Posted on 04/21/2017 1:29:08 PM PDT by greeneyes
Here’s a good primer so you don’t get your boy and girl parts mixed up, LOL!
http://www.mastergardening.com/asparagus-male-vs-female/
Radishes and spinach are up and it looks lake a good stand for both but the slugs and snails may have other ideas. Still raining here in Benderville..
.
OK! Most of my recipes are fairly stream-of-consciousness, so here’s the short version:
1) Infuse a vegetable-based oil with plantain leaves.
2) Melt beeswax and mix it with the oil at somewhere around a 1:2 ratio.
3) Wait for salve to cool and spread it on whatever body part needs it.
Here’s the long version:
Pick plantain leaves (either short or long varieties is fine), chop them coarsely, put them in a jar, and cover them with about an inch of oil. Cheap olive oil or coconut oil work the best for this. Close your jar tightly, put it in a crockpot or heavy saucepan with a few cups of water, and let it simmer for 10 or more hours. (I put it in the crockpot on Low overnight and get good results.) Strain out the leaf bits and keep the oil, which should have acquired a distinct green color.
Beeswax is the tricky part. If you don’t have a double boiler, you will want to slowly melt it by putting it in a glass measuring cup or jar and putting THAT in a pot of water on medium-low heat. Microwaving is not an option because it can get condensed water into the beeswax, and you want it as water-free as possible so it won’t spoil. Once your beeswax is melted, mix it thoroughly into approximately twice as much plantain oil and let it cool. If it’s too soft when it cools, add more beeswax; if it’s too hard, add more oil. Put the lid on the whole concoction and store it anywhere that’s not too hot or sunny. It’s good for small injuries and burns as well as bug bites; I’ve burned myself twice recently while cooking and been really happy with this salve.
If you want bells and whistles, I add several drops of lavender and eucalyptus oil, both because I like the smell and because they have antimicrobial effects. I also usually put in comfrey essential oil because comfrey does wonderful things for skin regrowth, and it seems to speed up healing versus the non-comfrey version.
Hope that helps!
Hmph. You should totally let them grow in the beds they identify with, you bigot!!
*flees*
OMG! Transgendered Asparagus! LOL!
Are your Hostas poppin’ out yet? (did I already ask you that?) Mine are just now putting out less buds than expected, and the new ones I planted haven’t grown a micron in a month.
I’m planting some carrots in home made self-watering 5 gallon buckets to see what happens. I’ve given up on the idea of trying to conquer one acre of Horehound infestation with a weed whacker. They grow faster than I cut them. Needs a road grader to scrape that mess away. Meanwhile, I’m getting excited about using the buckets. The little carrots have sprouted and are a whopping two inches tall. Should have put in more than four germinated seeds though. Next pot is going to have a grid of seeds 2” apart. It’ll be interesting to see what comes up.
Have you thought about trying a sq. foot garden? For some of mine, we removed some of the soil, put down cardboard and covered it with Mel’s mix. I had zero weeds for 4 years, then I used some hay for mulch that hubby had bought instead of straw. Bad move started to get some weeds.
Yes, and have already a sizable collection of cardboard (mainly for just covering large areas of Horehound weeds), but there are plans to put in one or two raised beds using the cardboard as a weed barrier at the bottom. For now, though, I’m having fun with the buckets, while I draw plans for the badly needed back porch steps.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.