How To Grow Echinacea purpurea
Let me teach how how to grow Echinacea. Growing your own anything can be very rewarding in many ways. Firstly, you can harvest your own seeds and medicine every single year. This will prevent you from needing to buy the capsules, or whole herb over and over again. The quality will be tremedously better seeing as how you would be growing and harvesting your own fresh plant material. It's also a greaty way to give back to the Earths biosphere. Growers are very important for our planet as a whole and I encourage anyone to take up this ancient art which enables our survival.
The first thing you want to understand when planning to cultivate your own Echinacea, or anything for that matter, is that your plants are what you feed them. If you plan on consuming the herb then remember this because what you feed your garden, you yourself will be consuming. Avoid further toxification of the planet by using only organic soils, fertilizers, and related products. The potency of your crop will be much higher if you choose organic as well. Finally, it can prevent a lot of problems in the end to choose the right dirt from the beginning. It's important to learn how to do things properly the first time to save yourself lost work.
Echinacea requires sunshine, yet it's important to not over do it. The image above of my babies was taken below a maple tree. This provides them with enough shade so that they don't require frequent watering. In fact, I can't remember the last time that I had to give them water. The idea is to provide your garden with a self suffiencnt environemnt. You don't want them to get too much sun because that will increase the amount of maintiance and also the amount of stress on your crop. No human being enjoys stress and your Echinacea crop is no different.
Plant your seeds about 3/4 of an inch deep and do not water the soil before or after. It's important in my eyes at least to make absolute sure that you purchase heirloom Echinacea seeds and KNOW what heirloom means. This is an old trick that I like to use and it works every time. The idea here is to allow nature to take its course. When the time is right, the weather will provide water necessary for germination. If you chose the right location as suggested with shade and partial sunshine then your plants will pretty much succeed on their own. Regardless of whether the seed pack suggest full sun or not, I promise that my advice will save you a lot of hassle and prevent your efforts from resulting in repeated failure.
If pest are a problem you can make your own organic pesticide / fungicide for cheap using a number of natural herbs. This is preferred over any type of store bought solution, as even the ones that claim to be eco-friendly may be deceptive in marketing nature. If you choose to buy soil or any type of organic growing medium make sure that you find something which drains well. Perlite is a natural solution and can be added to compost found in nature in order to add airation and thus allow the soil to drain better. A general rule of thumb is the soil should never stay soaked, and it shouldn't drain way too fast either.
Over watering is the number one obsticle of any gardening efforts. You want to let the soil stay dry for a little bit before watering. In fact, only water your plants if they are asking you for water. They tend to do this by wilting or just looking miserable. Too much water can make them wilt or look miserable too so be mindful. A good way to tell if the soil is completely dry is to stick your finger in the dirt about an inch or two down. Sometimes the top may appear dry but there may still be adequate amounts of moisture in the growing medium of your choice. If it stays wet too long the PH can get off balance, causing yellowing and browning of the plants leaves, similar to Kratom.
