garden – Teufelskunst

Garden Calendar March 2025

While March 17, the holy day of St. Gertrude, marks the official start of the garden year, the favorable time for planting and sowing begins tomorrow, March 7 and lasts until March 22. The month started out warm and sunny, but is predicted to be overall wet. Temperatures will drop again and it’s not yet the time for planting anything aside of tree cuttings, such as hazel and willow.

Faded flower stems and fallen leaves should be left for at least another month, as they provide a home to myriads of insects and smaller animals. Also they are the humus of tomorrow, even for the lawn. So just let them be.

Sowing: preculture indoors daturas, chillis, tomatoes, tobacco etc. for a timely harvest. Cold germinators can still be sown now and left outdoors.

Harvest: lesser celandine, ground-ivy, ground elder, cuckoo-flower, ramson

Symbols: flower = moon is in an air sign, fruit = moon is in a fire sign, leaf = moon is in a water sign, root = moon is in an earth sign, lunar nodes = avoid any garden or magical activity

Eclipses: March will see a lunar and partial solar eclipse in some parts of the world. Eclipses are generally considered ominous and unfavorable for any garden work or other magical activity.

March 6, 2025

Posted In: Garden

Tags: garden calendar, sowing calendar, planting calendar, aussaattage, garden, calendar, maria thun

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Garden Calendar February 2025

February ’25 is projected to be overall cold and dry. The 1st of February was cold, bright and sunny. The February full moon was overcast and temperatures remain around 0°C. Some places here in Germany were blessed with snow, while we are stuck in a gray cold and misty mud weather. The end of the month will get warmer and sunnier but may also see some rain.

A LONG WINTER IS OVERALL GOOD FOR NATURE IN THE GARDEN!

Garden activities in February: planning the garden year, starting a garden diary and calendar, noting down favorable days, pre-culturing warmth loving plants indoors, sowing cold-germinators in a cold frame outdoors, pruning vine, fruit trees and hedges, taking willow cuttings for fences and hedges

If you are tending a natural garden, then less is always more. In February the garden is best left alone for at least another month. February is still a good time for researching the overwintering places of various insects, ie in leaf axils or molehills, and observing the activities of overwintering birds. Owls may start breeding now. Note, once an animals is disturbed during hibernation it may not be able to return to hibernation state and dies of cold and starvation. This applies especially to dormice that overwinter in bird nest boxes. Should I clean nest boxes in winter? The answer is hence: NO!

Helping bumblebee queens: since bumblebee queens overwinter, their hiding places between old leaves or inside prior mice holes, should be left undisturbed, even if they start flying earlier than other insects. If temperatures rise above 6°C they get active and may search for food and a nesting place for their new colony. Early blooms, like snowdrops, crocuses, cornel cherry, lenten roses etc. provide important nectar and pollen resources.

February garden flowers: this year my lenten roses flower in mid February, later than during previous years, since temperatures have been constantly low. Snowdrops peaked out right on February 1st but remain closed for the most time. The sweet scent of witch hazel blossoms is intense in the cold February air. Daisies keep flowering. Cornel cherry started blossoming at the end of the month, so do winterling and crocuses. Sweet violets did not show up yet.

*This calendar and some of the projections given here are created with the help of constellation research by Maria Thun and her son Matthias K. Thun.

February 24, 2025

Posted In: Garden

Tags: garden, calendar, lunar garden, biodynamic gardening, maria thun, early spring flowers, nature garden, gardening

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August Fire, Cornucopia

Last year I wrote about the feast days and folkloristic traditions of August, such as the Kräuterbuschen und Mariä Kräuterweihe, which may be rooted in older herb blessings traditions performed in the name of the goddess Freya. Emblematic of the season and its goddesses are also horns filled with the harvest – cornucopias, already pointing towards autumn and the harvest festivals.

On August 15 I gathered a bunch of aromatic herbs from our wild garden and stuffed them into an old cow horn, since I was still inspired by our recent trip to the Swiss Alps. This year my herb bundle contains rosemary, fennel, thyme, sage, ysop, rue, vervain, marshmallow, comfrey, wood betony and mint. Our mullein – which would commonly be placed at the center – has already flowered ready. So I added some goldenrod instead. Preceding the harvest was a long day spengt working in the garden and preparing some spots in the beds for new plants gifted to me. Once finished, my mom took the photo of me in the last rays of the evening sun.

Cobwebs and spiders in the giant rue plants and bronce fennel, green fading slowly but verily into golden colors, most herbs now bearing ripe seeds, while goldenrod and hollyhocks are still providing food to pollinators – it already feels like Altweibersommer.

The gathered herbs are drying now and will later become part of incense blends. Their ashes are a good medium for blessing the garden. There are also rites in which horns are filled with such ashes and other organic and unorganic materials and then burried in the garden soil for a blessed garden season.

August 19, 2024

Posted In: Herbs & Seeds, Garden

Tags: august, altweibersommer, kräuterbuschen, wild garden, kräuterweihe, cornucopia, gossamer, aromatic herbs, herbs, garden

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New “Flower Devils”

Or better said, postcards with new “Flower Devils” can now be ordered from me! The new cards feature newly captured impressions from the summer 2018 as well as some of my earliest photographs in this series, including the auspicious “Henbane Devil” on black henbane flower, which initiated and from which the series got its name.

In German folklore, witches and even the devil himself were believed to take on the shape of bumblebees. A bumblebee-wax candle was lit in church, if a witch was burnt at the stake. Evil people were cursed with having to return as a bumblebee after death. The sub-earthen drone sound of a bumblebee signaled the presence of the dead. Instead of consecrated wavers, bumblebees were allegedly served at black masses. Bumblebees were also superstitiously feared as carriers of sickness and ritually buried to drive out plague. On the other hand, a dead bumblebee worn in the pocket, was believed to ensure the purse would always be filled with money. And he, who managed to secretly steal the bumblebee’s honey, was destined to find a huge treasure. Hence bumblebees were both viewed as good and bad omens.

The other new cards are:

“Belladonna Devil” et al – large earth bumblebee entering a deadly nightshade flower, common carder bees on comfrey and viper’s bugloss flowers, wasps mating on our white lavender, bee inside crocus flower after a long winter

Impressions from recent trip to Crete – symbol laden honey bee among the ruins of the Minoan palace in Malia, a small wasp nest on prickly pear, protected sea daffodil flower with Mediterranean sea in the background

Last but not least, cards with unfolding flower of the “Black Devil” datura, blue Aconite and green Henbane “Dragon” and – upon request – myself among the green “devils” in our garden.

October 2, 2018

Posted In: Garden, Prints

Tags: bumblebee, bee, wasp, witch herbs, butterfly, poisonous plants, insects, nature, garden, folklore, postcards, flower devils, pollinators

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Wooden Seed Boxes, Autumn Equinox 2016

The seeds have been gathered and new wooden seed boxes are nearing completion. With joy I offer again this treat for the tenders of sorcerous gardens, just in time for the autumnal equinox. Below is a preview of the boxes:

Available are boxes #23-26. They will contain again a fertile mix of seeds from various benific and venific herbs. Four boxes are available, three of which are already reserved. For those that will not receive one this time, I plan to craft a few more until Samhain. If you want to make sure to get your hands on one, then I recommend placing a reservation now.

For ordering and reservations please e-mail me at info@teufelskunst.com

September 13, 2016

Posted In: Herbs & Seeds

Tags: plant, seeds, sorcerous herbs, witch herbs, witch garden, sorcery, poisoner, seed boxes, autumn equinox, wooden boxes, wooden seed boxes, garden, harvester

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