Lavender Lifts the Spirit

Lavender is by far the most useful herb in the garden. It is loved by many people and is grown in many countries in the world. I am always amazed by its flower heads, each a cluster of mini purple powered flowers with fan like tail tips on top in a slightly lighter shade. The scent is so thought provoking and memories come flooding to our minds as we inhale the scent.
Relaxing yet uplifting in it´s ability to totally focus our minds on rest and rejuvination.
It is the colour of amethyst, a precious stone that allows the mystical thoughts to surface and the psychic abilities to throw forth.
Hope you enjoy the purple shades of our garden here, Pixiepod´s Garden, as I meander through our plants with my purple weed bucket in tow.

The unveiling of the newbies

In a previous post I took a photo of my plastic bottle clad new herbs. It helps to protect them from the harse winds and just lets them settle in a little first after the initial move out into the garden.
I unveiled them about a week ago and took this photo to share with you. Already the chamomile plants are producing flowers and the calendula is doing well. The thymes are not so bad either but time will tell.
It has been a bit unsettled in Pixiepods Garden over the last few days, the winds are changeable but when settled it has been really hot.

Planted out some more broccolli, cauliflower and lettuce into the vegetable beds and more potatoes. We are eating the last of the ready crop tonight. They have been great and I hope now that the earth is up to a reasonable standard we can continue to produce some tasty vegetables.

I have also been pruning and bundling. Herbs love to be tied into little bundles and recently I have posted onto my Etsy shop, a bundle of apple tree branches, prepared and bundled into a bundle of 8 perfect little sticks. The apple tree is very symbolic in the garden, it represents, garden magick (amongst other things) so they make good companions for herbs, even in little pots on the window sill. The blossom of the apple tree is well known for representing fertility.

Hubby and I went walking at the weekend, nearly our first of the season. We did Roque del Conde, which we have done before but just before the very top I took a bit of a panic attack. I am scared of heights to some degree but my legs just went like jelly and I really didn´t want to be up there. We came back down and I can honestly say I was glad to get back to a more normal height. It was an enjoyable day but by gum were we sore the next day! Walking in Tenerife is great fun and there are lots to choose from but be careful if you do venture out as some of them can get tricky and you must remember, you have to have the energy to get back.

Well must get on and do some gardening, feeling like more sitting in it today, but there is always something to be getting on with.

Making way for more herbs

I was telling you in my last blog that I was pruning. Well I have also been clearing.
I cleared away, with a huge help from my hubby, a very large and invasive "curry" plant. It was the silvery leaf version and really not of much use other than a scent of an Indian takeaway. It took up nearly one whole corner of my protected and most sacred space in the pixiepod garden. It had to go and it didn´t put up a fight either, which is always good.

As you can see from the photo, it has been replaced with some new herbs and flowers, they are just looking a bit plastic ridden at the moment, this way of using plastic water bottles is a common practice here in Tenerife, as the winds can be harse at times and until the plants are settled I like to nurture and protect them a little first.

It is a great time here in the garden. Blackbirds tooing and frowing with bits of twigs for their nests, and they are singing away to each other, it is trully wonderful!

Halloweén

It´s almost that time of year again - no not Christmas!! Halloween!!!
It has turned into a commercial headache of Americanised "Trick or Treating". Don´t get me wrong I don´t mind the neighbours children coming around, dressed up and clearly making the effort to get into the spirit of the event.
Halloween is the time when the two worlds can communicate with each other. Looking at this from my stand point it is the time for celebrating what our Elders have left behind, our gifts that we have are given to us from them and on this night we can give thanks for that. Also a celebration of the craft of Herbalism, we have been handed down this knowledge too, and as it seems increasingly likely that we will be banned from buying herbs from ungoverned places due to a law that has been passed. Which will result in only being able to purchase "proven" herbs and there uses defined by a small few. It is important more than ever to remember the herbal potions and lotions, remedies etc that we use, that were given to us from our Elders and pass them onto our next generation so that the Knowledge never ends.
I sell some herbs, flowers, seeds, etc in my Etsy shop. I give a little bit of info with each one. Anyone who is interested in herbs and would like more information please feel free to email me.
Another purpose of Halloween is the cleansing with fire. I have created my hearth in a small area of my garden, this is where I burn herbs and write little notes that I can burn. These notes consist of bad habits that I want to break or poems that I want to give to Mother Earth, they can be anything really.You can do this anytime but there are more powerful times of the year, Halloween being one of them.
So, Halloween has a lot going for it, don´t forget it and celebrate our Elders, celebrate the Knowledge of Herbs, and Use the fire to cleanse.
One more point for all the single people out there. Take an apple just before midnight of Halloween Eve and sit in front of a mirror, ask the reflection of yourself who your husband will be, three times say this to your reflection, whilst peeling the apple, try and take the skin off in one go, it is more powerful. Your future husband should appear or you will dream of him that night.

A view of my garden

Here´s a quick blog, meant to post these photos yesterday completely forgot. Hope you like my little garden, it is full of herbs, vegetables and flowers, laid out like a French Potager.

Planting Out

Well another lovely day! In the UK it is pretty grim with all the snow, it makes you feel a bit guilty when you complain about silly things going wrong in the garden. I have took my little plantlings out of their safe houses, these were constructed to protect the plants from the wind and hottest of sun, they are really making a difference to the yield. I planted out a melon plant I grew from seed, it really is a nervous moment, it seems that sometimes things just don´t take or the weather turns nasty and I wish I hadn´t removed them from the safety of the their plant house but I have got a system whereby I plant one out and plant one into a pot so I can always move the potted one about. My potatoes that I planted in December are doing well, a little bent over from the storms but they have started to flower. The next crop aren´t so good but will bank up today, this usually brings them on. I use my own homemade compost, we started with a homemade wooden box, made from internal shelf wood that we had leftover but it wasn´t built to last, it served its purpose and proved to my non green fingered husband that making your own compost works so we invested in a big plastic one, which seems to be better at generating more heat.
Well enough bletherings better get back to the garden!

Rain in Tenerife!

Well what was I saying about Sun being a bit of a problem when gardening in Tenerife. It seems the rain is not letting up. As you can see from this photo a lot fell at one time causing all sorts of problems across the canary islands and more recently and tragically in Madeira. The garden has recovered and only minimal losses of small seedlings but I managed to get all to the safety of little plant cupboards that were originally built to protect the plants from the winds and the hot sun.