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Still getting plants ready for the Halloween Herb Sale and starting on publicity. Not much time to go now. Have been asked to draw up a list of what is for sale. Wish I could add photos of all the plants as they appear in flower. This time of year many herbs are just bright green tufts but they will leap into action before long.
Have had some positive feedback on the Salad Boxes (see photo). They last for around 6 to 8 weeks before the plants become too root bound. Two boxes will provide enough salad greens to make lunches etc for two people. Plants are all cut-and-come-again salad greens such as mignonette lettuce, rocket, endive, cress, silverbeet, tatsoi, parsley, smallage, society garlic, spring onions, coriander etc. Combine the greens with a salad dressing of crushed garlic, fennel, mint and tarragon with a dash of lemon juice and olive oil and it makes the most delicious Spring tonic. Bitter green herbs were traditionally eaten in Spring in Europe. They were reputed to cleanse the body of all the toxins that build up over Winter and to stimulate the Liver and gall bladder. They taste really great too, although a little bitter for some.
David has been busy shearing the Merino. The Whiltshire doesn’t need clipping; 
he just sheds his wool (how civilized!). The Merino is now as frisky as a spring lamb and we have a large quantity of very thick wool to save for spinning and some daggy wool for mulching the trees. The Merino stood perfectly still while David clipped his fleece. He’s lost his collar but he’s still very docile. We tried to dose them with a garlic paste while they were in the yard but they both screwed up their mouths and refused to take it. Whoever said that animals know instinctively what's good for them obviously didn't have sheep in mind!
This is just a short post to see if anyone out there has any promotional ideas for selling plants.
I had already planned to have a “Spring” plant sale at the end of the month and as it is on the eve of Halloween, I thought I would combine the two and have a Halloween Herbs sale. I have pots of garlic and onions and chives to ward off the vampires and other herbs that are reputed to have magical properties – rue, lavender, catnip, comfrey etc. I thought of offering everyone purchasing over a certain value in plants a free pot of garlic.
Apart from an ad in the local paper and a sign in the nearest village I don’t know how best to promote the idea of a Halloween Herb sale. Lighting a bonfire is out of the question as it is bushfire season here and fires are strictly prohibited. I thought maybe a scarecrow out the front of the place and a pumpkin or two.
It’s really weird that all the icons that we associate with Halloween: pumpkins, onions etc are part of a Northern Hemisphere autumn harvest tradition. Here in Australia it is Spring and celebrating an autumn festival in spring can be quite confusing.
If someone has any ideas on how to promote the event, I would be glad of the input.
G'day. This is the first posting for Highland Way Herbs so I better explain what we are. "WE" are Anne Pidcock and David Johnson and we run (erratically and sporadically) a small herb nursery in the Southern Highlands of New South Wales, Australia. It is Spring here, with beautiful blue skies and warm sunshine and we have just had a week of steady rain. The plants are leaping out of the ground (and bursting out of their pots!) and everything is green, so green. After so many years of drought it is unbelievable how green everything is. New leaves budding on the trees are competing with each other to produce more and more vibrant shades of green. You only have to stick a twig in the soil and it seems to sprout roots overnight. Everything is teeming with an incredible life force. The wombats that live under the house are grazing on the grass in the backyard at night and keeping it beautifully manicured but everywhere else the grass is leaping for the sky. I should add, by way of explanation, that we live on 47 acres not far from the small village of Penrose and not in a big city or town. Hence the wombats. We'd really rather that they DIDN'T live under the house (having a wombat scratching itself on the floorboards under your bed at 4 am can be a rude awakening) but as they appear to be a mother and baby
and never come out at the same time it has proved impossible to board up their burrow. They have another burrow in a grove of laurel trees and probably several others as well (wombats need several "bolt holes" in case they get caught out at night and need to take a dive) so boarding up their burrow under the house won't make them homeless. More on that later perhaps. For now I just thought I'd have a go at writing a blog and see how it goes. That's all for now.Picture at right is of the baby wombat that lives under the house.
Have had some positive feedback on the Salad Boxes (see photo). They last for around 6 to 8 weeks before the plants become too root bound. Two boxes will provide enough salad greens to make lunches etc for two people. Plants are all cut-and-come-again salad greens such as mignonette lettuce, rocket, endive, cress, silverbeet, tatsoi, parsley, smallage, society garlic, spring onions, coriander etc. Combine the greens with a salad dressing of crushed garlic, fennel, mint and tarragon with a dash of lemon juice and olive oil and it makes the most delicious Spring tonic. Bitter green herbs were traditionally eaten in Spring in Europe. They were reputed to cleanse the body of all the toxins that build up over Winter and to stimulate the Liver and gall bladder. They taste really great too, although a little bitter for some.
he just sheds his wool (how civilized!). The Merino is now as frisky as a spring lamb and we have a large quantity of very thick wool to save for spinning and some daggy wool for mulching the trees. The Merino stood perfectly still while David clipped his fleece. He’s lost his collar but he’s still very docile. We tried to dose them with a garlic paste while they were in the yard but they both screwed up their mouths and refused to take it. Whoever said that animals know instinctively what's good for them obviously didn't have sheep in mind!
