This week I planted my calendula and skullcap beds! I received calendula starts from my friend who works at a herb nursery in the area, and purchased skullcap starts from Eastside farm and garden. I feel bad about not starting them both from seed but time did not permit that for me. I do want to experiment with starting a second succession of skullcap to gain experience germinating. I read that they will need to undergo cold stratification for at least one week in the fridge. I will start this next week once my seed order comes in. I might not be able to harvest this succession during the quarter but would still like to gain experience. My milky oat seeds will arrive next week and I will sow them into the wood chip bed as well. I noticed that I have space for one more crop to fit into and plan to discuss the possibility of a fifth herb being established with John next week.
I planted both crops in the wood chip bed I tilled last week. I raked in mulch to the bed before planting as well as added fertilizer pellets that John uses for his plants and planted using the spacing guidelines I state below in my journal entry.
I also was able to get another couple feet of the arnica bed weeded. It is taking more attention to detail and effort as the bed seems to be most densely populated with the arnica starts in the middle. It feels like slow work but any progress I am able to make is helping to further save the crop. The section that I weeded in the previous weeks looks happy to have more space to breathe. I thought of the irony of going through back-breaking work for a plant that will later be crafted into a sore muscle salve. I thought this week about what I want to use each crop for and am hoping to create a sore muscle salve with the arnica, a nervous system tonic with the skullcap and milky oats, as well
My journal entry from this week shows a rough draft of my crop planning chart as well as a crop map. I will update and share as more information is added.