In the nursery with Aafke

What is better then 'cloning' your favorite and best growing plants? Right; nothing! It is cheaper then buying new plants and in my opinion it is really cool to create new plants out of existing ones. Fortunately l got the opportunity to help the Saullivan family with this nursery during my WWOOF stay.

The very first thing I had to do after I arrived on my farm was cleaning the pots. Everything on this farm happens hundred percent organic so I cleaned them with a bucket full with water and vinegar (as an anticeptic, genious). After that Michelle learned me how to make the best soil mix, because just sand was not good enough we mixed three parts of sand with one part of coir peat. I filled some of the pots and old buckets with this magic mix and then it was time for my first real propagation lesson. Again the first thing to do was cleaning the tools, otherwise the sand and dirt could affect the plant. Ofcourse we did this with the vinegar. Then we could start with cutting the plants. For this beginning lesson Michelle showed me how to propagate lavender and geraniums (these smell both really good).

You have to cut branches about ten to twelve centimeters long who are not to thin but not too woody either. After we cut about ten branches we went back to te greenhouse to plant them. Not straight away; we had to cut it again (this time properly ten centimeters), right under the leafnote. The rest of the leaves had to be cut of for the length of half of the plant, that meant pinching at the lavender otherwise you would damage the plant. Also the flowers on the top had to be cut of because of all the energy that they take. After all the cutting was done we could plant them, first we made a hole in the mix, then we dipped the end of the plant in honey (as an anticeptic, again a genious invention) and then we put them in the soil. And there it was; the new plant. The only thing left to do was take care of it with lots of love and water, no problemo for this family.

The days after this lesson I propogated some other plants as well, including two other kinds of geraniums, a chillyplant and lemonmurtle. Ofcourse I did some more of the lavender and first type of Geranium because in the past they did very well. At some point I had to sieve a big bag of sand because we were running out of the other sand we had. A good workout, always nice. Then I mixed it again with a part of the coir peat to ensure it was thick enough. Hopefully my propagationskills were good enough to make the bunches new great plants in the future.

Besides the propogation I also got the opportunity to actually plant some of the 'baby plants' that other WWOOFers had create a couple of months ago. I went to the front garden near the carway with a wheelbarrier full with tools, thimeplants, soilmix and a watering can. I had to dig some holes in the ground, about a meter distances between them. At some of them I had to ad some soil mix because the layer of mulch was to big. Then I added the babyplants and covered the roots of them with soil. Afterwards I took care of them with water (mixed with some kind of organic growing thing) and ofcourse lots of love. Grow plants grow, I believe in you! Haha. After twenty plants I was done with this job, lets hope for the best; really big thime plants in a year.

I learned a lot about the nursery and as I said it is a wonderful way to create your own new plants. I would recommend this to anyone who has some good plants in his garden and want extra ones, at least I will use this method to create new plants (including the vinegar and the honey).

For pictures and the 'original blog' on the website of my WWOOF family see;

http://adventuresinsustainability.com.au/index.php?news&nid=69