Moving back to the farm holds a great deal of possibilities for me, however it also means that I would need to start over again with my nursery this side, and sadly I could not bring a great deal of my plants from that side back with me seeing that I have a small car and needed to bring all my personal items back with me as well.
Then again I am no stranger to starting over...
So the best I could do, is take the first step.
I started by potting out and making up a few easy selling items, and for this I used some of the succulents on the farm and I also bought in a few from a local nursery, and planted them in some nice molded cement pots. I also potted some Hypoestis and festukka grasses in these pots just to add some verity and color.
The pots ended up looking really good, and I am just hoping that my clients will feel the same.
To kick me off, and get back in the game I have agreed to exhibit some of my plant and home made stock at the next local farmers market, and in order to get ready for this I really have to put in some elbow grease to get everything ready on time.
My products include an array of plants, home made goodies such as rusks, cookies, fudge, jams/jellies and home made candy, and for all the dog lovers out there - I also make some yummy doggy treats - but I will focus a bit more on that some other time.
Reestablishing some of the plants I brought back:
I tried bringing back a selection of my medicinal and novelty plants, sadly I couldn't bring all of them despite the fact that I have put months into getting them from seed to the point they were at when I left, which in a way was very sad for me - but I was happy that I was able to at least bring a few, and at least I have a decent seed-bank to start planting again as well, so all is certainly not lost.
Plants I brought back were some elderberry, sutherlandia, luffa, mouse melon, African horned melon and a few cannabis plants (thc & cbd for medicinal extraction)
Although a lot of the plants traveled well on the two day journey, there was still the issue of adapting to a completely different climate once we reached this side.
My sutherlandia (above) for one, did very well throughout the trip, however after two days here it started showing some signs of distress. And after day three I was forced to dead-end some of the plants. This simply means to cut off parts of the plant that seems to be taking strain in order to give the rest of the plant a better chance of adapting and surviving, as it takes a great deal of energy for the plant to try and nurture or wean struggling parts of the plant itself.
I will be monitoring these babies very closely over the next few weeks, but I am honestly hoping that they will pull through in the end.
Then of course there's the cannabis plants - I brought back a total of six varieties, three of which is cbd and three thc plants. So far, 5 of them seems to be pulling through reasonably well, however one of them (the smallest one of the lot) a lovely SSD strain sadly didn't make it - but still I am very grateful that the rest of them seems to be adapting reasonably well.
I will leave these a little while longer before stressing them again by re-bagging them out into bigger bags.
Other plants that I brought with included some Aloe Ferox Seedlings - these were all planted in bulk bags, each containing at least 50 plants. I have started potting some of this out so long, but I ran out of potting medium and the rest will have to wait until I can replenish that.
These plants will stay in these pots until they are big enough to be replanted into bigger bags and in time they will be planted out on the farm.
Getting some amazing new plants:
While out in the nursery to buy some succulents for my pots in order to diversify my stock, I came across this gorgeous beauties - they are called black pearl peppers.
"Black Pearl pepper is a cultivar of Capsicum annuum. It is characterized by distinctive black leaves and fruit. It was developed by Arboretum Floral and Nursery Plants Research Unit scientists Rob Griesbach and John Stommel of the Agricultural Research Service’s Vegetable Laboratory.[1] This pepper plant is notably similar to another strain, named the Black Hungarian, another designer pepper plant.[2] Though edible (the flavor has a citrus undertone with a slow burn between 4 and 12 times hotter than a jalapeño on the Scoville Scale), it is considered an ornamental plant and even won an award for its beauty from All-Americas Selections in 2006.[1] The Black Pearl has characteristic semi-gloss black to deep-purple leaves with peppers that are black and turn crimson when fully ripened." - source
These were not only gorgeous to look at, but the Peppers itself is deliciously hot and full of flavor - so I simply couldn't resist adding these to my plant collection!!