SandRa Timmins

A Balm for the Emotions

October 26, 2020 By SandRa Timmins Leave a Comment

If you have lemon balm in your garden and have done for a while, you most likely have quite a few lemon balm plants in your garden, and then some!

If that is the case for you, it is easy to forget how amazing and splendid this plant is, or maybe you didn’t know? Or maybe you do! Then you may read on whilst nodding your head in a knowingly pleased fashion.

Lemon balm, sweet balm or just balm (or Bawne in olde English), Latin name Melissa officinalis.

Melissa is from the Greek word signifying ‘bee’. Bee keepers would (and still can) rub their hives with balm to attract bees and to keep bees together. Plus bees love lemon balm flowers (for more bee loving plants read this post here).

But medicinally and historically what lemon balm has been used for is melancholy and long life.

*_{Ruin of Carmelite Church in Famagusta, Cyprus}*

Carmelite Water, a closely guarded recipe made by monks in France (in the way back and when) has lemon balm as its main ingredient along with lemon peel, nutmeg and angelica root (ahh, don’t be fooled by the water part… ‘water’ is wine- as wine is water for some of us!).

Learning Herbs has a great article about Carmelite Water along with their recipe if you want to give it a crack.

Mrs M. Grieve reckons it is highly useful against nervous headache and neuralgic affections. Just steeping lemon balm with a bottle of white wine can “comfort the heart and driveth away melancholy and sadness”

Paracelus said that “essence of balm given in Canary wine every morning will renew youth, strengthen the brain, relieve languishing nature and prevent baldness” If that’s your excuse to drink wine every morning Paracelus you strike a good argument!

I’ve had days where I’ve felt a little blah, a bit dark… and I get a definite lift if I munch on a lemon balm leaf, well maybe not so much a lift but a forgetfulness as in “hmm, that’s right, I was feeling down before, ha! wonder what about?”.

You can dry lemon balm but I find that the scent doesn’t really remain and it’s better to use it fresh if possible.

Lemon balm also has wonderful anti-viral properties, particually effective against herpes simplex, more commonly known as cold sores.

Cold sore ointment diy — *_{Cold sore ointment/balm}*

I’m blessed to not get cold sores but my boys do now and again so I made up a balm that goes onto their cold sores at first tingle. Works a treat. Article and recipe can be found here (goodness, written back in 2015!).

To grow lemon balm it likes a shady to semi shady spot and plenty of moisture, though it’s pretty adaptable and can handle being neglected (as long as it’s in the right spot!). If you don’t want it to self seed all around the show then nip out the flowers as soon as you see them. Optimum harvest time is late spring and throughout summer.

So I hope you can now look at your lemon balm with new appreciation or you’re now well excited about getting lemon balm into your life! Click here to see availability of Lemon Balm.

Pleasing The Bee’s Knees ~ Herbs to Grow for Bees

October 3, 2020 By SandRa Timmins 1 Comment

If you hadn’t heard the news, I’m now the very proud, very amateur, owner of a beehive and a humming colony of busy ladies and lazy males! I am on a quick learning curve to say the least (it was an unexpected but very gratefully received surprise gift).

In the past I’ve had people buy herbs off me specifically for the bees and I have had a fair idea of what herbs would be best~ but now my interest has double folded and I’m looking at a lot of my plants in a new light!

A Bit of Bee Backstory…

Bees need pollen and nectar. And depending on what time of year it is and what your hive is trying to achieve, sometimes they’re searching for mainly pollen (pollen is their source of protein and is essential for the feeding of larvae) or nectar (nectar is their carb source, it is converted into honey- honey for them to live on, and stored for the cold months when plants are not flowering). Often when searching for nectar they also inadvertently collect pollen~ pollination.

(Photo by **Andreas Trepte, www.avi-fauna.info**)

You can see the pollen stashed on their back legs, nectar is transported in their stomach. It is in the warmer months when lots of flowers are producing the most nectar and this is called “the flow”.

Honey bees also need to collect water for the hive and resin (from trees and buds) to make into propolis.

Many of our native trees are excellent for nectar and pollen, a lot of our fruit trees are great for pollen but some don’t have nectar sweet enough for their taste buds (Pear as an example). But as they say (they being me), there’s a bum for every seat and an insect for every flower!

Bee on cherry plum blossom — *They smother our cherry plum trees though*

In New Zealand we have four different types of bumblebees, 33 ‘native’ bee species and four introduced bee species, one of these being the honey bee.

What Can We Plant for the Bees…

Being a herby person I’m going to focus on herbs that you can grow that the bees will love and appreciate (my idea of herbs is quite broad!). Firstly though, lets acknowledge their amazing visual spectrum which includes the short wavelength ultra violet range which is beyond our mere mortal human eyes. So blues, yellows, light pink/purple and white are more on their radar than reds and oranges. This is quite a cool clip I found on YouTube that shows how bees and butterflies see, I mainly like it for its music!

EARLY SPRING

It’s a pollen a go go in Spring – the Queen has started laying and there are hungry mouths to feed..

A swathe of poppies that bees would love — *Brought to you by the letter P… This is a public garden bed in Masterton*

Poppies; all and any, plant them in large swathes so it’s like a billboard for the bees, advertising food for the needy.
Lacy phacelia (Phacelia tanacetifolia); often used as green crop- let the bees in before you dig it in
Rosemary (Rosmarinus officinalis)
Honesty (Lunaria annua)
Borage (Borago officinalis)
French lavender (Lavandula dentata)
Let any brassicas you’ve got go to seed- the flowers are an excellent source of nectar
Let your dandelion flower and if you can stand it, the buttercup too.

Plants for bees, flowering kale — *Kale going to seed*

SUMMER ~ The flow is on!

Honey bees are native to the Mediterranean and naturally will go gah gah over thymes, rosemary, sage and oregano. There is also (in no particular order)

Clover
Pennyroyal (Mentha pulegium)
Wild bergamot (Monarda fistulosa)
Geraniums/Pelargoniums
Rue (Ruta graveolens)
St John’s Wort (Hypericum perforatum)
Mint (Mentha sp.)
Catnip (Nepeta cataria)
Catmint (Nepeta mussinii)
Clary Sage (Salvia sclarea)
Echinacea (Echinacea purpurea)
Lemon Balm (Melissa officinalis)
Chive flowers (Allium schoenoprasum)
Borage (Borago officinalis)
Dandelion
Anise Hyssop (Agastache foeniculum)
Hyssop (Hyssopus officinalis)
Marjoram (Majorana hortensis)
Comfrey
Fennel (Foeniculum sp.)
Lovage (Levisticum officinale)
Self Heal (Prunella vulgaris)
English lavender (Lavandula spica)
Basil (but if you want basil for your own needs wait until the end of the season)

AUTUMN

A lot of salvias wait until autumn to flower or are flowering well into autumn. Sunflowers. All the herbs that are onto their last hurrah/going to seed before dying (annuals like basil and dill) or going to ground (perennials like chives and echinacea etc).

Even if you don’t have hives it’s really important to have flowers in your garden for the bees and all the other pollinators out there. For their health and well being as well as your gardens productivity.

And I really really hope that it goes without saying that the use of pesticides is an absolute no-no and pretty counter-productive if you’re trying to attract pollinators!

Now go to your garden and watch the bees, see what they’re gunning for, watch whether they’re lolling about in pollen or head down supping up the nectar. Wonder at how they see the world and hope that they are as thankful for your garden as you are as thankful for their existence and the food on your table!

References/Recommendations;

Practical Beekeeping in New Zealand by Andrew Matheson & Murray Reid
A Beekeepers Year by Janet Luke (NZ book)
The Bee-Friendly Garden by Kate Frey & Gretchen LeBuhn (US book)
If you’re after all plants specifically for the bees, based in Manawatū is Trees for Bees

Seed Sowing 101

September 10, 2020 By SandRa Timmins Leave a Comment

The moon is right (Maramataka), it’s still a little chilly (here anyway), but spring is trying it’s best and now is a good time to get cracking on seed sowing.

This is a real quick post with lots of photos of dirt, just to give you the basics of seed sowing if you’re new to the game (warning, this game can be addictive!)…

So, use seed raising mix, unfortunately not all seed raising mixes are made equally, if you’re reaching for the cheap bag be prepared to fish out the large pieces of bark, the real fine stuff is the best, personally, my favourite is Daltons organic seed raising mix.

Fill up your container, usually a flat tray with at least 4 cm depth, then water your medium (medium being your seed raising mix).

Arrange your seeds, or if they’re very fine, sprinkle.. if they’re super fine, mix the seed with sand for an even distribution.

Label. Don’t trust yourself to remember what it is that you sowed next to that other really memorable seed, especially true if you’re sowing different types of tomatos.

When it comes to covering your seed you don’t want to cover it with any more than the seed is big. I have re-written this sentence many times, my brain can’t work out how to word it better! Hopefully these pictures of pea seeds help! For the fine seeds, vermiculite is the bees knees, failing that, the finest of the fine seed raising mix, sieve it if you have to,

Then pat it gently, you’re making sure that the seed is connected to the soil. Then gently spray with water.

Where you’re going to put them now depends on your current climate and what you’ve sown. For me, cold inland, most will be going on my heat pads, some in the glasshouse. (Go to this post here about heat pads)

Keep your seeds moist, by either spraying or watering from the bottom. Watering with a water can is a bit a rough at this stage. And eventually you’ll have trays of little seedlings and a heart full of pride! Have fun and don’t be shy to talk to your seeds to help them grow… Haha! There’s a (completely un-scientific) theory actually that basil seeds grow best if you verbally abuse them, maybe use them to vent your frustrations!

Herb Pruning

September 5, 2020 By SandRa Timmins Leave a Comment

Winter is the time to prune most of your fruit trees, your end game is healthy bountiful trees that’ll give you bushells of fruit.

Spring is the time to prune your herbs. For a lot of our herbs, their best harvest time is just before they flower or as they’re flowering. So we want to be pruning them for amazing leaf action and the best time to prune for that is Spring, just before they get their boogie on…

Pruning Southernwood — *This is going..*

Plants like Southernwood, Texas tarragon (Mexican marigold), french lavender and Lemon verbena can get damn right leggy and scraggly if left to their own devices. For these ones you can get right in there and prune quite hard – they’ll come back laughing, don’t worry.

Special note for Lemon verbena though, as she’s not a slave to the seasons you’ll find she may even be still holding onto leaves and not even considering to leaf up again til early summer. So wait til you see little buds of green on the stems before pruning. If you want to be careful about it, prune just above buds.

Pruning Lemon Verbena — *Lemon Verbena, not in her prime! And not ready for a prune just yet.*

For your tenacious herbs like mint or basil mint~ the ones that have kept on growing above ground through winter (so not peppermints) you can cut these right back to get lovely fresh spring growth. Old leaves can be a bit bitter or they might be getting rust or just not looking as amazing as usual, so cut’em all off. Cutting down to the base encourages new stems to come up too.

If they’ve gotten really big, consider dividing it up. Especially true for your bergamots, every two years it pays to divide your plants or else the roots get so tangled that they don’t flower as well as they should and for bergamots, we want to see as many of those glorious flowers as we can!

If you’re looking for advice for your white sage, go to this post here; Cultivating White Sage Smoke Cleansing Sticks.

Culinary herbs… eat and be happy

If you want to prune your thyme’s, don’t take off more than a third or they’ll freak out and die.. to be blunt. The best way to prune your thyme and any and all culinary herbs is to use them, that’s why you’re growing them right? It is the secret to happy healthy herb plants, they want to be in your dinner or in your apothecary, use them, eat them, be adventurous and remember to give your thanks to the plant. They will thank you back many times over with their flavour and/or medicinal value!

Plenty of herbs I haven’t mentioned here, please ask in the comments if there’s something specific you’d like to know~ xx

New Plants on the Books!

August 31, 2020 By SandRa Timmins Leave a Comment

As Spring is making itself known I’m getting a little more enthused about the coming season… Blossoms are like medicine for the soul aren’t they!

So I’ve been updating my website, working out what I’ve got, what I haven’t.. sadly I’ve had to let go of some plants as I admit defeat to this here climate, Pineapple sage is one, it does grow here, but not strong enough for me to be happy propagating from my mother plants.

But, I have added some new plants, yippee! Pictured above is one, beautiful Silver tansy is a low growing super interesting plant for the dry garden (or dry spot). Sweet violet, Self heal and Borage.

Sweet Violet, Viola odorata, plant for sale

I will also be adding Chocolate peppermint, oh yeah, if you like after dinner mints~ this is the one for you. Lemon bergamot; it’s an annual and I usually only do perennials but the flowers are so fabulous I’m bound to grow too many for just myself! Skullcap might be coming along, just waiting to see how my divisions leaf up, it’s looking pretty promising..

Stay tuned! (If you didn’t know already and you’re that way inclined, I’m on Instagram now and having a bit of fun on there, you can follow me here, https://www.instagram.com/stoneygroundherbs/)

Mid Winter Xmas Market

July 14, 2020 By SandRa Timmins Leave a Comment

Happy Matariki everyone! Hope you are doing lovely things with your whānau, remembering loved ones that have crossed over and excited about the new year…

*If you’re not sure what Matariki is about, click here to find out more*

I’m a little excited about this coming weekend because I’m going to be at a market and I NEVER have done a market at this time of year. The lovely little township of Greytown is currently having having a mid-winter Christmas celebration these school holidays and us regular stall holders at the Greytown Country Market are having a market this Saturday, the 18th July at the Town Hall.

*photo courtesy of* https://www.greytownvillage.com/

I will have a small selection of herbs (a lot of my herbs go to ground at this time of year) as well as freshly made kokedama for your indoor pleasure. I may even have some Chicken Winter Booster blends available.

kokedama will be for sale at the Greytown Market this Saturday, the 18th July 2020 — *An example of kokedama*

Would absolutely love to see your shining faces, if I don’t know you please introduce yourself! If anyone whom has previously bought a kokedama off me and want it to have a tickle up give me a heads up and I’ll bring some gear with me and I can do it there.

Looking forward to it!

Happy Balding Hens

May 19, 2020 By SandRa Timmins Leave a Comment

I’ve been having fun lately making up herbal concoctions for our flock of ladies.

bantam rooster with a rose comb, natural chicken keeping — *Ice is our bantam rooster with a rose comb. Peaches is a buff orpington x*

We currently have 33 chooks (four of those are roosters) and 15 chicks. Too many really but we are a family of five and we like our eggs!

mixed breed pullets, natural chicken keeping — *Some young-uns*

They free-range around our property when they’re not locked up at night, so they’re pretty lucky and have access to green pastures, tasty weeds and if they’re really naughty fresh fruit and vegetables from the garden!

free range chickens — *Blue, our blue orpington x silkie, looking gorgeous*

Right now though most of them are molting so just to give them an extra boost I’ve formulated a herbal crumble supplement..

When chickens are moulting they need vitamin A, folic acid and zinc for feather growth. As well as extra protein, warmth (circulation) and they’re a little down in the dumps and exposed, so some immunity support as well. They won’t be laying eggs as their energy is going into feather growth rather than egg production, so expect empty nests.

Moulting chicken herbal blend — *She’s like a shadow of her former self*

In my Moulting Blend (yep, it has a capitalised title because it’s going to be up for sale soon) I have…

Flaxseeds… folic acid (B9), feather growth
Garlic… warming, protection from infection, vit A
Parsley… vit A, protein, feather growth
Dill seed… high protein
Mint… feather growth, digestive health
Star anise… warming, anti-microbial
Seaweed… all round health, zinc

Moulting is a natural thing to happen to your chooks, usually yearly and usually in autumn. You can’t stop it and you can’t speed up the re-growth but you can make sure they’re getting a bit of a boost in the vitamins and minerals they need to supplement their normal balanced feed.

I’m giving my girls about a teaspoon each, every 4 days.

*Moulting mama, Star & chick (Barred rock x)*

Other things you can do to help them through this awkward phase is to feed them sprouted alfalfa and cat meat/kibble (as in cat food – not minced cat! 😮)

Rooster and hen — *Hei Hei, ironically the rooster not the chicken (hei hei is Māori for chicken) and Cocoa Pops*

If this is a product you may be interested in for your own flock do let me know in the comments section or via the contact form. Would be handy to be able to gauge interest…

Other potions in the pipeline is a boosted vaseline lotion for scaley leg mite, a golden layer health blend, worming blend and a chick blend…

Plot Twist!

March 25, 2020 By SandRa Timmins Leave a Comment

I was really hoping I would still be able to provide dried herbs and tinctures for y’all during this weird ol’ period. I was even going to make up a whole lot of kokedama to sell online due to all my markets having been cancelled. But alas, I’m not an essential business, and couriers + NZ Post whom are essential, are only going to be collecting/delivering/posting essential business, business. So that’s me out. That’s Josh (husband/Industrial Fusion) out. Plot twist!

So, to keep myself entertained I’m going to do blog posts on how to entertain yourself and coping strategies. Maybe they’ll help you, maybe they won’t, but they’ll probably help me!

Whilst we’re still getting beautiful days get on out there into the garden, there’s still a few jobs to do. Collect seed, harvest and dry herbs, divide your clumping herbs .

Seed saving screen from LovePlantLife — *Seed saving screens*

A lot of herbs will self seed readily, but there are some that you might want to save just in case and it’s nice to share seeds. The seeds are found within the flowers, once the flowers start dying/drying off on the plant that’s when the seeds start hardening and you can start collecting. Store your seeds in paper envelopes, making sure the seeds are properly dry. Seed saving screens are good for seeds that need cleaning, not dirt hopefully, but husks or flower material etc. Here’s an ooold post about using seed saving screens.

Collecting seed pods for decoration is a lovely thing to do, take the time to appreciate their beauty…

For other autumn jobs in the herb garden go to this post here that I wrote around about this time last year. If you want to get straight into the dividing of your herbs go here.

It breaks my heart every time I see advice on drying (leaf) herbs and they show or tell you to hang your herbs in a nice sunny spot. If you want dull, non flavoured and possibly fly speckled herbs then by all mean dry your herbs in the sun. If you want herbs with as much as their original colour and flavour as well as their (medicinal) volatile oils, dry in a warm, well ventilated dark space. Hot water cupboards are great as are attics if easily accessible. You want them crispy dry, flowers take longer than you think to dry (if they’re going in a vase it’s not a biggy, but if they’re going in a jar you want to make sure they’re dry all the way through, mouldy flowers are so very disappointing).

Keep busy my people, stay connected, to the earth and to your loved ones. If you know a health worker or supermarket worker send them as much aroha as you can! Stay well, stay at home 🌿❤

Fire Cider

March 15, 2020 By SandRa Timmins Leave a Comment

Obviously there’s a lot of shit going on in the world at the moment, I’m quite sure I don’t need to go into it. I just want to note though, I’m terribly gutted I’m going to be missing the Violent Femmes concert next week, at least its postponed and not cancelled, there’s hope yet!

Fire Cider, freshly made — *I could stare at this for hours! Our brew made.*

The kids and I made fire cider today. Something I’ve been meaning to do every year but just never quite get round to it, today felt like the day though. Tell you what, I now feel more prepped than what a roomful of toilet paper would make me feel..here’s a (what I thought at the time) funny/interesting article about the whole toilet paper thing from the NZ Herald.

Fresh herbs to go into fire cider — *Some of the herbs that went into the brew*

I didn’t follow any recipe but many ideas. Basically, we just walked around the property and collected anything and everything that we know have great/wonderous/many properties. Then raided our apothecary for dried goods and freezer for ginger and chillies.

Prepping for fire cider, real life learners — *Prepping for fire cider, my real life learners!*

Here’s what’s in our witches brew…

Dried elderberries
Dried Orange slices
Dried Horopito
Dried Motherwort
Dried Bay leaves
Cloves
Powdered tumeric (would’ve used fresh but really wanted to make it NOW)
Sliced red onion
Sliced fresh ginger
Chillies
Garlic, lots
Fresh herbs…..
Sage
Nettle
Nasturtium leaves
Rosemary
Yarrow
Thyme
Peppermint
Oregano
Lemon verbena
Chive flowers
Lemon peel

*Apparently the process warranted goggles!*

I wasn’t thinking about flavour at all, just potency and what I had available! Oh, so this was all topped up with my homemade apple cider vinegar. The kids have always loved making potions so it was fun for them to be part of a real life process (tinctures aren’t too much of a process).

*Jakob and Industrial Fusion cleaver making short work of the ginger*

I’ll steep it for 6-8 weeks (in a dark warm place, so it’s sharing space with my brewing fruit wines), sieve it, bottle it and proceed to take a tablespoon of it everyday..hope like hell it’s a little palatable!

Do it people, I highly recommend it, I know I haven’t gone into a whole lot of detail but I also know that Instagram and probably a whole host of other social networks are riddled with fire cider recipes right now, no shame in jumping on the band wagon with this one! If you do want more details from me just comment below..

Stay healthy beautiful people, grow more herbs and eat more herbs. I am actually going to have herb plants to sell throughout the year now, that’ll be my next post and I’ll let you know what I’ll have available… Xx

End of Season

March 4, 2020 By SandRa Timmins Leave a Comment

Just a quick note to say that I’m all sold out of herb plants for the season but I would still love to hear from you of what you’re after. It gives me a good idea on how much to propagate through the autumn and winter months.

I still have kokedama plants available, I will be at Martiborough Fair this Saturday (7th March 2020), tagging along with Industrial Fusion. I will also be at the Kimbolton Sculpture Festival on the 4th April. Perhaps somehow I’ll even work out how to sell my kokedama here on my website!

Corkscrew rush (Juncus effusus "Spiralis") kokedama — Corkscrew rush (Juncus effusus “Spiralis”) kokedama

OK, hope you’re getting a bit of rain at the moment wherever you are…and a bit of dryness if you’re down south!

(If you are getting a smattering of rain, water your garden, this is the time to do it so that whatever rain comes actually gets absorbed through to the roots.)

Search site

A Bit of Bee Backstory…

What Can We Plant for the Bees…

References/Recommendations;

Culinary herbs… eat and be happy