Tea Journey: Grow Your Own Teas/ Part 2: Spring Planting
“Sitting quietly, doing nothing, Spring comes, and the grass grows, by itself.”
-Basho
In this 4 part series, Tea Journey: Growing Your Own Teas, we cultivate the sense of peace and self-sufficiency that comes from growing our own food and medicine.
Join me each season to learn how to grow your own botanical infusions. We will start in the Winter, a time for planning and visioning. We will plant and cultivate throughout the spring and summer months. By Autumn, we will be harvesting and drying healing herbs for steeping all year long. All the while, we will be sowing seeds of intention, watering and weeding them with care and experiencing the wise ways of nature which apply both in our gardens and in ourselves.
Get started in learning how to grow your own herbal tea blends.
PART 2: SPRING PLANTING
Delight, abandon, curiosity and playfulness are the energies of spring. We see them in the ephemeral flowers around us, the flirtatious winds, the gentle light of the awakening sun and the deeply nourishing and cleansing wild greens (nettle, clover, alfalfa, dandelion and mint) offered like mother’s milk from the Earth for our pleasure and renewal!
Spring is an incredibly powerful time of year, considered to be a Yang season (masculine, active, upward rising, bright and hot) in Traditional Chinese Medicine. When all of life within us and around us is bursting with growth and movement, it is a perfect time to harness the energy of growth and plant seeds- both those of intention within us and those that will yield leaves and flowers to steep for our daily wellness!
Planting Seeds
Step 1: Preparing the Garden
The most important part of gardening is soil cultivation. Rich, fertile and organic soil will support the growth of any seed or seedling. In the spring, replenish your garden bed with a layer of compost before planting seeds or plants and make sure to rotate a variety of herbs and vegetables year after year.
Likewise, with self cultivation the subconscious mind is the fertile garden bed of any intention, or seed, that you sow. Being mindful of our thoughts, practicing ritual, meditating and taking time to be still are all ways that we can make our subconscious mind a more fertile breeding ground.
Step 2: Making Space
Every single season, I overplant my garden. By June I am always blown away by how big all of the plants are and having to choose which ones to pull out and compost! Once your garden bed is ready or you have received your seedlings and are ready to plant, make sure you have enough space to allow the plants to grow to their full potential.
Most steeping herbs like lemon verbena, sage, mint, yarrow, borage ,chamomile and lavender are perennials so they will come back year after year without having to be reseeded. Many culinary herbs like basil, dill and cilantro are annuals, which means you have to replant them each year.
I like to keep my perennials out of the garden bed, which I reserve for annuals only. Choose a spot in the yard where your medicinal herbs for steeping will have enough sun, shade and space to grow for a very long time! A medicinal herb garden makes an amazing meditation space as well! Follow the guidelines that come with the plants and make sure that they will not be crowded out by other plants, a garden wall, or the confines of a raised bed.
Step 3: Planting with Intention
Hold your plant or seeds in your hands. Close your eyes and infuse the with intentions or blessings. As you plant them in the ground for spread them over the soil, imagine the blessings, wishes and prayers coming to be! As you watch them sprout and grow and return to water, weed and cultivate them, imagine your wishes growing to fruition!
In ritual work, the spoken word (prayer, mantra or affirmations) are the sowing of the seeds. Your words are powerful and so when you speak your intentions aloud, you are sowing them into the fertile womb of your subconscious mind (the breeding ground of all manifestation). The word creates a ripple effect which effects the thoughts, emotions and behaviors that make up your reality!
Planting stinging nettle