The Beauty and Regret of Fall in the Herb Garden!

By Far One of My Favorites in the Fall!

Who would have thought that the parsley post the other day would get me in the mood to blog.  You really haven't missed all that much in the herb garden.  And as I went over what I have blogged about this season, you saw quite a bit more than I remember!   I am going to share with you some photos over the next week of specific herbs that I really have grown to love over the years. 

Margaret Hall reminded me that this is one of them, pineapple sage (Salvia elegans).  She stated she has tons of it and would I share my pineapple sage jelly recipe.  I would be happy to do so.  Here is a link for three of my favorite herb jellies, including pineapple sage:  An Herbal Jelly Recipe Marathon! I always try to encourage readers over the growing season to use your herbs.  I am not the greatest cook, but I do try to share my successes using herbs when it happens.  I would tell you Margaret to use your pineapple sage fresh in fruit salads, iced teas and baked goods.  My experience trying to dry it has not worked.  The Herbal Husband being my chief herbal sniffer and tester can tell you that it loses its fragrance and taste of pineapple when dried.  You could try freezing some fresh leaves and see what happens to them.  I have just not wasted too much time doing that.  We have also brought our pineapple sage inside when it hasn't gotten too big, but that doesn't always work out well either.  I know that there are pineapple sage pound cake recipes out there.  Here is a link to my search on Google and you can pick the recipe you would like to try Pineapple Sage Pound Cake Recipes.  There are a lot of choices.  Short of using it fresh with fruit or tea or baked goods, I don't have any new ideas.  If my readers have an interesting way they use pineapple sage leaves, please let me know and I will pass it on in a later post.  That's the beauty of the fall herb garden.

Now to the regret!  When I first started my herb journey more than 25 years ago, I wanted to grow everything exotic and interesting in the herb world.  Sometimes too many plants of the same variety that when the fall came, I either had regret because I didn't use them at all or I had so much of one product that I couldn't use it all or share it all!  So my vision over the years has become very narrow and as much I would like to grow every new variety of herb, I will stick to my tried and true favorites and make what I can to share and not worry so much about having it all.

I bet you are wondering why is she inside writing when she should be out in the garden harvesting?  The forecasters were incorrect and it has been raining since early morning!  So much for harvesting the garden.  I will get to it sometime this week.  Snow in the forecast next week for Halloween!  Maybe they will be incorrect again!  Hope so!   Well I hope you are enjoying your day wherever you may be.  Talk to you later.

Twenty Days In And Celebrating the 2015 Herb of the Year, Savory, All of Them!

The First Book I Read About Savory 20 Days Ago!

Oh, maybe not ALL of them in this one post!  Well, I really have been reading most days about savory since January 1.  I just haven't been talking about it with you.  So here goes.  The first book that I pulled out of one of my book cases was Exotic Herbs by Carole Saville.  As most of you know, I am an herb plant collector and love the different and exotic herbs, just not the ordinary ones.  So I just thought I would do the same idea that I had for my favorite, lemon verbena that is to pick out a book look in the index and read the pages about savory.

Of course, with this first book, Carole Saville doesn't really talk about the two savorys you are thinking about, summer or winter.  Her focus is about Pink Savory (Satureja thymbra).  It is definitely a tender perennial (Zones 8-9) for us in the northern part of the U.S.  It is native to Sardinia, Greece, Crete and the eastern Mediterranean.

It grows to about one foot tall.  It is very flavorful despite its size and its flavor is hotter than summer savory with oregano accents.  It grows on dry, stony hillsides in its native countries.  Ms. Saville says "Pink savory was known to the seventeenth century herbalists, Gerard and Parkinson, who called it Wild Time of Candy.  "Time" being thyme and "candy" the then name for the island of Crete."  Other common names are goat thyme and Roman, Greek and European hyssop.

It is found in herb nursery catalogs as pink savory or barrel sweetener, because in Crete a strong infusion of savory was used to cleanse and refresh wine barrels in the fall in preparation for a new wine.

Growing pink savory is the tricky bit coming from clay, wet soils.  Pink savory likes it dry, average to alkaline soil, full sun and excellent drainage.  I see a rock garden in my future.  But even having said that pink savory for me would have to be in a pot at the very least or dug up in the fall to be taken inside.  Cut back tip growth to keep a neat appearance.  Pink savory is perfect for a bed of Mediterranean herbs such as thymes and oreganos and sages.  Hope you will consider growing some pink savory in your herb garden this year.  I can see that my savory mail order from Well Sweep Herb Farm has increased by one!

I really realized with this herb of the year that I have not provided too much information and some of it is incorrect.  Oops!  Already corrected what was incorrect.  Winter savory is not even on my list of perennial herbs!   Have grown it over the years, but have learned that summer savory does self seed sometimes and winter savory is only good as long as the winter is not too cold and we had a terrible one last year.  The bottom line is that my photo catalog of savory is minimal!  So I may be taking a lot of book covers until the growing season gets started again.

BTW, your local nursery may not have pink savory or summer or winter for that matter.  Here are some of my favorite herb nurseries that still do mail order.  Well Sweep Herb Farm in New Jersey (link above), Sandy Mush Herb Nursery in North Carolina (First $100 I spent was on herbs from Sandy Mush.), Richters Herbs in Ontario, Canada (Yes, you can get plants back with the right paperwork from Canada.).  Two of my favorite places to buy herbs in Ohio are Mulberry Creek Herb Farm in Huron, Ohio and Beech Creek Botanical Garden & Nature Preserve in Alliance, Ohio.  All of the above-mentioned nurseries are passionate about herbs.  So please check them out.  Locally in the Pittsburgh area check out McTighe's Garden Center on Route 8, North Hills that sell a lot of unusual herbs from Sal Gilberte in Connecticut and Trax Farm in the South Hills among others in the area.  Please share your favorite place to buy herbs.

Took me awhile to put this together.  So getting back into an herbal rhythm may be difficult, but just nudge me if you don't hear from me for a while.  We had a touch of wet snow but it's January!  Hope you are having a great day wherever you may be.  Talk to you later. 

Just Wanted to Mention, Herbally Speaking!

Lemon Verbena in Bloom

I added today all of the lemon verbena recipes that are sprinkled throughout this blog on the Lemon Verbena Recipes Page at the top of my home page.  Hopefully, it will make it a bit easier for you if you are looking for a recipe using lemon verbena.  Remember I suggest using fresh in cooking recipes and dried in all other ways.  I'll hopefully be starting on my posts for herbal teas shortly.  In the meantime it is snowing very fine snow at the moment.  I think we have a couple of inches and more is to come!  Hope you are safe and warm wherever you may be.  Talk to you later.

Snow Covering the Herb Garden

A Partial List of Inedible or Poisonous Flowers!

A Partial List of Inedible or Poisonous Flowers

Azalea                              Azalea spp. (Rhododendron spp.)

Boxwood                         Buxus spp.

Burning Bush                    Euonymus spp.

Caladium                          Caladium spp.

Clematis                           Clematis spp.

Daffodil                            Narcissus spp.

Delphinium (Larkspur)      Delphinium spp.

Elephant Ears                   Colocasia antiquorum

Four O'Clock                   Mirabilis jalapa

Foxglove                          Digitalis purpurea

Hyacinth                           Hyacinthus orientalis 

Hydrangea                        Hydrangea spp.

Iris                                    Iris spp.

Ivy (English Ivy)                Hedera helix

Jack-in-the-Pulpit              Arisaemia triphyllum

Lantana                            Lantana camara

Lily of the Valley               Convallaria majalis

Lobelia                             Lobelia spp.

Morning Glory                  Ipomoea violacea

Mountain Laurel               Kalmia latifolia

Periwinkle                        Vinca spp.

Privet                               Ligustrum spp.

Rhododendron                 Rhododendron spp.

Sweet Pea                        Lathyrus spp.

Wisteria                            Wisteria spp.

Source:  "Edible Flowers:  From Garden to Palate" by Cathy Wilkinson Barash 

My buddy, Kathleen Gips at The Village Herb Shop asked about petunias.  I remember in our garden when I was growing up, the rabbits loved our petunias.  I thought they might be an edible flower and the link I gave you for inedible flowers has an edibles list and petunia is on it.  I wanted to dig a bit deeper.  When I did talks on edible flowers,  I found a photocopy of a February 1990 article in Organic Gardening magazine by Rosalind Creasy.  She is one of my go to authors about edible flowers.  I'm going to add these following flowers to my list because she says to avoid them because no reliable documentation for their safety has been found:


Impatiens                         Impatiens spp.
Mullein                            Verbascum spp.
Petunias                           Petunias spp.
Primrose                          Primula spp.
Snapdragons                    Antirrhinum spp.

I greatly respect Rosalind Creasy and think that it is better to lean on the side of avoidance than to have a bad reaction because you aren't sure and decide to experiment!

I have given you a lot of the more common plants and flowers in this list.  Here is an additional source list from Home Cooking at about.com called Non-Edible Poisonous Flowers Chart.  Oh, look, black locust is still on the list.  You now know that black locust has some toxic parts, but the flowers are edible.  So do your own research and just make sure that you are eating an edible flower!  I have placed this in my pages under the banner photo so you will always have access to it and I will make sure to put your additions on the page when necessary.

The warm weather is coming to an end here.  We didn't get the major thunder storms we were supposed to get, but the temperature is dropping.  We made it to a high of 66!  Just crazy.  We're back to normal tomorrow, snow and cold.  It is January!  Hope you are having a great day.  Talk to you later.

Edible Flowers Back Story and Additional Choices of Edible Flowers!

'Frans Hal' Daylily

First of all the List of Edible Flowers that I gave you yesterday is certainly not complete nor the latest word on which flowers to eat.  I first started doing talks about edible flowers in the early 2000's.  I really didn't know too much.  I was learning as I went.  Honestly I am still learning.

Because I was connected to master gardening and extension, I needed to make the wisest decision about which flowers to talk about.  This first edible flowers fest I spoke at had about 200 people or more, young and old.  Because I was interested in herbs, we decided to lean the list toward the herbal side.  I had tulips on the list and then when I read in Cathy Barash's book that people had reactions that could cause numbness, I made the decision to take them off the list.  Also a lot of people talked about snapdragons as being an edible flower.  Again, I had to lean on another edible flowers author Rosalind Creasy who wrote in an Organic Gardening article that she could find no historic evidence that snapdragons were edible.  In the end we leaned toward tasty and mostly herbal flowers for my list and flowers that didn't have too many side effects!  Moderation in all things, including edible flowers.

Yesterday when I published my edible flowers list, Wildcraft Diva gave me some additional flowers to consider, including courgette or zucchini flowers (Cucurbita pepo) and I made a mistake that I will correct.  Because all Cucurbita are edible, I put the spp. after the species name, but I forgot the pepo.

She then mentioned elderflower (Sambucus nigra) the 2013 Herb of the Year.  What I wanted to say is that I didn't put Elderflower on this list because you have to be careful when using elderflower or elderberry (Sambucus canadensis or nigra).  The berries and flowers should never be eaten raw from the plant.  Always cook the berries.  Here is my friend, Jim Long's blog on the Herb of the Year - 2013 Elderberry .  I think it may give you some additional information and recipes.  Thanks Jim!

Now about the black locust (Robinia pseudoacacia) flowers.  I found a very nice and local blog called Food Under Foot.  They talked about eating black locust flowers in this blog post called Wild Edible Walk, In Pictures.  I also just found The 3 Foragers blogsite and a post about Black Locust Flowers with recipes.    I also discovered that black locust is listed in my favorite edible flowers book by Cathy Barash as poisonous.  Parts of the tree are toxic and it talks about eating the flowers when they are young.  If this is an unfamiliar tree to you, I would do a lot of research before I would eat the flowers and be very comfortable.  I found this fact sheet from the Michigan Department of Natural Resources.  There are people eating black locust flowers and surviving.

The Wildcraft Diva also said the red clover (Trifolium pratense) was an edible flower eaten by the Italians.  In her book, Edible Flowers From Garden to Palate, Cathy Barash said that raw clover flowers are not easily digestible in any quantity, but their sweet crunch adds a nice addition to salad.  The flowers can be dried and then brewed into tea.  She also says that clover can cause a skin rash in some sensitive people.  That would be me, unfortunately.

The Wildcraft Diva talked about the mallow (Malva sylvestris, Malva moschata, Malva alcea) as edible flowers.  I found this website called Hibiscus.org that may shed some light on the edible mallow varieties.  In Denise Schreiber's book she talks about Hibiscus syriacus or Rose of Sharon, Hibiscus rosa-sinensus or China rose, Chinese hibiscus, Rose-of-China, Chinese rose or Hawaiian hibiscus and Hibiscus sabdariffa or Roselle.  She mentions that Roselle may have a diuretic effect so it should be eaten in small amounts.
So maybe you can see what I mean about learning the botanical names, but even then there may be other varieties that are more edible or available than others.  I have given links in the Diva's choices to various seed and plant links that appear to be European.  We are on different continents and so different varieties are going to be used.

I'm glad the Wildcraft Diva started a conversation.  Thanks WD!  I think I'm going to keep my original list as is and give a link to this post at the end of my list and will continue to add links to additional posts as the conversation goes forward.  It is a temperature rising kind of day.  We're going to be 60 tomorrow.  Ridiculous, but colder by the end of the week.  Can't say stay warm, because we are already there!  Talk to you later.

A List of Edible Flowers and The Ten Rules for Eating Them!

Yes, Sunflowers Are An Edible Flower!

EDIBLE FLOWERS

Anise Hyssop (F)                          Agastache foeniculum
Bachelor's Buttons (P)                  Centaurus cyanus
                                                    (Debs Cook says that these are an edible flower.)

Basil (F)(C)                                  Ocimum basilicum

Bee Balm (F)                                Monarda didyma

Borage (E-)*                                Borago officinalis

Calendula (P)(C)                          Calendula officinalis

Chamomile (Annual) (P)(C)          Matricaria recutita

Chives (F)(C)                               Allium schoenoprasum
Garlic Chives (F)(C)                     Allium tuberosum

Dianthus (P)(W)(C)                      Dianthus spp.

Dandelion (E-)**                         Taraxacum officinale

Daylily (E-)(B)                             Hemerocallis spp.

Eastern Redbud (E)(B)                Cercis canadenis

English Daisy (P)(C)                    Bellis perennis

  Oxeye Daisy (P)(C)                   Leucanthemum vulgaris or  
                                                    Chrysanthemum leucanthemum

Johnny-Jump-Ups (E)(C)             Violia tricolor

Lavender (English) (F)(C)             Lavandula angustifolia, any angustifolia variety,
                                                      especially 'Munstead' or 'Hidcote'

Lilacs (F)                                      Syringa vulgaris

Marigold (Signet) (P)(C)              Tagetes tenuifolia 'Lemon Gem' or 'Tangerine Gem'

Mint (F)(C)                                  Mentha x piperita (Peppermint) or
                                                    Mentha spicata (Spearmint)

Nasturtium (E)(P)(C)                    Tropaeolum majus

Pansies (E)(P)(C)                         Viola x wittrockiana

Peas (Vegetable) (E)                     Pisum sativum

Roses (P)(W)                               Rosa gallica, R. moschata, R. centifolia
                                                    & R. damascena

Rosemary (E)(C)                          Rosmarinus officinalis

Sage (F)                                       Salvia officinalis,
Pineapple Sage (F)                       Salvia elegans
Scented Geraniums (E)(C)            Pelargonium spp.
                                                      (lemon or rose scented leaves)

Squash Blossoms (E-)                  Cucurbita pepo spp.

Sunflower (P)(B)                          Helianthus annuus

Thyme (F)(C)                               Thymus spp.

Violets (P)(E)                               Viola odorata

Yucca (P)(W)                               Yucca spp

(B) Buds can be eaten; (C) Can be grown in containers; (E) Entire flower can be eaten; (E-) Entire flower minus stamens, styles or sepals; (F) Florets can be eaten; (P) Petals can be eaten; (W) Remove white part at base of petal before eating.  It may be bitter.  *Borage flowers should be avoided by pregnant and lactating women, as more than eight to ten flowers can cause milk to flow.  **Avoid if allergic to latex.

Sources:  "Edible Flowers:  From Garden to Palate" by Cathy Wilkinson Barash & "the Edible Flower Garden" by Rosalind Creasy & "Flowers in the Kitchen" by Susan Belsinger.

 I will get my comments on my list of favorite edible flowers, but in the meantime, here from Mother Earth Living are two links from one of my favorite author of edible flowers, Cathy Barash talking about her Guide to Eating Flowers and within that article is her List of Edible Flowers.  I like her book because she talks about both edible and inedible flowers.  Here are those ten points:

TEN POINTS REGARDING EDIBLE FLOWERS

1.     Eat flowers only when you are positive they are edible.  Please learn the botanical names of plants.       No matter where you are in the world and if you don't speak the language, you will know what the plant is (if it's properly tagged) and if you don't think it is properly tagged, I wouldn't buy and eat it.)

2.     Just because it is served with food does not mean a flower is edible.  There are a lot of restaurants that use flowers for decoration, but don't necessarily have an idea whether it is edible.  Some flowers served may be edible, but not tasty.

3.     Eat only flowers that have been grown organically (not sprayed).  I would not go midnight shopping to the neighbors to try their new rose, unless you know that it has not be sprayed or drenched in chemicals.

4.     Do not eat flowers from florists, nurseries or garden centers (because they may have been sprayed).  I always say if you get roses from your significant other from a florist, make them into potpourri.  If you buy an annual or perennial that has an edible flower and they have been sprayed with chemicals wait for as long to eat them as possible once they are planted in a container or your garden.  If it is an annual clip off a couple of cycles of blooms before you eat the flowers.  If it is a perennial plant, you can wait until the following season to eat the flowers, if you are concerned.

5.     If you have hay fever, asthma or allergies, do not eat flowers.  I did talk to an allergist and they told me as long as you just eat the petals and none of the pollen, you should be fine.

6.    Do not eat flowers picked from the side of a road.  They have been contaminated by car emissions.  There are lots of daylilies and chicory that grow along the roadside.  Please don't eat those.

7.    Remove pistils and stamens from flowers before eating.  Eat only the petals.  You may have to use tweezers to get the job done.

8.    Not all flowers are edible.  Some are poisonous.  Invest in a book on poisonous plants.

9.    There are many varieties of any one flower.  Flowers taste different when grown in different locations. This is regarding the species that are all edible, like the dianthus, daylily or rose to name a few.  You may have to try multiple varieties to find the tasty flowers.  Lilacs are another flower that are edible, but they have grassy, metallic and floral tastes.  You are really going to have to work to find the tasty ones.  Also different soils in your garden affect the taste of a flower.

10.  Introduce flowers into your diet the way you would new foods to a baby--one at a time in small quantities.  You want to introduce flowers into your diet and your family's diet gradually (children under 4 should not eat flowers) and then plan parties to introduce them to your friends.  They will be glad you use edible flowers in small ways and not overwhelm them.

Source:  "Edible Flowers:  From Garden to Palate" by Cathy Wilkinson Barash with additional comments in blue by Lemon Verbena Lady.

Bibliography of Edible Flower Books and Other Herbal Books:

Barash, Cathy Wilkinson, Edible Flowers:  From Garden to Palate.  Golden:  Fulcrum Publishing, 1995.  (This is probably the most complete book.  It has good information concerning edible vs. inedible flowers and great recipes.)

Belsinger, Susan, Flowers in the Kitchen.  Loveland:  Interweave Press, 1991.  (This book concentrates on edible flowers.  There is a very good list of 50 edible flowers and a plan for a garden.  Great recipes.)

Coombes, Allen J., Dictionary of Plant Names.  Portland:  Timber Press, 1999.  (If you want to learn botanical names, this is one of the best sources.)

Creasy, Rosalind, the Edible Flower Garden.  Boston:  Periplus Editions (HK) Ltd., 1999.  (This is a good beginner book.  Sound information on edibles vs. inedibles.  Simple but good recipes.)

Hopkinson, Patricia, Miske, Diane, Parsons, Jerry and Shimizu, Holly, Herb Gardening.  New York:  Pantheon Books, 1994.  (This is the American Garden Guides Series of books; and I think it is a very complete herb book.)

McVicar, Jekka, Good Enough to Eat.  London:  Kyle Cathie Limited, 1997.  (This is by my English friend and author and will give you a different perspective on edibles.  This is a picture across from the Acknowledgments page that contains foxgloves in it.  They are not an edible flower.)

Peterson, Lee Allen, A Field Guide to Edible Wild Plants.  Boston:  Houghton Mifflin Company, 1977.  (This is a good field trip book.  There are updated versions available.)

Schreiber, Denise, Eat Your Roses.  Pittsburgh:  St. Lynn's Press, 2011.  (This book is by my friend who started an Edible Flowers Fest many years ago.  She has a lot of experience in cooking with edible flowers and good information about both edible and inedible flowers and delicious recipes.  This is the most current book available.)

Turner, Nancy J. and Szczawinski, Adam F., Common Poisonous Plants and Mushrooms of North America.  Portland:  Timber Press, 1991 (This book has very good color photos and information.)

Not Recommended at This Time

Jacobs, Miriam, Cooking with Edible Flowers.  Pownal:  Storey Communications, 1999.  (This small booklet while very affordable talks about sweet pea flowers (Lathyrus odoratus) as being an edible flower. Took my opinion with backup material to Storey and they chose to continue publishing this booklet as is.  Please do not eat sweet pea flowers.)

So as I said this is a first run and it doesn't look so pretty when published, but the information is correct.  I'm going to put photo links with the common names.  Please let me know if you can think of something I should be adding.  Hopefully you have had a great day.  It is going to get messy in the garden and then warm for part of the week.  Talk to you later. 

My Mistake Was. . .

Ok, Becca from A Southern Garden by Becca for your birthday, I am going to teach you how to make up a page for your blog.  I was making the mistake of going to Design and clicking on Add Gadget and then adding a page that way.  Maybe you can do it that way, but I found an easier way.  You simply go like you would to do a New Post and just under Settings it says "Edit Pages".  You click that and then it gives you a big blue button that says "New Page".  Click on that and it looks just like when you do a post for your blog.  You can add links and pictures just like in a post.  You can do all kinds of pages, but you can only do ten for the time being.  Hope this has been clear.  If you have any questions, I would be happy to answer them.  See if my directions help you.  I think you can figure it out.  If not, maybe a trip to Alabama would help!  You all have to go and wish Becca a very happy birthday, because it's tomorrow!  Happy Birthday, Becca!  May you have many more! 

New Pages on My Blog!

Well, I finally got some help from the Blogger help pages.  I put together a couple of new pages that you will see across the top of my homepage just beneath my banner photo!  It's about time!  Most of you have these pages.  I'm still very bad at new technology!  Hopefully, I will add a few more in the coming days and I will change them up every so often so there will be something new for you to learn.  Right now they are about my favorite, lemon verbena and I may keep these two as a fixture and try to add to them periodically.  Met a woman at the Fair on Saturday who hates the internet and I needed to put together some information on lemon verbena for her and mail it to her.  Still using the good old mail!  So I have given it to you as well.  The growing tips are for this region, because there are some of you lucky people that lemon verbena is a small shrub or tree and can grow year round!  You know who you are!  Lucky, lucky!  Well, it is a wet, dreary, cool day here and I'm off to blanch some beans and then make some jelly or may be go to the movies to see Wall Street.  Hope you are having a great day wherever you may be.  Talk to you later.