Herbal Gifts for the Holidays!

The Herbal Husband and I went shopping today. What were we thinking! The stores were packed with shoppers and the choices were very picked over. However, we did have success for the husband! Thank goodness! Now I would like to give you some last minute book ideas for that herb gardener in your life.

First, my favorite book is Bertha Reppert's Mrs. Reppert's Twelve Month Herbal. It is a year in the life of Bertha Reppert and her garden, founder of The Rosemary House in Mechanicsburg, PA. As you know by now in reading my blog, I truly love, respect and have learned so much from this talented family. Bertha passed away in 1999, but left a very rich legacy. This book will be a favorite for you as well. Each page is a day in the life of Bertha Reppert, has the weather conditions and a quotation and a recipe, a craft or just the doings of the day. For example, today's entry, December 15 mentioned it was snowing and talks about the herbs of the creche, pennyroyal, bedstraw and thyme. I think The Rosemary House still has copies available. It is a wonderful addition to any library.

My second choice is Adelma Grenier Simmons, Herb Gardening in Five Seasons. Don't forget the fifth season is Christmas. It is a classic herb gardening book written in early 1964. The book begins with "Happy is the herb gardener through all the seasons and the years." I couldn't agree more. It also has lovely line drawings of the herbs in the Dictionary of Fifty Selected Herbs. It can be found on Bookfinder, one of a number of search engines for finding out of print or even in print books.


My next favorite is a fictional series of books featuring China Bayles as a criminal attorney who gave up her professional career to open an herb shop. Maybe a fantasy of mine once upon a time! She gets mixed up in the murders of the town she lives in. I have heard Susan Wittig Albert speak here and her blog is one of my favorites. I think she is up to Number 17 in the series or may be more. You can find both hardbacks and paperbacks of the China Bayles series at Amazon, Bookfinder, maybe Rosemary House or other herb shops across the country.
My last choice is the fictional series of books featuring Theodosia Browning who owns the Indigo Tea Shop in Charleston written by Laura Childs. Theodosia is always stumbling into a murder scene. Ms. Childs adds tea recipes and tips at the end of each book. There are nine books so far in this series. You can find them at Amazon, Bookfinder and maybe tea shops in your area. Thousands of books and really just a very small portion of my favorites. I feel books are to be treasured and the digital age is upon us. I will share more favorites later.

Wildlife in the Backyard and Maybe Santa's Deer!

We have mostly gray squirrels in our yard. Sometimes a red squirrel. Yesterday this appeared on the driveway. I think it's a grey squirrel in disguise! It disappeared as quickly as it came.

Today we looked out and two "rein" deer were lounging around our backyard. Better call Santa and tell him to start rounding them up!

St. Lucia's Day

The people of Sweden celebrate St. Lucia's Day, who brings sight to the blind, food to the hungry and light in the midst of winter darkness. The Festival of Lights or Little Christmas is the favorite Swedish Advent celebration. She was a real person born in Syracuse in Sicily to wealthy Christians in the third century. While still young she vowed to remain a virgin and dedicated her life and fortune to the Church. Her mother tried to arrange a marriage with a young pagan. When he was refused, he denounced her as a Christian. Miracles preserved her from a brothel and death by burning, but finally she was martyred by a sword thrust through her neck.

St. Lucia is represented carrying a flame or burning lamp, because her name comes from lux meaning light. St. Lucia's Day is a festival of fire and light, with two ceremonies, one at home and one in church. The Lucia Queen or Lucia Bride in the early morning darkness of December 13th is dressed in a long white gown sometimes decorated with stars. She wears a bilberry crown fitted with lighted candles as she goes from room to room to awaken family and guests. She brings them hot coffee and buns made with saffron or flavored with cardamon. Next she visits the barns with coffee and food for the farmhands and extras are given to the animals.

In the church ceremony, Lucia has a similar dress and crown. She enters the church with boys dressed in blue with peaked caps decorated with stars. They carry star-topped staffs, like the boys who make the rounds on Epiphany.

In both ceremonies, Lucia brings light into darkness, fire against winter cold and the promise of sun and new life in spring! Light some candles today and celebrate St. Lucia!

Herbal Tea Time, Part Two!

Here are the elusive teabags that I couldn't find yesterday! The herbal husband actually asked the key question that turned on my herbal lightbulb. I came out of the darkness into the light. Blessings on the herbal husband!

The other day I tested a couple different "blends", the first had everything but the kitchen sink and it was overwhelming. It had eight herbs. It was way too many. Then I tried five herbs and that worked very well. So Lemon Verbena Lady's Lemon Herbal Tea blend is:

1 to 2 parts lemon verbena

1 part lemon grass

1 leaf lemon basil

1/2 leaf mint marigold

1/2 leaf stevia

Being an herbal tea novice, I experimented with using the food processor to chop the dried lemon verbena. Bad idea! The midrib of lemon verbena is like the midrib on a bay leaf, very tough. It doesn't break down easily. So I took about 4 whole leaves of lemon verbena, 2 or 3 pieces of lemon grass, 1 leaf of lemon basil, 1/2 leaf of mint marigold and 1/2 leaf of stevia. You have to play around until you get the right combination for you. This is in an individual teabag recipe. They have bigger ones for teapots that would take more herbs. If the small bag is for one, the larger one is for two or three servings. You need to crush the bag slightly to help the flavor disburse. Pour boiling water over the bag and steep 3 to 5 minutes for the individual bag. I did 4 minutes and it seemed to work perfectly.

I bought the teabags in the picture a long time ago. I checked online at the San Francisco Herb Company site and found all kinds of self sealing tea bags and other products. I think you will find their site helpful. They even have potpourri recipes. In the picture below are the teabags, as they were finished. I found the sachet bags in the photo underneath at Well-Sweep Herb Farm in New Jersey. I think they will make ideal gift bags for my herbal tea blends. More tea blend ideas to come!

Herbal Timeout!

I had a senior moment today and couldn't find the teabags I was going to use in today's posting! I decided I needed to take some time and get more organized at my worktable. Therefore, I'm going to put the Out Weeding sign up briefly! I will be back tomorrow with a new post. Thanks for understanding.

Herbal Tea Time!

Some people would say, "How can you work in this space!!" Actually I'm thinking that myself, but I forged ahead and using the book shown here, I came up with Lemon Verbena Lady's Lemon Herbal Tea. The title is too long. I will have to think of something shorter. The first version had too many herbs in it. It was good, but it was too strong. I narrowed it down to about four herbs with, of course, lemon verbena as the base. Tomorrow I will share the recipe with you.

The Smell is Intoxicating/The Herbal Jungle!

Today was move day for the herbs that have been hanging out in the garage. So now its an herbal jungle in our basement! The herbal husband kept saying, "The smell is intoxicating!" In this tiny space are four scented geraniums, two lavenders, an allspice tree, a bay rum tree and a bay laurel and a kafir lime and the night-blooming jasmine! The herbal husband was a planner in his former life. We had a really good growing season this year so plants are larger coming into the house. We had one casualty already. The grey fringed lavender that was brought inside has not made it. It happens! Our other inside lavenders are doing just fine. We were also cleaning up the tomato patch outside and found these radishes. The one on the left doesn't look so good, but it probably tastes fine. Will be working on herbal gifts starting tomorrow.

Green Pepper Basil Update!

Today we cut off the flowerheads of this green pepper basil so the plant will continue to thrive. The flower heads smell just like a green pepper. It is so interesting! I have made some herbal vinegar with the green pepper basil and will be making salad dressing with it later this winter. I just love the unusual herbs!

Angels from Nature

This is from my herbal archive. Several years ago, I went on a wonderful bus trip with the Repperts from The Rosemary House to a wonderful herb farm called Buffalo Springs Herb Farm in Virginia. Sadly, the Virginia farm is closed. This is the result of the craft project that we did there. The instructions call it Angels from Nature and Garden as featured on Home and Garden TV's Willard Scott's Almanac and the Angel Tree at the Governor's Mansion, Richmond, VA 1996. I tried to Google both HGTV's website and the Governor's Mansion in Richmond, but came up empty. I think that Don Hayne, one of the talented owners, decorated the Governor's tree either in 1995 or 1996 with the angels. This one that I made has lasted 12 years and has been protected in a paper bag all of those years.

Here is the outline of steps:


Step 1 - Head & Body Stem: Choose one of the following: medium size poppy pod with a 4" stem or acorn or hickory nut drilled and wood twig inserted. (I used a poppy pod.)


Step 2 - Arms: Choose approximately a 3" twig, cinnamon stick or reed stem and bind onto main body stem near the head using 22 gauge wire or strong thread. Or glue on oblong shaped pods. Make a loop of wire at back to use as a hanger, if desired. (I used a cinnamon stick.)


Step 3 - Body: Gather a small bunch of dried materials together to form a body. Fan out material and bind bundle, with 22 gauge wire at top and then attached to main stem at neck area. Suggested plant materials: silver king artemisia, plume celosia, dried plumes of decorative grasses, wheat, oats, rosemary, sage or blue salvia. (I have used a combination of blue salvia and silver king artemisia.)


Step 4 - Upper Body: Using a glue gun or fast drying glue, fill in area from waist up to head. Small bits of dried flowers and leaves work well for this to form a collar and shoulders. Use tweezers if desired. (I used celosia and statice.)


Step 5 - Wings: Using two matching dried leaves, glue wings on to back of neck or shoulder, either flat on each side or at an angle. Secure with glue. Suggested plant material: dried bay leaves, dried salah leaves or pressed galax leaves. (I used four bay leaves.)

Step 6 - Personality: Glue small pieces of dried flowers, acorn tops or Spanish moss to top of head. Paint a face if desired, using acrylic paints and add small bits of interesting plant material wherever necessary to give your angel personality. (I used more statice at the top of the poppy pod and didn't paint a face.)

This is nice as a tree ornament, wreath ornament or atop packages instead of a traditional bow. This is the only one I ever made. It takes a lot of material to make several. I did make wreathes and bouquets for a time. I don't any longer. I thought though if you have dried material that you don't know what to do with it, this may be a solution for you. Hopefully these pictures will give you assistance.