Moonflower Garden Summer 2014

Some photographic highlights from this year's garden. I grew a variety of new things and collected plenty of herbs for drying and other medicinal and magical uses.

The foxgloves bloomed early and beautiful.

Foxglove, dill, morning glories! Probably some catnip around there too. It's everywhere.

Sweet Borage.

Bees love borage.

Lots of morning glories all year.

Spicy nasturtiums.

The flowers are edible and work well in love magic.

Healing yarrow.

Good for your cold and your broken heart.

Eggplant bloom.

Here comes a purple eggplant.

In this bed, Datura Inoxia rules, but foxgloves, rue, valerian, mugwort, and nicotiana rustica are also doing well.

I had the most blooms so far this year. As many as nine or so at once!

Opening datura bloom.

Sweetest smell at dusk.

Star pointed datura opening in the evening.

Peeking moonflower.

Bright as the moon.

Intoxicating.

Not many poppies this year, but the few I had were beautiful.

Poppy

Sacred Tobacco.

Cucumber!

Tomatoes and marigolds.

Tomatoes.

Green tomato.

Yum.

Plenty of tomato and cucumber salad, with a little jalapeno if you are feeling exciting.

Evening Primrose, tomatoes, marigolds, morning glories, tobacco, oh my!

Little green house.

Marshmallow flowers.

Morning glories.

Heavenly blue.

Feverfew, basil, comfrey.

Pretty little feverfew flowers.

The blackberry vine...it's already three times the size.

Comfrey, feverfew, marshmallow (the tall one), basil, and a little mugwort (it never stays little).

Foxgloves (not blooming yet), young meadowsweet, young hyssop, and some clary sage.

The once little comfrey has now taken over this bed of basil, feverfew, mugwort, and marshmallow. Lucky comfrey is an amazing healing herb that also fertilizes the garden.

Squash bloom and butterfly.

Big delicious squash.

Gladiolus.

The wonderful evening primrose.

I had two evening primroses that got to more than 8 feet (2.5 meters). The hummingbirds love them.

Beauties of the night.

The now giant datura metel that's taking over the entire garden bed and then some!

Datuta metel bloom.

Beautiful datura metel. Not as soft or sweet smelling as inoxia, but more stately and purple tinged, with longer lasting blooms.

Moon garden magic.

My pepper plant produced many jalapeños.

So I pickled them with some fresh garlic, yum!

My little rue has managed to do well despite being in beds with aggressive plants.

Refreshing, healing lemon balm.

I love lemon balm, in tea and in love magic. It's a great attractor of birds, bees, humans, and felines.

The mugwort has officially taken over. Good thing it has so many uses. Food, tea, medicinal, dream magic, divination, protection, and more. The rabbits love this stuff too.

I harvested a big pile of mugowort. The branches seem great for weaving and I made a small wreath and broom. The rabbit got plenty as well, and the rest went into the still.

Mugwort wreath with some foxgloves.

Little mugwort broom that needs more bristles.

I tried my hand at making some hydrosols and essential oils. Mugwort was one of the most productive.

My homemade essential oil distillery. I used a large steamer pot with a metal colliander that fits into the bottom. This allowed me to steam, not boil the herbs. My copper tube then ran into the bucket of cold water (the condenser) and then into a final collection jar.

Condenser.

Empty distillery pot.

This is the actual hydrosol exiting the copper tube from the condenser into my glass jar.

Clary sage flowers collected for hydrosol.

I made mugwort and clary sage hydrosol this year. My still worked very well, so I'll be trying more herbs next year.

Clary sage tincture. I tried to make good use of the beautiful flowers.

Truly the scent of euphoria.

I couldn't get enough of these. Too bad they only bloom every second year.

Clary Sage. A woman's herb, and a herb to help divine sight.

Clary sage right before the bloom.

Holy basil, tulsi.

Holy basil.

Penny, guardian of the yard.

Finally, two of my cats playing footsie together. They love the garden, especially the catnip growing everywhere.