With an incredible splash of pink, from one of our gorgeous species of thistles.
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Proud to say Ceratonia has become a member of HSF- Herboristes sans Frontières
www.hsf-network.com  The temperature has been rising ever since I last wrote! Excited to show our first lemons growing. We are constantly harvesting from our veg patches, carrots, beetroots, Swiss chard, radish, parsley, coriander, basil and other assorted green leaves! My favourite calendula whose flowers we all know, have the sweetest and tastiest leaves. And as each flowers comes into seed we are just sowing them again and within days they have sprung forth. Spring onions still growing and chillies getting bigger. A few herbal propagations have germinated such as the Echinacea and Vitex agnus castus. There are a few more, but due to all sorts of reasons pots have got a bit muddled! Wont take long before we know who's who.. Always label and date as they say. Builders been and gone and finished the penultimate outside layer, we have got to wait until it gets much cooler before final render is done. The bulk of the irrigation with pipes has been completed and the big Orchard was watered last night in a very different sophisticated way!! Due to pressure tweaks, we still had to check on every tree, which was good.      This Red Rose has not stopped flowering for months. I have learnt quickly that Roses love to be pruned! The more you cut, the more they leaf and flower. But best to do when the Moon is waxing. In the background of this photo are a few different trees including some wild Almonds. Corey pruned these way back when they were just wee sticks and now they are abundant with life.
The weather has been so gorgeous but not the scorchio heat that we were expecting, more a lovely Summer's day. So we have been getting more and more use to working through the day. Yes some moments do get too hot! But also there has been a wind, again we have been told unusual for this time of year, which helps us humans. Not always so good for the plants as some how the wind and the sun's rays can cause leaf damage... We were given a whole load of Yukka cuttings from our neighbours in Nora and so we got all nine of them planted up in the Desert Garden in Zone C. They need a little time to bed in, but they already have a good height and give a strong architectural feel. A few days ago, Corey planted a sapling, name Erythrina cristi-galli, a very new tree for us. Likes full Sun and has huge medicine, from easing anxiety and depression to healing severe liver and spleen complaints. So a perfect Earth herb. It comes from Argentina and so was not on my radar. We were given this sapling sometime ago and it has been living in a pot for a while, very close to where we have planted it and it has been doing well. Some how it seemed the right moment to plant it, we shall see! Just to say having looked at it today, it already has new leaves! We also got a strimmer, yes it has taken me this long to decide on one! Very hard to use a strimmer in the Springtime when so many amazing flowers are growing. But now as so much has died back it is the perfect time to get under the trees and around and clear areas. Aaah, lovely transformation for seating and having some shade away from the building. Also helps with the harvesting of the Carob. More on this later, but we already have 9 huge sacks of beans and plenty more to pick. Talking of the building, the builders came back end of last week after an absence of three months and have been putting the next layer on the outside of the Centre...We also bought some garden furniture that we have had some great times with friends sitting under the East Carob eating tasty food, cooked on the grill! Not all work, play has to be a part of life here too! 
As we head into this Earthy time, the harvesting of the Carob has begun. This period lasts a fair time and at first I was surprised that it started now, but not when I realised that Lammas was also upon us! Living in the country side, living in Portugal, you really feel the ancient ways fresh in the everyday. It is so good to be deeply linked to the cycles of Nature and to celebrate that it was exactly a year ago that we left Glasgow. It was a long journey before we arrived at Ceratonia, which gave us plenty of time for reflection and honouring all that had been and that had got us on this path of living on the land and growing. So a year later again plenty of reflection and joy to the abundance that we have achieved.  I could not resist adding this photo that was taken this morning outside our bedroom window! If you look you can see two Hoopoe birds in amongst the Carob. The spiritual meaning behind this bird is to connect into the balance of Earth Mother and your own personal power. Also to eat plenty of fresh vegetables!!
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September 2024
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_The Herbarium
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