Tuesday, October 14, 2014

The Western Reserve Herb Fest at the Cleveland Botanical Garden!

Will Lynch, a 16 year old that Has His Own Design Business!
One of Mulberry Creek Herb Farm's Miniature Gardens!
A Mini Garden for Halloween!
One of The Reasons We Came to the Herb Fest, The Herb Garden!
Millstones in the Thyme Garden
Pineapple Sage in Full Bloom
A Large 'Snowflake' Scented Geranium
A Lovely Lemon Verbena
The Cleveland Botanical Garden As a Backdrop to the Herb Garden
The Knot Garden
The Dye Garden
A Beautiful Tangerine Sage!
The List of Herbs for the "Garden Square"
The "Garden Square"
Hyacinth Beans in Bloom
Basil Bed Doing Pretty Good
Our Favorite Herb Lady, Kathleen Gips!
Wonderful Herb Rolls and Lemon Tarragon Butter, Yummy!
With apologies for my tardiness in posting this, Bonnie and I took a road trip to Ohio for the Herb Fest at the Cleveland Botanical Garden last Saturday.  The ladies (and maybe gentlemen) of the Western Reserve Unit of the Herb Society of America did an outstanding job making tons of herbal products for purchase.  Bonnie and I do a lot of our own stuff.  We both came home with herb bread and rolls!  We are always happy to see our herb friend, Kathleen.  She was busy answering the public's questions as she was herb lady for the day.

The other thing that we were anxious to see is the fabulous herb garden that is maintained by the unit!  Can I tell you that it is one of my favorite herb gardens in the eastern half of the United States.  Really! They have done their research and have really maintained a quality herb garden.  I told Bonnie that we will have to come back in the summer because it would even be better and it was really good now.  Looking forward to it already!

I am in the homestretch of making jelly.  I made lemon verbena jelly yesterday and today I set up the rose geranium jelly that I will make at the end of the week.  Then I will just have pineapple sage to go.  The pineapple sage is just so beautiful that I can't cut the leaves yet.  I will have my eyes on the temperatures at night.  I think we are going to have a succession of 30's and I will have to cut it then.  Oh, I almost forgot I have another batch of raspberry jam to do (136 jars)!  I was also thinking about making lemon geranium jelly.  So many flavors, so little time!  Maybe next year!

I still have a lot to cut in the herb garden, chives, lovage, salad burnet (going to make vinegar).  And tonight as I was posting this, I remembered there were German chamomile flowers to cut!  So had to turn on the outside lights and work in the shadows to cut the flowers that were ready.  Crazy or dedicated?  I'll let you decide.  Hope you have had a great day and evening!  Talk to you later.
The Pineapple Sage This Morning

3 comments:

KathyB. said...

I especially like the miniature herb garden. One I will keep in mind when I make mini-gardens with my grandchildren. looks like a wonderful "Herb-fest' !

FlowerLady Lorraine said...

Dear Lemon Verbena Lady ~ Oh how I would have loved to go to that herb fest with you. When it cools down here I'm going to go to the Botanical gardens here to check things out again. They were working on the herb garden when I went in March 2013 and there wasn't much in it at all.

I just bought Mexican tarragon, Pineapple sage, parsley and dill the other day as they were on sale. :-) This is the time of year when herbs do very well down here.

I can just imagine the heavenly scents going on in your kitchen. I think it would be fun and a great learning experience to be there helping you. Do you sell your homemade goodies?

What kind of vinegar do you use for making herbal vinegars?

Love and hugs to you and HH ~ FlowerLady

Lemon Verbena Lady said...

Hi Kathy B., Mini gardens are a fun way to get your grandchildren involved in the garden. Glad to give you some inspiration. xo

Hi FL, Glad you are cooling off and buying herbs. I forget that certain parts of the country are too hot for herbs in the summer. I do not sell any of my products. I thought about it briefly and then decided it would be a lot of work. I use white wine vinegar mostly for my herbal vinegars. I will try to post about this shortly! We have to find a way to get together some day! xo