allow the grass to grow there so I did not
disrupt the plants, but even the grass has it's beauty once it reaches a
certain height and flowers.
Since the plants began to seed I've been readily collecting them and tossing
them out all over the place. We should have a very interesting mix of flowers
all over the yard next year. I kept some of the seeds to sow in the spring,
I put them all in a big bag and labled it "Momma's Wildflower Mix", there's
enough in there to give some away as Yule gifts...hummm...not such a bad
idea, hey?
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