#tips garden

[reality-detective]

Garden Hacks 🤔

[cinnamon-flame]

Hello I am back with more Viva Piñata doodles! Turns out if you think enough about fluffy piñatas you can force your way through art block (at least for a while)

The typical Viva Piñata experience, I love you Pretztail but why are you like this I drew so many Pretztail as a "do over" of my first Viva Piñata drawing from 2018

that's when it all started

[axololtls]

[boringgg-bunnyyy]

a working witch’s guide to paganism in the office

i saw a post recently from someone wishing they could incorporate their practice into their workplace without judgement so here are some ways i do it

essential oils are a great way to cleanse your space/bring in specific energies without bringing attention to your beliefs especially as they’re so popular across the board, i keep a spray bottle with a homemade mix of oils on my desk and once a week i walk around my room spraying and setting my intentions

animal imagery/figures in devotion to your gods, most deities have at least one animal associated to them and something cute and small won’t draw any attention, i keep a little crow plush on my desk in devotion to one of my gods and everyone else thinks it’s just a little decoration

plants! as a green witch/herbalist i know not everyone might share this sentiment but i work so closely with nature that having my work space filled with plants helps me still feel very connected and centered without a second thought

spell jars/sachets can be easily tucked away in desk drawers, i keep one filled with herbs for success hidden away in my filing cabinet and take it out to refresh it in times of high stress

[personal-shit-for-meee]

Prep your plants for winter

[laeziecraft]

[i-am-married]

Source

[constantly-deactivated]

How to tell an H²Omelon is ripe and ready 🤔

[flowerishness]

Allium (onion)

Allium is a genera of at least 260 species (often called the onion family) and is the source of many familiar kitchen vegetables including: onions, garlic, scallions, shallots, leeks and chives. Alliums are also grown as garden ornamentals and most of these varieties come in two colors: purple and white.

I grow two types of Allium: chives and garlic. I let some of the chives flower because, for me, chives don't have many culinary applications, outside of egg dishes. However, when the garlic forms a flower stalk (called a scape) I cut it off before it blooms. This forces the plant to concentrate it's energy on making a larger bulb, rather than wasting it on setting seed.

Growing onions requires a similar strategy. When onions flower, the bulb forms two halves and is generally a lot smaller. You can still eat these bolted bulbs but they don't 'keep' so they must be eaten immediately. All the onions you buy in a grocery store have been previously 'deflowered' and should keep for up to three months in a cool, dark place.

[rebouks]

i spent the entire day building a rockery today and my body is absolutely annihilated but it looks so pretty 😭

ft. the "donger" as my husband called it.. but i'm sure that's not it's proper name sdsjh

[thecuddlycauldron]

Some helpful plant info 🌱

Plants carry potent energy you can use to amplify your magical workings. Be sure to make use of your own astrological chart in working with these plants so you maximize the healing potential and get the full benefit of their inherent magic!

Aries 🌲

(March 21-April 19), ruled by Mars:

Carnation, cedar, clove, cumin, fennel, juniper, peppermint, pine

Taurus 🌿

(April 20-May 20), ruled by Venus:

Apple, daisy, lilac, magnolia, oak moss, orchid, plumeria, rose, thyme, tonka bean, vanilla, violet

Gemini 🍃

(May 21-June 20), ruled by Mercury:

Almond, bergamot, clover, dill, lavender, lemongrass, lily, mint, parsley

Cancer ☘️

(June 21-July 22). ruled by the moon:

Eucalyptus, gardenia, jasmine, lemon, lotus, myrrh, rose, sandalwood

Leo 🍁

(July 23-August 22), ruled by the sun:

Acacia, cinnamon, heliotrope, nutmeg, orange, rosemary

Virgo 🌴

(August 23-September 22), ruled by Mercury:

Almond, cypress, bergamot, mint, mace, moss, patchouli

Libra 🪴

(September 23-October 22), ruled by Venus:

Catmint, marjoram, mugwort, spearmint, sweet pea, thyme, vanilla

Scorpio 🍂

(October 23-November 21), ruled by Pluto:

Allspice, basil, cumin, galangal, ginger

Sagittarius 🌳

(November 22-December 21), ruled by Jupiter:

Anise, cedar wood, honeysuckle, sassafras, star anise

Capricorn 🍀

(December 22-January 19), ruled by Saturn:

Mimosa, vervain, vetiver

Aquarius 🎍

(January 20-February 18), ruled by Uranus:

Almond, acacia, citron, cypress, lavender, mimosa, peppermint, pine

Pisces 🎋

(February 19-March 20), ruled by Neptune:

Anise, catmint, clove, gardenia, lemon, orris, sarsaparilla, sweet pea

[balkanradfem]

How to make gardening easy

If you've grown up watching people garden, it's likely you've seen them working around with a big hoe, digging the soil, tilling it, constantly at the war with the weeds. This is traditionally how people garden, because of simple fact that no matter where you plant something, there's going to be native wild plants growing around it, likely suffocating it, unless you do something about it. So people traditionally, have had to fight a lot of weeds, so their garden plants could have all of the space, nutrients, water and sunlight to grow.

Due to this natural issue, that makes the planet a living space for us, the first problem you hit when you're starting a new garden, is a bed of weeds that need to be dealt with. There's grass, there's dandelions, maybe some tall native plants, and you're standing there sighing, thinking of how to convert this into a garden-friendly space. And the first human instinct is to get the space tilled and leveled. But that's difficult. Here's how you can do it without as much effort, by being super smart.

The smart thing is to start early. If you look at your intended garden space 4-6 months early, and you know you're going to have to deal with all these native plants, you can instead, prevent them from growing, by blocking the sunlight from them, and then letting the time take care of it. This is done by several different ways, but all of the include covering the ground with something that won't let sunlight get trough. The most common way is to get a bunch of cardboard (ideally without print), lay them out over your gardening space, put some rocks or weighty stuff over them, so they don't get blown away, and then you can walk away, get back in 4-6 months, remove them, and fresh and ready soil will be waiting for you. All that plant matter will die without sunlight, some of it will get eaten by bugs and turned into fertilizer for you, and you did maybe 1/20 of the work and invested some old cardboard.

If you don't have/like cardboard, this can also be done with a big tarp! A third way to do this, maybe not 100% efficient, is to cover the ground with mulch instead. This is what I do. I bring bags of dried leaves to the garden, spread them across the beds and cover them this way. It doesn't need to be leaves, you can cover the ground with straw, hay, dried grass, wood chips, pine needles, any organic matter. It's not completely efficient, because this organic matter will fall apart and turn into soil itself, so it might not give you a perfect coverage, and some plants might just grow in that instead, but! This method also makes sure your soil is already somewhat fertilized, and your plants will absolutely love all of the degraded organic matter; it will bring in bugs, it will bring in worms, it will bring life to the soil, your garden will be rich in life.

Now, let's say you've done it, you've gotten your empty garden bed, and you're about to plant in It, do you need to work the soil still? I would say no. Gardeners love to work the soil until it's in tiny little pieces, so the new plants have an easier time pushing the roots trough it, so it's easier to work with. And yeah the worked soil is lighter, fluffier, more filled with air pockets, which new plants do like! But what happens next is, the rain falls, the soil absorbs a lot of moisture, and then condenses and turns into that same hard airless dense matter that it was in the start. Digging the soil can only make it lighter and more filled with air, temporarily. That's why gardeners need to do it often!

Worked soil, especially rich in clay, will also get a very dry top surface, which can get rough and fill with cracks, making it look desert-like. Plants do not love this, and gardeners often have to work the soil just to break that cracked surface and get their plants some air. Soil that is dry and dense will also struggle to absorb a decent amount of water, so rainfall won't give it as much goodness as it could. So, what can you do instead, to make the soil palatable to your plants, and not susceptible to being dried  up and dense and difficult for your plants? You can again, add organic matter on top.

If you're sowing your seeds directly, it's good to wait for your plants to grow a little, so they don't have to fight the mulch, but as soon as your plants are taller than a few inches, you are encouraged to cover the ground around them with any organic matter. What this will do is 1. Stop the surface of the soil from drying out, keep it very pleasant, soft and damp for the plant 2. Stop additional weeds from growing, save you from tons of weeding, 3. Protect your soil from erosion and 4. Fertilize your plants.

Soil erosion is a common problem in agriculture, where dried-up top of the soil is eroded by the wind, and ultimately turned into sand, which in a monocrop situation, can turn the entire area into a desert unless there's frequent rain. Now I'm not suggesting you could ever, by growing your little garden, create a desert area – you will not. But keeping your soil safe from both sun and wind will make sure it doesn't lose nutrients, water, and it's own structure, you're keeping it safe! And adding even more richness to it by letting the mulch slowly fall apart on top of it. Whenever it rains, the rainwater will fall into your mulch, take in nutrients from the parts that have composted, and then carry it down to your plant's roots. Your plants will get to eat new food every time it rains.

Generally once my plants outgrow all possible weeds and are not longer in the danger of being suffocated, I forget about weeds and just let them grow, they're not threat to me anymore, and having lots of greenery in times of drought is good for both the plants, and the little critters in your garden. Oh I forgot to tell you about the critters! One thing your garden needs is airy soil, filled with little holes and passages, that gardeners usually make manually with their tools. But what you're doing is luring thousands of little worms, bugs, critters and underground creatures, by all that rich mulch they love eating, so they dig the ground for you. They make holes and passages and air flows through them, making the soil light and fluffy. I've found that keeping the ground covered with mulch during the winter creates the entire different quality of soil than the one that isn't covered; the soil that was covered is so light and easy to work with, you can plant using just your fingers.

Having the quality of your soil improve to the point where you can work it with fingers, will usually happen after 3 years of gardening like this! In the meantime, you might need some tool just to get the seeds underground; I've been using a single spoon to plant everything in the garden. It's the smallest, and thus least-disruptive to the soil type of tool. We want all of the creatures in there to feel safe and undisturbed.

Even though I wrote all this pretending like I can totally garden like a smart person, in the reality I absolutely will completely ignore some parts of my garden all winter, check on it in the spring when it's super weedy, pull the weeds out by hand, and only then mulch and plant, laughing at myself for letting the soil quality go bad – but it still works. As long as I add mulch at some point in time, the garden succeeds. So if you're right now, in the height of spring, considering planting some beans – but you haven't done the whole '6 months earlier' procedure, no worry. I didn't either. I pulled out some weeds and planted beans today with a spoon, I'm gonna add mulch when they come out, and I'm still 100% certain they'll be fine, as long as there's rain. So many of our efforts cannot compare to even one single rainfall.

[sanestkanadefan]

They became potatoes

( I made this masterpiece)

[axololtls]

[natureisthegreatestartist]

[shadowcreature]

i made this infographic for a school project but please feel free to use it!! not necessary but if you would like to credit me my name is Tatum St. James :3

(note: everyone will tell you something different about weeds that have gone to seed. a good general rule is if you're doubtful about anything, just don't put it in!)