Help With Herb Garden, advice Options

hey this is valkyrie, and its still early but i am planning my herb garden for next spring. i have quite a large store of herbs already, but im looking to increase my magical store so i need some advice.

is there a good wiccan/druid internet site or magazine where i can order starter plants from (there is little variety of herbs at the regular garden shops...)?
I get so frustrated having to ask...do you have this? do you have this? do you have this? and then the names are always different.

also, i don't have a large history with potions or magic with herbs so anyone who does...can you give me a list of your 10 most used herbs? mostly, i am interested in medical properties, but it is nice to expand on my magical interests as well.

Thanks!

You might want to look into the Findhorn Foundation.

Yes, you can cooperate in the garden. Begin by thinking about the nature spirits, the higher overlighting nature spirits, and tune into them. That will be so unusual as to draw their interest here. They will be overjoyed to find some members of the human race eager for their help.

They were able to grow record crops & such, I remember reading about it in one of those "Mysteries Of Nature" condensed books a while ago. I've had limited success in gardening with spirits' help; but the most difference has been my fish-tank plants, they seem to die like mayflies in the Sahara, yet ask for a little help and they almost instantly become healthy!
The only thing I'd recommend is to point out which plants are going to be totally consumed and which are just going to be harvested when communicating with the entities. Otherwise they don't seem to see it coming and the whole plot sorta wilts to varying degrees. Then again... it could just be my lack of a green thumb.


-Most Used-
Grown: mint, lavender, chives, rosemary, and red cabbage.
Bought: garlic, onions, ginger, cinnamon, thyme.

Why have herbs for spells that you can't make delicious food with as well? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/happy.gif) You probably don't need a specialist wiccan/druid supplier, local places tend to have a lot of variety and can order things for you if you ask. They can also give out some good gardening tips from their personal experience. I tend to avoid corporations, as they have a bad habit hiring clueless people & making embarrassing recommendations from past purchases.
For plants that don't grow in your climate, you might need a basement (fungi) or greenhouse (tropical) area to simulate specific growing conditions. And growing things in your house is also a great excuse to turn up the heat when you have a certain someone who insists on arctic temperatures at all times, though if it raises your heating bill too high you can always buy a portable heater and put it in a large closet. Or, if your hot water heating system is in an accessible area, you could build shelves around it, most people seem content to just let all that radiant heat go to waste.

And that's all I can think of...

This post has been edited by SeekerVI: Feb 10 2008, 06:53 PM

i am rich in all but lavender and red cabbage...what does it do that you use cabbage for?

ive never heard of a spell that incorporates it?

love lavender...but it doesn't love me...keep planting it...but it utterly fails to grow

as for the corporations bit i do agree. they also tend to sell huge amounts of useless petunias and almost nothing else. arghhhhh! i have a family friend who sells me my plants...but she is downsizing because of a local plant store just put up (corporate owned) and she only concentrates on flowers. it is a shame to see her business shrinking; she had such a large and gorgeous variety once, and she is a good person who helps the elderly with her discount services.
the idea about the wiccan supplier...well, i just like supporting small companies like that. and ive worked with starter plants before and they work pretty darn well.

Hey Valkyrie,

one great herb to grow for magic purposes is White Sage (Salvia apiana). Nothing quite like a home grown smudge stick, and it's good medicinal to have on hand for colds/flus etc

Mugwort (Artemisia vulgaris) is another good one, historically it has been used for protection against bad spirits, it's used in moxabustion (TCM), and to increase dream recall and lucidity so helpful with astral travel.

there's other herbs good for dreaming also if interested in that kind of thing, such as the Mexican Dream Herb (Calea zacatechichi) used to contact ancestors and find lost objects.

i like to grow a lot for culinary and medicinal purposes, such as basil, oregano, parsley, mints, lemon balm, curry plant, chillis, garlic, herb robert, ashwagandha, sinuichi, cinnamon, ginkgo, etc.

i like to grow the solanaceae plants too which are heavily associated with magic and witchcraft, such as Brugmansia, Datura and Henbane. They have a really powerful presence in the garden, be very conscious of the toxicity though.

as far as online shops go i could only recommend one located in Australia but i'm sure there would be similar stores in the US too (edit: these guys do ship internationally though). They are mostly focused on plants associated with shamanism and healing:

Shaman Australis Botanicals -http://www.shaman-australis.com.au/Website/Shamanmainpageframeset.htm

hope this is of some help to you!

CosmicInferno

This post has been edited by CosmicInferno: Feb 13 2008, 10:07 PM

i am rich in all but lavender and red cabbage...what does it do that you use cabbage for?

ive never heard of a spell that incorporates it?

I haven't either. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/happy.gif) I tend to experiment, though, and I've used it as an indicator for growth* relating to the balance of female/male energy, since red cabbage grows quickly and has a lot of Anthocyanin, which can be used to measure pH.**
I wonder if or how hydrangeas could be incorporated into showing the overall balance of an area? Guess I'll be raiding my neighbor's unruly hedge again for materials... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/pirate2.gif)



*The Brassica genus has a lot of quick growing plants, including mustards.
**(base=female acid=male).

Acids, for example, which could penetrate and dissolve metal ores, were seen as masculine. Substances exhibited a femininity when they were connected with the forces of growth and nourishment of processes in the flask and the melding of substances together into a new unity.