Remember this picture from my garden post two weeks ago? Well, I’ve been working really hard to get that under control (pictures will be posted next week, I think). Most of the green growing unto the path is actually one plant (mixed with some weeds). Lippia alba or, as they call it here, Oregano di Korsou. I love this herb. It smells amazing (lemony) and I also love the taste of it (as a tea). It also has some great medicinal properties. So I didn’t just want to cut those bushes down and dispose of it all, I wanted to harvest the good stuff.
I actually had to set up a folding table to be able to process that many leaves at once.
And yes, I did drink a lot of tea, but the amount you need for that (to drink it safely) doesn’t really make a dent in my growing supply. I’ve been experimenting with other uses before (I made oils and tinctures, and I also soaked it in vinegar and rubbing alcohol to make cleaning solutions). I will do that again once I’ve been able to buy the supplies I need for it. I’m thinking it will make a great tasting syrup too.
But there was still enough to play with. And so one day I found myself twisting and braiding those long branches and voila! A wreath. I love it.
A while ago, I bought some fresh herbs (three types of basil and mint) to grow myself some new plants for my garden. I found I have more luck growing strong plants from cut herbs than from the little plants with roots you can buy at the supermarket. Those roots were never meant to grow big plants, just to keep the herbs fresh.
Anyway, this is how I do it. Select the parts with strong stems, remove leaves, cut right under the little thickness in the stem where leaves used to be and put them in water. It’s as simple as that. Doesn’t work with all herbs, but I’ve done basil, mint, sage, lippia alba, thyme and rosemary this way.
This little window sill is right above my kitchen counter, so I can check easily and often if they need more water. That’s all I do. And two weeks later….
I have to admit this batch wasn’t the best one. I lost all the purple basil and the mint is iffy. But I put them in soil and I’m sure some of them will survive. If not, I’ll just try again.
While we’re here anyway, let me introduce you to my “nursery” on the back of the porch.
I finally got my act together and sowed some vegetables and flowers in the planters on the left. Not sure if it will work, I found that seeds I can buy here don’t necessarily grow here. Or maybe I did something wrong the last time I tried, I don’t know. But I have a lot of seeds so I’m just going to try and see what happens. I’ll keep you posted.
Oh well, it’s not as if I can reach those myself (moringa leaves are healthy, fresh in salads or dried as tea). We can share. Just don’t eat it all please…
So, my garden… It’s huge. Or at least it is for me. We’re on 2000 m2 (1/2 acre). The house sits in the back corner of the lot, so there’s no real “back” or “front” yard. Someday we’re going to build guesthouses on “the other half” of the lot, but that part sits mostly neglected at this point. I sometimes try to work my way through the thorn bushes, but well… my energy is limited and it doesn’t help if you’re not home for almost five months. I was actually thinking I was on top of things when we left in April, but when we got back…. Oh well, I will get to it someday.
My pride and joy though, is the part on the side of the house. Technically it’s in front of the house, but our entrance is on the side and we’ve only got a bedroom window and a small kitchen window looking out on it, so it feels like the side (does that make any sense at all?).
In March 2021 it looked like this:
Now, from a slightly different angle:
And from the other corners (I cleared a path that goes around it).
Yeah, I know. It’s a mess. I’m working on it and I will post pictures when I’ve got it under control again. But looking back at that first picture (really, March 2021!) I’m quite impressed with what I’ve achieved here. Most of the plants and trees I grew from seed or cuttings, a few were purchased, but I never buy big (expensive) plants. And look how big they are now! No wonder things got out of hand in only five months.
I have a vision of how I want this garden to be and I do believe I will get there. As soon as I pull those weeds…
The last bit of the hurricane season is proving to be quite serious. Don’t worry, we hardly ever get hurricanes. We do get tropical waves and tropical storms though. And that means we’re having lots and lots of rain these days.
We did have a little bit of water coming in (the windows aren’t exactly build to keep water out and there’s this one wall that’s half under the surface of the hill) but we’re happy to be high enough not to have any of the “flooding in the usual places”- as our weather channel calls it. The clouds are blocking the sun, so we don’t get enough power from our solar systems these days, but luckily we do have a back-up from the power company now (we did without for almost two years).
So – mindful about people being less fortunate with this weather – I’m actually quite enjoying it. Everything is so green right now and there are flowers and blooms everywhere.
Um, ignore the mess in that last picture. Weeds are growing really fast too these days. I have been wanting to do “in my garden” posts for a while, but I get stuck overthinking it, because taking good pictures of the garden as a whole is pretty much impossible. And then I don’t take pictures at all (the other pictures are plants on or around our porch). And I wonder what to tell you about that garden anyway. It’s not a regular vegetable garden that keeps changing over the months. And who is interested in a garden in a very specific climate (tropical island) anyway? As I said, overthinking.
Because I’d be interested to see it myself and it will be fun to try and capture the things I notice (it will also help me to notice more, I think). And it will be even more fun to talk about my plans and ideas and dreams… Yes, it will be great to do garden posts…
So I plan on sharing more next week. (There, that’s a promise, now I have to do it, don’t I?)
I’ve always had this romantic image of how it would be to have an actual really big garden (not just a little backyard). Heavily influenced by Soulemama‘s beautiful posts of course. I just pictured myself wearing a pretty sunhat and flowy dresses, moving mindfully around the beds, harvesting a bit of this and a bit of that.
Well…. I have a really big garden now. Or maybe garden is not the right word for it. We have a lot of space around our house and I’m slowly working on getting it under control. It was actually quite empty when we bought the property. I think they used poison on it. That’s what they do around here..But after a year things started growing and now, after three years, the soil is back to normal.
Anyway, instead of walking around with shears and a basket, most of my gardening is done using a pickaxe. It’s hard and sweaty work. Wearing a flowy dress would be really inconvenient and my sunhats always fall or blow off. But it”s all good. I love it.
And yes, there is harvesting too. Mostly when a plant, bush or tree that is medicinally or culinary valuable needs trimming, so no mindful picking just a few leaves. Nope. Buckets full.
I thought I’d show you how I process and dry them.
First I cut the herbs into smaller bits, or remove the leaves (in this case that’s hard to do, and the stems are medicinal too).
Than I rinse them three times (no specific reason for that number, it just feels right).
I let them sit in strainers for two hours, to get rid of most of the water.
And then I spread them out on towels and cover them with other towels. I let it sit like that for about two days or so.
This herb is called Puta Luange (Stemodia maritima). I’m still getting to know it, but my books and the internet tell me that it’s good for diarrhea, periodontitis and wounds.
After those two days I transfer the drying herb to paper bags. Not too much per bag. Made that mistake once, ended up with a moldy mess.
And then I just put them on top of my cupboard for a few weeks. I shake the bags every day or so and usually herbs are completely dry after three or four weeks. When they are completely dry I transfer them to jars, but storing them in paper bags would also work. I left some bags with herbs when we left in April and those herbs were perfectly fine.
I know a lot of people prefer hanging herbs in bundles, or drying on racks, but this works very well for me in this house and this climate. That’s actually another one of those romantic images I had to let go off. My first bundles of drying herbs got eaten by little lizards, got sunburned, accumulated an awful amount of dust or fell apart before I could properly save them.
Oh well, this will do just fine. And maybe one day, when I find the perfect cupboard, my herb collection, that is now cramped into the two bottom shelves of the kitchen cupboard, will look like the romantic picture of an apothecary that I have in my head. Nope, I’ll never learn 😉
I don’t know why I thought these roses would be yellow, but I love this dark red color they are turning out to be instead. It’s always fun to get to know a new garden! (no, we didn’t move again, we bought a vacation cabin in the Netherlands to stay in when we’re visiting family).
PS: I wrote a long-winding post about why I quit blogging a year ago and why I deleted my archives and why I’m back again and a whole lot more about blogging and my life and everything else, but I deleted it. Let’s just see what happens if I start posting again and take it from there.
PS 2: I don’t really think anyone is actually following this blog anymore, but I’m going to pretend someone is reading this. It’s easier to find my blogging voice again that way. But in case anyone is reading this: hi, thank you so much for visiting. Feel free to say hi in the comments 😉
NOT A STATION 