Trailer Trash! The Story of my Corner of the World: Lemon balm

Wednesday, June 16, 2010

Lemon Balm

Lemon balm (Melissa officinalis) is a wonderful scented plant. I grab a leaf every time I walk by just to smell it's sweet lemon scent. I LOVE this herb in tea. Combined with lavender in herb tea, you will feel SO relaxed after a cup you will feel like you cannot move a muscle as your stress floats away. It is somewhat vigorous when it is planted in a spot that it likes and will seed itself around the garden but the flowers are filled with nectar that the bees go crazy over. And really, if you are on top of keeping your garden weeded anyway, any strays can be easily moved or removed from unwanted spots. I dug up several large divisions for selling at the plant sale and cut them back so that they could recover...not that I think they will stress too much! The leaves will grow back quickly and they will look perky and wonderful for the selling.

6/12/10

Note: Only one plant left to sell this year. Need to give all plants in ground a trim.

6/16/10

needs cutting

Starting to flower.

Thursday, June 10, 2010

Week Highlights

Poor Jack, my favorite dog of all time is having surgery Friday. Nothing "major", he is being neutered but I still worry of course.
Today I made a few bucks selling plants, and everything I make is going to squirreled away carefully for the most part. Today I sold the shasta daisy (and I have an order for more of them to be started), the bee balm (more to be started as well), a few dozen mix sized hens and chicks and 2 lemon balms. Not too bad at all, eh?
The Blackhawks won the Stanley Cup...just in case you live in a cave. That's big news for my wonderful husband Crazy Mike. The last time they won was way before Mike or I was born. I never knew anything about hockey but learned so that I could have something in common with Mike.
The Sparkle strawberries are slowing down now. But the Berries Galore is starting to ripen.
Sour Cherries are ripening.
I saw my first Japanese Beetle. I think I am going to try trapping them this year. They are very very bad in my garden and will chew everything to nubs. They are a couple weeks early this year.

About buying or barter:

I sell most of my things in person but in the event that someone in America far far away from Indiana wants something here are my rules:

For anything I offer for sale or barter I accept money order, gift card, or carefully hidden cash. When I get that payment i will promptly send your package. Whenever possible I will try to use the smallest flat rate box that the goods will fit in without getting squished. For seeds I will use the smallest padded envelope. I prefer to send plants early in the week so they will not be sitting around in cold or hot places over weekends and holidays.

For barter, I will send out my package and pay my own postage as will you in a reasonable amount of time, on the honor system. I will have a list of possible things I am looking for but feel free to offer something else that could be useful.

If you are unsatisfied with your plants on arrival, I will return your money or send you another to replace it. It's never happened before and I plan on never sending bad plants!

If you are interested in either buying or barter, shoot me an e-mail at mscmbackpacks@yahoo.com and make sure to tittle the e-mail with TRAILER TRASH so that I will know it is not spam. I'll need your zip code to figure the cost of shipping so that we can make a deal.