The Elecampane is (Finally) Blooming!

For the first time in three years, my elecampane plants finally bloomed! I grew them from seed in 2009, and this year (2011) they have graced me with their sunny flowers!

Besides being just an all-around beautiful plant, elecampane has a number of uses:

(1) The root makes an awful-tasting but effective cough suppressant, & is useful in fighting upper respiratory infections
(2) The roots can also yield a blue dye

HomeGrown Perfume Factory

The Clary Sage is blooming!!

With the exception of heirloom roses, Valerian and Clary Sage are my two favorite summer fragrances! I love picking bouquets of Clary Sage, because the entire house is perfumed with the fruity-citrus sclareol scent. The scent remains even after the plant dries, so there's no need to throw away that dried bouquet!

I Am Robot Queen of the Seedling Things!

It's official: I have my first cinnamon (tree) sprout! I planted 10 seeds roughly 3 weeks ago, and this morning I discovered my first seedling! I feel all-powerful now! *grin* I have always told myself that if I could grow cinnamon then I could grow just about anything! My final step to achieving this will be if my yellow gentian seeds germinate this spring. Should that occur, I think I may squeal with glee. Yellow Gentian is notoriously hard to grow from seed, but it is also the most sought-after of all of the bitters herbs. I have planted my gentian seeds in outdoor nursery flats (along with my Burning Bush, Arrowleaf Balsamroot, and Compass Plant), in order to give them the necessary cold stratification that they require for germination. I have heard that cinnamon seeds can be difficult to germinate due to a low natural viability. I have no idea if this is true or not, but I DO know that they require very high temperatures to germinate. Thankfully, with my grow lights and heat mats, I was able to provide this. And thank you also to Horizon Herbs for the opportunity to try my hand at germinating cinnamon seeds!!

I finished my spring herb seed order for the 2010 gardening year. Ryan and I have nearly completed my formal herb garden. We have begun moving loads of rock for the 4th and final raised bed; I have just about finished spreading layer upon layer of mulch in the walkways (it's a constant battle to smother the weeds); and my family has helped me to plant 3 of 4 fig trees over the center marker that is Jugi's grave (which forms the core of the garden - I feel that is fitting tribute for my beloved "Foo"). Last year, I planted some of the raised beds with madder, licorice, bloodroot, comfrey, valerian, arnica, skullcap, mexican tarragon, echinacea, four varieties of sages, chives, lavendar, several different mints, epazote, angelica, feverfew, horehound, lemon balm, elecampane, and more! My new additions for the herb garden this year include:

Agrimony, Anise, Betany, Borage, Burdock, Moldavian Dragon's Head, Gravel Root, Wormwood, Blue Vervain, Baical Skullcap, Evening Primrose, Mexican Marigold, Yellow Dock, Grindelia, Passionflower, Costmary, Yerba Mansa, Goldenrod, Astragalus, Yarrow, and Stinging Nettles. Of course I always plant the normal annuals too: Basils, Calendula, Coriander, etc.

With the new garden additions, I tried to focus heavily on herbs that had a reputation for helping with problems relating to chronic coughs and infections of the urinary tract, which certain members of this family are prone to suffering from. The nice thing about planning your own medicinal herb garden is that you can tailor it to suit your own family's needs! For more information on the medicinal properties of many of my herbs, I recommend reading Michael Moore's book, "Medicinal Plants of the Mountain West."

In the meantime, I already have a spare guest room FULL of seed germination trays just brimming with sprouts (and some established plants)! They are merely waiting until March when I will begin transplanting them outdoors. Currently contained in the "Green Room" are: Hibiscus (which is actually going to end up being a houseplant), Mbuluki (another houseplant), Brandywine tomatoes, a variety of basils (this batch is really for winter culinary use, but if they make it until spring then I will plant them outside), agrimony, marshmallow, heimia, Cinnamon (another houseplant during the winter anyway), Maravilla, Boneset, Empress Tree, Yacon, Desert Willow, Chaste Tree, Echinacea Purpurea, Yerba del Lobo, Clary Sage, Garden Sage, Licorice, Greek Oregano, Thyme, Italian Parsley, Greek Mullein, Centaury, Mexican Tarragon (I plan to grow a great deal of this because I LOVE cooking with it!), San Pedro cactus/Pitaya Cactus/Dragon Fruit Cactus/Peruvian Torch Cactus (all houseplants), Agave, and more!

I also visited a friend's vineyard yesterday and collected many many chardonnay grape cuttings, so today I am in the process of potting them all up. Ryan pruned our own wine & table grapes this past weekend, and there is another huge pile of cuttings waiting for me to plant them. So many projects! The grape cuttings that I started LAST winter are now ready for transplanting. I have been putting them along the fence lines in the formal herb garden - I figured that this was an excellent way to cover an ugly fence AND provide delicious fruit during the year! I noticed with my year-old grape cuttings that I had terrible success on the batches I potted WITHOUT rooting hormone. On the batches where rooting hormone was used, I had a very high (70%+) success rate. However, overall, the grape cuttings that I planted in the ground had a 100% success rate, and had the best and LARGEST establishments of roots. If I had the space, I would plant ALL of my grape cuttings in the ground, and then dig them up the following winter. This seems to be the best road to success. Unfortunately, not possessing the space for planting 300 grape cuttings in the ground, I am limited mainly to gallon pots. I try to place between 12 and 18 grape cuttings per pot, as grapes seem to be social plants who do better when housed in large numbers.

Jacopo, Fall Harvest, Etc.

Jacopo is doing VERY well! She still needs to fatten up on her mom's milk, but she is a bouncy little terror with personality to spare! I love Zatarra (our other 2009 miniature donkey foal), but Zatarra doesn't have anywhere near the personality that "Jaca-poco" (her farm nickname) has! Jacopo has taken a liking to me, and comes running up to me whenever I go into the stall. Yesterday she even tried to follow me out when I was leaving! I love her!! As soon as she gets a little bit bigger, we are moving her in with Cappuchino & Zatarra, and combining two pastures into one large pasture (so that they all have room to play).



I can't believe it's almost September, which means Mabon - The Harvest Celebration! Interesting how you come to understand & celebrate the old pagan holidays when you are so attuned to the seasons as a farmer...I actually really enjoy this fact. My entire family (okay, all four of us) has been helping me to bring the beginnings of the harvest in! My enclosed patio has turned into a hodge podge of seed drying trays...I keep blatantly hinting at Ryan that he needs to get my new harvest/herb room built! He is going to build me tall shelves with pull-out trays for storing and drying seeds, and I am going to ask him to build me a book shelf along one wall and an apothecary-type of cupboard along another (hey, the Apothecary Inn gets an apothecary cupboard! Har de har har...). Our garden harvest (in regards to produce) wasn't as large as I had hoped, but I have come to see this year as more of a focus on saving seeds for next year's (bigger and better!) garden. We have already finished bringing in and drying the quinoa. Now we are separating the tiny grains from the rest of the plant, which is tedious work. Then, we will need to wash the grains repeatedly to get the coating of saponin off of them. My calendula finally went to seed (Calendula is FREAKY the way it goes to seed!), and is drying on dishes.

We finished harvesting all of the dill seeds, and I am on my second seed harvest of epazote...so much epazote...the basil seeds are drying, and I also have shallot seeds! Ryan and I are taking all of the black beans we picked this year and using them as seed beans for next year. Like I said, we are saving enormous numbers of herb and vegetable seed! My watermelons and squash are almost ripe, and I will be harvesting my oca and yacon in another 2 months or so. Next month, Ryan and I are planting 24 bulbs of saffron (roughly a year's supply of saffron for 1 household - though I doubt we'll use it all ourselves!), and I am also trying out some Salsify (the root is supposed to taste like oysters). We planted our fall crops of arugula, fennel, and kohlrabi - to name a few - at the beginning of the month. I am also busy drying medicinal herbs for storage through the winter, and kicking myself for not having my calendula/comfrey salve ready after my latest kitchen knife accident! Ah well...Ryan and I have decided to start selling our excess seeds under our Apothecary Farm name. I keep telling him I want to get a nursery license someday and start selling plants and such on a larger scale. I'm practically there anyway, and at the rate we are going it may be a necessity soon! :P

And of course harvest season means canning season! (As well as beer-making/liqueur-making

season!) I am going to pick another couple of gallons of blackberries tomorrow, and I need to pick a few more flats of peaches for canning/preserves before the season ends. My peach-rosemary jam, and my blackberry-basil-cinnamon jam have been in high demand at the B&B. It's been selling like crazy, and I can barely keep it in stock!

Herbs, Rocks, & Scorpions, Oh My!

Ryan and I have decided that we do not have enough projects (sense the sarcasm?), so we are going to turn the old baby goat pasture (directly behind the solarium) into a new formal herb garden. This herb garden will have four raised beds marking the Four Corners, and a center lavender/heirloom rose bed with statue. We have been hauling river rocks up from the ravine on the far side of the property to make the raised beds, and have been filling the beds with our very own compost mix (which we - big surprise - have in large supply!). It's been backbreaking work, but Ryan and I have been immensely enjoying ourselves. It's a bit like playing "Fort" for grown-ups! Although, no one else we know seems to think this...All of our friends have become mysteriously "unavailable" since we have begun this project...? Anywho, Ryan has estimated that between the two of us we have hauled about 2 tons of rock thus far. We have three of the raised beds finished (1 culinary and 2 medicinal). The third bed will be for raising herbs used in natural dyes. We will hand-tear-out all of the grass and weeds, and lay gravel down on the walk ways in between the raised beds. We are going to dismantle the old baby goat shelter, and rebuild it in another pasture for the angoras to use. Then, we will landscape the area that the shelter used to be into a beautiful walkway to the site of our future trout pond. I have been training my multitude of grapes and climbing roses to take over the ugly old wooden fence that lines the baby pasture, so that instead of the fence all you will see is green and pink! Everything is going to look truly gorgeous when we are finished!

Speaking of rocks, we have discovered where the local scorpion population on our property is located! I always thought that scorpions in southern Oregon was a bit of a myth, but apparently not! Pretty much every single rock we turned over as we hauled them out of the ravine housed at least one (more often two or three) little dark brown scorpions. I am happy to say that I was already wearing very thick leather gloves!!


Now that three of my raised beds are complete, I have begun to plant in them! For those who don't know much about me: I am at my absolute happiest when I am covered in dirt, playing in my garden and talking to my plants. I have transplanted my five valerian plants, and 4 of my 5 comfrey roots, into one of the medicinal beds. I am currently in the process of transplanting my newest batch of sprouts: chives, lemon mint, lavender, red bergamot, elecampane, white horehound, black mustard, epazote, stevia, toothache plant, marsh mallow, black cumin, coriander, arnica, mexican tarragon, and dotted mint. I am still waiting for my chaste tree and cramp bark seeds to germinate. I have had excellent luck with my madder seeds, which will be going into my dye garden as soon as it's completed in the next few months. I am also waiting for my angelica, meadowsweet, and gravel root seeds to germinate. As I have mentioned many times previously, Ryan and I are trying to be as self sufficient as possible, and one of the ways that we try to accomplish that is by growing 99% of all of the herbs and produce we need. That is yet another reason that people will enjoy staying at our bed and breakfast: practically everything we serve comes out of our garden or fresh off of the farm! We have dairy goats and chickens, as well as a large orchard and garden, and an enormous selection of culinary and medicinal herbs! We produce our own line of all-natural home grown & processed botanicals (soaps, lotions, teas, tinctures, etc.), which we stock our guest bathrooms with. Speaking of the garden, it's really going to be phenomenal this year! Ryan and I worked incredibly hard to put in the largest garden yet this year. We have just finished harvesting our kohlrabi, arugula, spinach, heirloom lettuce, peas, and fava beans. There won't be any new crops until fall. Now we are waiting on our bean crop (we put in SIX large beds with Dragons Tongue, Black Turtle, Kentucky Wonder, Liana, Painted Lady, & Lima Beans), squash, 25 cucumber plants (representing three different varieties), 5 cantaloupe plants, 8 Moon & Stars watermelon plants, as well as beets, turnips, quinoa, and corn. I just planted our first batch of Red Garnet amaranth about two weeks ago, and it's finally germinating. In another week or two I will plant the second batch of amaranth (Hopi Red Dye). The plums, apples, and pears are ripening on the trees, and we are at the tail end of our strawberry harvest, and just beginning our blueberry & summer raspberry harvest. In another month the blackberries will probably be ripe too! I love summer! Ryan is thinking about possibly setting up a small produce stand on the property to help us stay on top of the harvest season. I agree with him that we will most likely have more fruits and vegetables than we will know what to do with! Nothing wrong with that! ;)