Winter Planting

Sage Science - Right Time

Sage science is a provocative study since it reveals so many interesting and unexpected facts. The circumstances surrounding winter planting are an excellent case in point. As temperatures steadily drop below freezing and bean-sized hail falls on the austere, boulder-encrusted high desert of Southern California, Lucky Six Farms fairly hums with activity. Fog-enshrouded nights turn into day as more and more brilliant lights illumine and dissipate the mists. The moody, dark heart of winter melts into a cheerful ring and clutter of workshop sounds. Why the seeming paradox, where Nature’s icy, stygian cloak tears open to reveal bright, purposeful bustle? Winter planting time has arrived! And if mid-January frosts appear to be dubious candidates for sowing, they are perfect for our principal crop of sacred aromatics. Unlike most of Mother Earth’s vegetal life, White Sage (Salvia apiana) is indigenous and amenable to an unusually rigorous regime of growth. We must set its seed while the ground remains hard and cold because those precious kernels, immune to freezing, are uniquely vulnerable to fungal infiltration which shoots through these mountains soils at the first glimmerings of spring. Unless we carefully follow the counter-intuitive wisdom of sage science, our immense fields of organically certified White Sage will never open to life.

Sage Science - Right Place

But getting a definitive jump on dangers inherent in rising temperatures is only the beginning. Many other dangers menace our delicate seedlings, not the least of which are gophers, ground squirrels, and a host of other voracious rodent burrowers. Because we are proudly Earth-friendly and never resort to toxic petrochemicals or similar inhumane techniques of pest control - our lessor is, after all, a monastery! - we have had to seek assiduously for better means to secure our sacred herbals during their periods of youthful vulnerability. in the end, the simplest, most traditional, and labor-intensive solutions usually proved optimum. Thus, each individual White Sage seed is planted with a faithful guardian of galvanized tin: a diminutive, cylindrical wire cage closed on every side and extending at least a foot into the soil. The cage’s interstices are wide enough to present no obstacle whatever to flourishing roots and branches while efficiently excluding every kind of local gnawing menace. Our workshops run well into the night fashioning each and every one of these devices, so they can be put to their tasks no later than the following day. Organic farming is immensely satisfying, but no one said it would be easy!

Sage Science - Right Product

Innovative, ecologically sound procedures like the one outlined above characterize our entire enterprise. From beginning to end, seedbed to final packaging, our lines of sacred aromatics follow the routes Mother Nature intended for her ancient and spiritually powerful children. This is the reason our products have, for decades, been fully approved for Native American ceremonial use. Our herbal smudge sticks, oil, and hydrosol are made prayerfully and with love, so those who use them can structure their lives on a similar basis.

By Alan Beck

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