herb gardening

Maramataka Māori for March 2021

March 10, 2021 By SandRa Timmins Leave a Comment

So how did things go for you in the garden last month? Take notes (if you don’t already) on what seems to have worked for you and what didn’t really fly, it’s the best way to know your garden better, all our gardens are different!

You can feel Autumn in the air now hey, especially in the mornings… For March or Poutūterangi, the tenth month of the Māori year; Kua hauhake te kai, the crops are now taken up.

Poutūterangi, the tenth month of the Māori year, begins on the night of the New Moon (Whiro), this year that is the 13th March. I follow the Ātiawa version of Maramataka.

Please take mind that these are not hard and fast rules by any means, take into consideration your climate and what the weather is doing. You know your garden best and this ain’t gospel! If you have not read anything of mine regarding Maramataka I recommend you read this article here.

Whiro, 13th March

On the first day of the New Moon it’s a time to just admire your garden (which is probably looking a little scraggly by now!) rather than do any work on it.

But from the next day (Tirea) til the First Quarter (Tamatea whakapau, 22 March), mulch, prepare, compost and manure your garden beds for winter planting.

Seeds to sow are the same as last month, winter veg such as cauliflower, cabbage, broccoli, kale, lettuce, onions (warm areas), silverbeet and chard. Celery, miners lettuce (if it hasn’t self sown) corn salad and peas. Not just edible peas but flowering sweet peas too. Other flowers to sow are calendula, heartease (violas), chamomile, hollyhocks, sweet william, forget-me-nots, columbine + verbascum.

An interlude…

The way our moon shows itself is slightly different each month, sometimes first quarter can come 6 days after the New Moon, often 7 (average is actually 7.4 days), sometimes 9 days, as is the case with this month (a clear explanation of the lunar phases can be found here on Wikipedia). Which makes it quite hard to be really specific about what night is called what and have it line up with what the Moon is doing. So I’m being a little generalistic this month. Back in the days of old when this happened some nights were omitted, Huna (the 11th night) being the first to go. To read more about how bloody confusing it can be and the different variations depending on what iwi was making the calls, have a go at reading this article here courtesy of Victoria University.

Lesson over, carrying on!

Tamatea angaanga, 19th March

If it’s a dry day, today is a good day to harvest your culinary herbs to dry for winter flavour – and any other produce you want to keep. Main crop potatoes, drying beans, pumpkins (but only if the pumpkin stem is browning). Dry herbs in a dark warm place, hot water cupboards are perfect for small quantities.

Māwharu, 24th March

Good day for planting out your annuals, anything that you’re not growing to be able to store at a later date.. Most winter crops are for eating in the here and now so you’re good to go.

Three days before the Full Moon (the 27th) is a great time to foliar and root feed any plants that are established and have more growth to do.

Rākanui + Rākaumatohi, 30th (day after Full Moon) + 31st March

Full Moon energy a go-go! A good day to plant plants out ~ especially root veges like carrot, beetroot, parsnips, turnips and swedes. Get those spring bulbs in.

Tangaroa piri a mua, 4th April (start of the Last Quarter period)

Another nine day period between Last Quarter and New Moon, but we stop work in the māra (garden) on the 9th April (Mauri) three days before the New Moon.

Last chance saloon for a lot of us (especially in colder areas) to do seed sowing for the winter/spring garden.
Transplant and weed
Harvest! Harvest! Harvest! Exciting times, yes, we grow our gardens to to pick and eat straight away but the real beauty is when you’re able to harvest and then store or or process our produce to eat during the scarce winter months and the ironically even scarcer spring time months. Nicola Galloway has some beautiful preserving recipes if you need any inspiration.
Remember to save seed from your best growers, here’s how to save tomato seed.
If it’s been dry check your young fruit trees and shallow rooted trees like citrus and feijoa, any subtropicals (lucky people!), water, mulch again if necessary.
Clean up your gooseberries, currants + raspberries and finish off the pruning of your stone fruit.

Mauri, 9th April

The Moon is retreating, sit back and look at your work, take note of any lessons you’ve learnt. Those of us in cold climates, hate to say it, but look at getting your frost cloths etc sorted (if it’s not too late 🤞).

It’s a Garden Update..

February 25, 2021 By SandRa Timmins Leave a Comment

Hasn’t the weather been glorious of late! We have definitely been soaking it up and making the most of it. I do love Autumn but I know that it can hit us ever so suddenly and it’s all over rover before the togs have even dried on the washing line!

Tomato gardening — _{A good bunch of toms ready for this warm sun to ripen them.}

I’m hoping the good weather lasts long enough for my tomatoes to ripen. I must admit I got a little despondent with all the crap weather we were having that I kind of neglected my tomatoes and some of my plants went hell for leather creating laterals and beautiful bushiness, at the expense of my fruit. I gave them all a trim last week and I have a couple of mighty plants with a mere two tomatoes growing, gah! A good reminder lesson to keep those laterals (the growth in-between the main stem and branches) pinched out and to trim off excess leaves (so the toms get the warmth of the sunshine to ripen).

Agria potatoes — *_{The best roasting potatoes out there; Agria}*

I got a bit slack in mounding up my potatoes this year too, but I’m pretty happy with the harvest all the same. Red Rascals, big beautiful Agria and Matariki (they’re still in the ground). Potatoes are such a winning crop to grow, home grown organic potatoes taste so much better and the satisfaction of digging them up.. it’s good for the soul! If you grow them in containers it’s pretty good for the ego too. You just tip them out and you feel oh so clever for not having to get your hands dirty!

After harvesting your potatoes from the garden grow some mustard in it place to cleanse the soil and keep it nicely covered for winter. As long as my potatoes don’t get scab I grow them in the same plot for three years, so mustard is really important for my particular garden.

The herb garden has been going off, and the bees are LOVING it. They filled up on motherwort, then catnip, now they’re onto the oregano. Always the borage, and white sage has been there for them all summer too.

White sage plants have been more popular than ever this season and I am coming near to the end of my stock, unfortunately there will be a good few people missing out, I’m sorry!! I have re-homed 170 white sage plants so far this season, phew!

Full moon tomorrow, I have my spring bulbs ready to plant out, where exactly will be todays job! If you haven’t checked out what to do this month in the garden according to Maramataka Māori, I’ve worked it all out for you here.

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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