This year is bringing many transitions in my home. One of the exciting changes is that I am moving away from producing vegetables on my farm (I prefer to show others how to grow their own) towards building up a medicinal herb nursery (to compliment the wild medicinal herbs I gather from my region). The first steps in this transition was ordering seed. I have sourced the herbs that I would like to start my nursery with. Some of the herbs I am growing right now include…
Rhodiola
Sage
Astragalus
Arnica
Calendula
Lavender
And a whole bunch more.
These seeds are being started indoors to give them a head start. Many herbs (especially perennials) need a longer growing season than we typically have this far north. I have these seedlings on a shelf that is placed above a heater vent.
Those that have sprouted already are under a light as we are still under the shroud of winter for a couple more months.
Moving away from food production to begin growing herbs is a natural choice for me. My first degree was in Homeopathy and have been making herbal medicines for my family for over a decade.
Over the coming two years I will be expanding by herbal stock and will focus greatly on plants that are native to my region. These herbs will be sold each spring as seedlings. Any that I don’t sell will be dried to make medicine.
To start seeds indoors I use seeding trays (I prefer 288’s or 104’s for starting herbs). I use a finely sifted sterile starter. After the second true leaves appear I begin to fertilize the seedlings using H202 and rabbit manure to create a compost tea.
Rabbit manure is an amazing fertilizer that will not burn your seedlings with too much nitrogen.
As I mentioned, the trays are kept in a warm place. I have reusable clear plastic sheets that I use to cover the trays after watering to keep moisture in. Once the seeds have sprouted, I stop covering the seeds with this plastic, however, it won’t hurt them if you use it to continue to cover when some have sprouted and others aren’t up yet.
These herbs will be repotted into 6 pack trays that they will be sold in, or kept in until they are planted outdoors.
As the season progresses I look forward to sharing updates and posts on making medicines with these herbs and others that I collect wild.
From my home fire to yours, hai hai.