{"id":26726,"date":"2022-08-27T06:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-08-27T05:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/alfiedog.me.uk\/?p=26726"},"modified":"2022-08-27T06:00:00","modified_gmt":"2022-08-27T05:00:00","slug":"echinacea-is-growing-slowly-saturday-27th-august-2022","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alfiesdiary.uk\/index.php\/2022\/08\/27\/echinacea-is-growing-slowly-saturday-27th-august-2022\/","title":{"rendered":"Echinacea is growing slowly – Saturday 27th August 2022"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Echinacea is growing slowly<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Aristotle here again and my echinacea is growing slowly. I\u2019ve grown it from seed. The plan was to have a whole line of it at the back of my new herb patch. Unfortunately ,some of the first batch of plants died. We\u2019d grown some spares so we put those in instead. Unfortunately, some of the replacement plants have died too. I\u2019m not a dog to be thwarted. As a breed we don\u2019t give up. I\u2019ve asked Mum if we can plant some more next year to fill in the gaps. The plan had been to have alternate purple and white flowers. I got everything mixed up and as they won\u2019t flower until next year it will be a lovely surprise to see what the pattern is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Echinacea Boosting immunity<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

They are all echinacea purpurea which is good for the immune system. You can turn the flowers, leaves and roots into a herbal tea \u2013 although it\u2019s going to have to grow quite a lot before there is enough to do that with.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Sage<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

In front of the echinacea I\u2019m growing sage. Again the colours were going to alternate. That plan didn\u2019t work either and I\u2019m now alternating the sage with lavender, except where the plants switched round when I wasn\u2019t looking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019d got sage in a number of places around the garden, but for some reason, despite watering it, lots of it has died. Thankfully the plants next to the echinacea are starting to do quite well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mum likes using sage in cooking, but that\u2019s not the only thing it\u2019s useful for. It\u2019s very good for digestion. However, it also has anti-bacterial properties so can be used as a cleaner and can work to naturally repel insects. It\u2019s a pretty good all-rounder.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lavender<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Because I didn\u2019t end up with enough sage plants I alternated it with lavender. We love lavender in our garden and have lots of it. The bees really like it, so having it near the fruit trees helps to attract them as pollinators. Mum loves the smell of it too. It is good for helping you relax and is also good at discouraging clothes moths. Mum is currently harvesting our lavender to refill the lavender bags that can then go in amongst her clothes to protect them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

You can also make lavender ice-cream, but Mum has never done that for us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A sharing dog<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

I should just finish by saying I\u2019m in trouble with Dad. We have a pear tree which had four very healthy looking pears on it. Yesterday I decided they were ready to eat and Dad wasn\u2019t here. It seemed a shame to let them go to waste, so I reached up and took one down for me and another which I gave to Wilma. Mum saw me do it and was astounded. She was more shocked than anything when the next time she looked we\u2019d had the other two as well. Dad is cross as he says they would have been fine on the tree until he comes home. Hopefully he\u2019ll have forgotten by the time he seems me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Have a great day<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Love Aristotle<\/p>\n\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Aristotle’s echinacea is growing slowly. He wants to tell you about his sage and lavender as well. And the pears!<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":26730,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"gallery","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,173],"tags":[63,12,172],"class_list":["post-26726","post","type-post","status-publish","format-gallery","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-gardening-2","category-herbs","tag-aristotle","tag-gardening","tag-herbs","post_format-post-format-gallery"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alfiesdiary.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26726","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alfiesdiary.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alfiesdiary.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alfiesdiary.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alfiesdiary.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26726"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alfiesdiary.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26726\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alfiesdiary.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26730"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alfiesdiary.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26726"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alfiesdiary.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26726"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alfiesdiary.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26726"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}