herb gardening

Kia ora!

January 12, 2021 By SandRa Timmins Leave a Comment

Kia ora folk! Hoo-wee! Feels like I haven’t been here in a while, happy new year and all that jazz!

My negligence here, hmm, no let’s word that differently… My concentration has been taken up by a few other things. Firstly the whole Christmas and New Years thing; I was quite pleased once it was all over to be honest, it was nice it was fun, but always takes a bit of extra-curricular planning and hyped expectations, especially if you have kids!

_{Not the most complimentary shot of any of us, but here’s our family in Whakatāne way for Christmas}

Secondly, it is drying season and with this weather being so higgedly piggedly working out the ideal times to harvest my herbs and know that they will dry in premium time, takes a bit of forethought. White sage season has also begun, this is when I go through my wait list, send out emails 20 at a time, wait for responses, get plants ready, freak out that I’m not going to cut it or my plants aren’t, know that I’m fine, check that I’ve been paid, send them out….and repeat!

Vegie garden maintaining, staking, de-lateraling tomatoes, weeding… at least I’ve hardly had to water, thanks grey days…not!

But mainly, I’ve been a bit pre-occupied with a new project; it’s an expansion on Stoney Ground Herbs but well, almost a whole ‘nother beast. I can’t really say too much about it yet but it’s going to be really cool and I’m super excited. There’s a whole lot of work involved (it’s huge!), but fortunately I’m a team player and I’ve got people on my side working on the products, the developments, the technical parts and the ‘keep SandRa real’ parts! So if I’m a bit quiet, this is what I’m doing… But be ready for some noise!

In the meantime here’s some photos of the gardens and I promise I will get back onto the blog writing wagon!

Hope your gardens are flourishing too!

Golden plum tree — Oh, and it’s the start of preserving season, our Golden Plum tree has been over zealous in its generosity, I can’t keep up!

Clary sage, Salvia sclarea 'Turkenstanica' — Clary sage, Salvia sclarea ‘Turkenstanica’. Looking gorgeous, smelling even better, the smell gets stronger as the flowers age.

Vegie garden — OK, maybe I haven’t been that busy weeding…it’s on the to-do list! Zucchini, borlotti beans, corn (somewhere) and spaghetti squash.

Tomato — Nip out the growth that happens between the main stem and the main branches.. this is what’s called “delateraling”, makes for a stronger plant and better fruit.

Container gardening — I’ve been experimenting with container gardening…

Honey — Harvested a couple of frames of honey a couple of weeks ago, very exciting, very messy, very rewarding!

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

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 🌿❤

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Culinary herbs… eat and be happy