Posted in Homestead Garden and Farm
Hello there! Hope your gardens are growing well and you are having bountiful harvests. Though the heat is taking its toll on garden and gardener here, the squash and okra are hanging in there 
!
I spend the morning hours outside watering and puttering about in the garden and enjoying my containers of herbs, and the afternoons trying to beat the heat indoors, enjoying a good book.....or two, or three!
I've gleaned some great tips from the book, Companion Herbs for Natural Health by Juliette de Bairacli Levy that I thought you might be interested in.
Use your "less than fresh" dried herbs, mixed with wood ash to not only deter pests, but encourage growth.
In Mexico, Sage leaves mixed with goat manure and wood ash produced superb vine and corn crops. The author says she grew wonderful grapes using this mixture, too. Wild sage was used, but I wonder if garden sage wouldn't have maybe at least close to the same benefit?
Bitter herbs, such as wormwood, southernwood, mugwort and rue, powdered and sprinkled in when planting beans, peas, peanuts and cereal grains, will deter birds and act as insect repellants.
I hope those tips are of some use to you. Herbs are simply wonderful, aren't they?
Have a great week!
Blessings,
p.s. Sorry that I've been hit and miss here on the Front Porch. The computer is in an "uncooled" room of our little house, and quite honestly, I try to avoid it as much as possible these days . A dear friend from a more temperate climate, likened being in Texas in the summer to being in a clothes dryer 
! Pretty accurate description of my office/storage/junk room, too. But....change is coming, not only in the seasons, but in our home situation, too
. I'll post more about that on my blog later.
