The Witch of Forest Grove

Today I bottled my magical oils that have been soaking up the sun for a couple weeks – so many potions! There is something very satisfyingly witchy about making my own magical oils and powders. I also drew these labels by hand too, of course. Let’s see I have love potion oils for all the sexes – “Come to Me” oils for men, women, men who love men, and women who love women – these are a mixture of fragrant essential oils and herbs. I also concocted a fidelity or “Stay With Me” oil to keep a partner for straying and to receive lasting love – this one can be used by men or women. My other oils include a money drawing oil, a divination oil, an ancestor oil for communing with the dead, and a cascarilla oil to prevent spirit possession/hag riding and to protect from evil spirits. Ooo and I also made some more Cherry Blossom Water and put it in the cute bubble bottles. I’ve also packed up some of my dry herbs to sell in the Botanica, bleeding heart, periwinkle, and fiddleheads, they just need labels.

The porch garden is looking good! Only my zucchini plants died, which is probably best because I don’t really like zucchini – maybe it knew… So far we have four different kinds of hot peppers, sunflowers, onions, potatoes, three kinds of tomatoes (Roma, Kootenai, and yellow cherry), butter lettuce, purple carrots, mint, catnip, thyme, oregano, smoky fennel, calendula, black nightshade, bittersweet nightshade, a Rowan tree, a baby Indian Plum shrub, two blue huckleberry shrubs, and some yellow clover as a ground cover/nurse plant.

I want a lot more herbs and flowers, but it may have to wait for next year, we’ll see! I’ve been keeping an eye on plants in the forest I want to transplant in the winter – some elder shrubs, ferns, baby huckleberry bushes, and maybe some thimble berries… I love wild plants and would love having them in my porch garden even more as they’ll attract the local wildlife – bees and butterflies for pollination and birds to eat the evil bugs. Squirrels are not welcome! I have netting up to keep out the evil squirrels. My mother has been sending me her canning recipes, so once I have a harvest I will be borrowing a friend’s pressure canner and making all kinds of yummy things with the fruits of my gardening labour and also wild berries jellies and preserves. Salmonberry season is in a week or two folks! Late this year as we had such a cold winter, but worth the wait!

(click on garden images to enlarge)