2017, An Almost Herbal Year in Review!

January--A Cold and Snowy Selfie!

February--Sun and Snow!

March--A Symposium with the Western Reserve Unit of The Herb Society of America!

April--The Peppermint Scented Geranium Blooming in the Garage!

May--The Apricot-Pink Digitalis!

June--The Apothecary's Rose

July--Must be Time for Bee Balm!

August--Finally Got The Prairie Garden Finished!

September--The Herb Garden at the Geffrye, London, England!

October--Pineapple Sage in Full Bloom!

November--Spearmint Survives it All Until Snow Comes!

December--Brings Joys of Cuban Oregano Blooming!

There are always surprises in the herb garden and as I look back over the year 2017, it was better than I thought it was!  I think I am having more and more senior moments, herbally speaking!  I need to grow more herbs!  I didn't seem to want to post too much, but what I did post represented the herb garden at its maximum.   I have some major trouble spots to deal with in my herb garden in 2018.  Not sure whether they will be addressed or ignored.  Sometimes in this household, we just choose to look past the bad to the good.

I did not do one post celebrating the 2017 Herb of the Year!  I still have the same pile of magazines sitting by my chair to read.  Maybe in 2018?  You remember what it was don't you?  Cilantro/Coriander, one of The Herbal Husband's favorites.  Oh, yes, we have hops to explore in 2018 as well!  I am sure that hops will be interesting besides for making beer.  Please dear herb gods, come up with an interesting use for hops other than beer!

OK well I keep saying this, but I thought I would be finished blogging, but The Herbal Husband says to carry on every once in a while.  He wants you to see our trip in August and I still have to finish my May 2016 trip for you.  Soo we will carry on for now.  My stitching is bringing me great joy and I had lots of finished projects for me, 27 in all!  Still frigid here in the 'Burgh!  Stay warm!  Happy New Year!  I will see you in 2018!

Merry Christmas and A Happy New Year, Herbally Speaking!

Mini Cross Stitch Ornaments on Our Tree!

So here we are in the holiday season.  I haven't been very vocal.  Hopefully in 2018 you will hear more from me.  I have some questions to answer and trips to finish and a new Herb of the Year, hops!  And I didn't even discuss the 2017 Herb of the Year yet.

So I am just going to pop up and blog when I get inspired.  We may have a white Christmas.  Hope so.  I will try to keep my blog header photo current.  So take care.  I will talk to you later.

A Blooming May, Herbally Speaking!

The Angelica in Bloom!

Dianthus 'Sunburst'

Dianthus 'Sunflor'

'Linear Leaf' Thyme

Comfrey Attracting Bees!

Favorite Ladybug on Joe Pye Weed!

May Means Chives Are Blooming!

And A New Addition to the Garden!

I can't believe May will be over soon!  I have been busy on everything except blogging!  Not sure how to get this blogging motor started!  Maybe I will try once a week?  I think I tried that once before without success!

This has been an outstanding spring here in the 'Burgh!  The Rhododendrons have been spectacular and everything else has as well and as always the weeds are surpassing size and tonnage.  Of course, I was behind last year and it just keeps adding up!  We are moving towards a wild forest like garden in the back.  So the weeds will fit in?

All of the spring herbs are up and turning black from the four-lined plant bug! Ugh!  Our abnormally warm winter hasn't deterred them.  Some of my favorite spring herbs are pictured above.  I also try to use my lovage plant before it flowers in our favorite chicken stew recipe.   I love angelica because it is big and takes up space!  I love dianthus because they are an edible flower and a lot of them smell of cloves.  All of the thymes in flower attract bees.  Comfrey is such a pretty plant in flower.  And of course, chives and the herb omelets begin!  Oh and I almost forgot to share my new favorite foxglove!  Isn't it beautiful?

This Apricot-Pink Digitalis Is My Favorite!

 It is also a good time to get started trimming some herbs to dry them before they flower.  As I was walking around the front garden last week, I noticed that the spearmint is up and looking good.  I will try to get out on Tuesday when it is dry to cut some for drying.

As you can see by the last photo, we have a new addition to the garden, a new arbor for the grapes!  It is long overdue.  It is much shorter than the previous version, but maybe it will be more manageable.  We are also planning to recycle some of the old arbor into features and entrances into the gardens.  So stay tuned!

Tomorrow my herbal companion, Bonnie and I are taking a road trip to Ohio to buy some herbs!  Always an exciting day.  We have a rainy day here at the moment!  I hope you are having a fabulous spring day wherever you may be.  Have finished several cross-stitch projects and that has taken a lot of my time up.  I also have been doing reading about herb garden design and the 2017 Herb of the Year, Cilantro/Coriander.  Hopefully I will get my blogging hat on and will be blogging about those subjects and other topics that have been crying out for attention.  Will talk to you sooner than later!    

A Gray and White Day in the Herb Garden!

Yes, Sun and Snow At The Same Time!

A View Into The Back Garden!

I think I have mentioned that I am a four seasons kind of girl.  I love all seasons but particularly spring, fall and winter.  Summer gets too hot for me.  So I can't see me ever living in the south for example.  After whining about not having snow, I got my wish today in the form of about four inches of the fluffy white stuff.  I was not prepared though to find the sun coming out AND snow falling to the ground!  It was sort of an unreal experience.  The banner photo shows St. Fiacre being blinded by the snow.   The only other problem with snowy days in the 'Burgh is that it is very dark!  Lights seem to be always on these days.  It is OK!  We have turned the corner as far as light at the end of the day and by the end of February, we will accumulate another 1-1/2 hours of light.  So spring is near really!  A few more days of snow and cold and another winter will be in the back of our memory banks.

I still have lots to talk about.  I still want to talk about herbal teas, celebrate my love/hate relationship with cilantro, the 2017 Herb of the Year, and talk more about savory, the 2015 Herb of the Year.  You get it.  I am planning a special Valentine's Day tea for The Herbal Husband.  Sshh!  Don't tell him, but it will include some of his favorites and some of mine.  I will share it with you next time.  Hope you are having a great day wherever you may be.  Talk to you soon.

Celebrating the Herb of the Year but Which One?

This blog is all about answering your questions about herbs.  I think I am behind in that goal.  So I am going to do my best to catch up.  Linda, a reader from Florida has asked about growing and using savory, the 2015 Herb of the Year!  Linda, you are in luck!  My little red notebook is still filled with my reading about savory!

My French Bowl Filled with the 2015 Herb of the Year Savory!

I haven't finished posting everything I wanted to about this wonderful peppery herb.  I did 12 posts about savory, the most about any of the herbs of the year.  So let me give you some links to those posts and hopefully I will continue to add to those postings this year.

Twenty Days In And Celebrating the 2015 Herb of the Year, Savory, All of Them!
Celebrating the 2015 Herb of the Year, Savory--Part Two!
Celebrating the 2015 Herb of the Year-The 411 on Summer Savory and Winter Savory, Part Three!
Celebrating the 2015 Herb of the Year-Savories, A North American Native Savory--Part Four!
Celebrating the 2015 Herb of the Year-Savories-Part Five!
My 1,500 Post and A New Jelly Recipe Using the 2015 Herb of the Year!
An Extra Post
Celebrating the 2015 Herb of the Year-Savories-Part Six!
Celebrating the 2015 Herb of the Year-Savories-Part Seven!
Celebrating the 2015 Herb of the Year-Savories-Part Eight!
Celebrating the 2015 Herb of the Year-Savories-Part Nine!
Celebrating the 2015 Herb of the Year-Savories-Part Ten!
Celebrating the 2015 Herb of the Year-Savories-Part Eleven!

Linda, I hope I have given you some reading material and I will try and get some more posts written in the coming days about the new 2017 Herb of the Year, Cilantro/Coriander and drain my red notebook of my reading about savory, the 2015 Herb of the Year.

As you can see we are covered in snow at the moment, but that will end by the end of the week as we are supposed to get to 60!  What!  Got to go eat lunch!  Remember your herbal questions are very important to me.  Talk to you again soon!

2016, An Herbal Year in Review!

January--Very Cold and Snowy!

February--My Favorite Selfie of the Year!

March--Wildlife of All Kinds Are Welcomed!

April--One of My Favorites in the Spring-Forget Me Not!

May--One of the Highlights of My Trip to England-Sitting in Jekka's Garden at Chelsea!

June--Means Roses Blooming in the Garden!

August--A Volunteer Sunflower in the Herb Garden!

September--The Butterfly Bush is Blooming and Butterflies Abound!

September--Couldn't Pass Up Giving You This Sunflower in Bloom!

October--My Favorite, Lemon Verbena Was Huge in the Herb Garden and in Bloom!

November--Celebrated 29 Adventurous Years with The Herbal Husband!

December--Potpourri Wreaths Finished with Wired Ribbon!

December--Spice Wreaths Finished with Gold Ribbon!

Wow, looking back on the year 2016 wasn't as bad as I thought it might be!  I just needed to take a few more photos in the winter months!  I would say that our winter last year killed a lot of the pests that would have been problems during this growing season.  

Our spring was beautiful, but I think I need to plant more bulbs!  As it has happened in previous seasons, May was very hot, very early and I came back from England to a garden that was already passed bloom in a lot of cases.  I will be posting about my May travel to England in the coming months.

Summer here was very hot with some rain, but not enough because I lost some herbs, both from weather and rodent damage.  BTW, just for the record I made 112 jars of raspberry jam which are just about gone and another 80 plus jars of herbal jelly.  Just staring at that 19 pouches of Certo made me find new herbal flavors to try!

We had a beautiful fall as usual and I got a lot accomplished in my basement work space for Christmas giving, herbally speaking.  I found a whole box of dried material and depending on scent, I will be using it as filler for potpourri in the worst case and for scented potpourri in the best case.  So I am going to stitch in the next months, but I will try to work in some days where I will post what I am doing inside, tea blends, potpourris, reading about the 2017 Herb of the Year, Cilantro, the love or hate it herb!  You get the idea!  

I just want to take a moment to thank each of you who has hung in there with me and read each and every post that I have written over the past year.  Your sweet and questioning comments are what has kept me going.  Every time I think I have had enough, you keep encouraging me to go on.  So I wish you all a safe and peaceful new year and Lemon Verbena Lady will be posting in 2017!  Talk to you soon! 

An Aromatic Day, Herbally Speaking!

Wow That's A Lot of Bay Leaves!

Well, as I said yesterday, the herbal elves have been busy getting Christmas presents ready for you and friends.  An impressive clipping of bay leaves that had to be placed in jars and labeled by moi!  Thought I was done, wrong!  The Herbal Husband produced another bag today!  What about these?  So after I finish this post it will be back to work on the bay leaf jars!  Here is a link to a post I did when Bay Leaf was the Herb of the Year in 2009!

Old Man Winter has flipped the switch here and it is FREEZING!  No real snow just flurries!  Hope you are having a great day.  I have discovered that we will be out on Tuesday, December 13, 2016 until later in the day.  So we will pick the name late in the day and it will be posted after 6:00 P.M. Eastern Standard Time!  Talk to you tomorrow.

Been Busy in the Herb Garden and Celebrating the 2016 Herb of the Year with a Jelly Recipe!

Rosemary Sherry Jelly Was One of 19 Batches of Herbal Jelly Made!

Last Pouches of Certo Used for Hot Pepper Jelly!

Keep Finding the Ladies!  This Time on Mint!

Mexican Sage--A Late Tall Bloomer in the Garden!

One Last Monarch on the Butterfly Bush!

One Last Gasp for Our Grape Arbor!

My Favorite Flowered!

This certainly has been a different year for me in the herb garden.  I have probably had years like this before.  As I get older my May trips to England affect the herb garden and the stresses have been weather related as well.  All of the photos above are from October.  I had a brain freeze about my jelly choices and fortunately I have a couple of the Western Reserve Unit of the Herb Society of America's cookbooks which saved me for flavors.  Thanks to all of those wonderful herb ladies for their inspiration  The hot pepper jelly recipe is from The Herbal Pantry by Emelie Tolley and Chris Mead.  As you can see in the photo, the peppers are suspended in the jelly which makes for a great presentation.  Here is their recipe with my notations in parentheses.

Hot Pepper Jelly
Makes 6-1/2 8 oz. jars (The half I will use for us.)
Recipe says it makes 8 8 oz. jars.  For me, it did not.

"An appealing combination of sweet and hot, this jelly is extremely good with chicken or lamb, or with cream cheese as an hors d'oeuvre.  Also you can use this as a glaze for ribs during the last 15 minutes of grilling or baking in the oven."

1 cup minced green bell pepper
1/2 cup minced hot red pepper, or to taste
1-1/2 cups cider vinegar
6-1/2 cups sugar
6 ounces (2 pouches) liquid pectin

Combine the peppers, vinegar, and sugar in a non-aluminum saucepan and bring to a boil over high heat.  Reduce the heat and boil gently for 5 to 7 minutes.  Remove from heat.  (Quickly stir in the pectin and return to heat and boil exactly one minute).  Remove from heat and (Stir for a couple of minutes at least.  I stirred for 5 minutes.  Probably too much time because the Certo really started to go gloppy.  I think when you see the pepper pieces suspended you will know it is enough.)  Put carefully (because it is already just about set up) into sterilized jars that have been boiled previously for 10 minutes and use two piece rings and lids to cover.  Place the lids in hot water until ready to use.  You don't have to boil the rings.  Place all jars into a boiling water bath for 5 minutes.  As long as you hear that ping after the jars come out and the lids have sealed down, they are canned.  If the lid has not sealed, place them in the refrigerator and use them promptly.

"Note:  If the only hot peppers available are green, use a red rather than a green bell pepper."

In herb garden news, I did lose some herbs from the heat and dry weather.  We did have some winners from the annuals planted especially the Mexican sage which is blooming its head off at the moment.  Love those tall late blooming herbs!  And the beneficials are still around and you can participate just like me at Lost Ladybug Project, a project of Cornell University to find those lost ladybugs.  We also actually had a monarch last week as well.  Sadly not too many of them these days.  The grape arbor is finally going to be replaced.  Need the help of our neighbor, but hopefully that will happen in the next couple of weeks!  Maybe a Halloween treat!  And then finally our crowning achievement is that the lemon verbena both in the container and in the ground thrived so much so that they both bloomed.  Very excited!

Well, those are some of the high points of the herb garden this season.  Did cut my chives and chop them for my container in the freezer.  Did make a touch more purple basil vinegar.  Do have a small bush of mint marigold or Texas tarragon to harvest before the cold sets in.  Oh and some of the parsley will be cut and frozen for Parsley Dill soup.  And finally will clip back the lemon verbena in the ground and I am going to experiment with covering it with a fiberglass cover make for roses.  Maybe it will help bring it back.  It really like the space we put it in.

The herbal containers will be coming in the next two weeks.  Have also started several projects of cross-stitch, so I will post about the garden when I can.  The months are flying by with such speed and I don't seem to want to write as much as I used to.  A beautiful day in the herb garden and I'm inside posting here.  Hope you are doing well wherever you may be.  Talk to you later.  

Celebrating the 2016 Herb of the Year-Capsicum! A Pepper Plant Coming Back From the Dead!

The Pepper Plant Comes Back From the Dead!

I am always amazed by The Herbal Husband's green thumb!  Remember I am the editor in plants and he is the secretary of saving every plant good or not so good.  So when he just left a seemingly dead pepper plant in its container over the winter, I said maybe that should just go on the compost pile.  He, of course, said it will.  It didn't, it has come back to life and it is starting to bloom AND will make fruit!  So there will be sweet peppers later this year.  I guess it sowed some of its seeds on its own.  He never ceases to amaze me, herbally speaking.  He is the magic man with an accent!  Here is a link to our favorite stuffed pepper recipe.  Even though I can't have too much tomato sauce anymore, these are really tasty, very easy to make and do freeze very easily.

The IHA Book of Capsicum, the 2016 Herb of the Year

I also want to mention that the International Herb Association who designates what herb will be the herb of the year each year was written a new book on Capsicum.  So I will do some speed reading and have some more to say about the 2016 Herb of the Year shortly.  I didn't even get to say everything I wanted to say about the 2015 Herb of the Year, Savory! Lots to say from my seat in the dining room!  It is like a furnace outside.  We get a slight break tomorrow and for a day over the weekend.  Will be doing A LOT of planting and moving around on Saturday!  Hope you had a great day!  I am behind on replying to your comments.  I will get to those shortly.  Spent the morning with my buddy, Composer in the Garden, Lynn Purse and my traveling companion, Bonnie.  We had a fun time reconnecting.  Not as cloudy a day as I had hoped, but I think I have some different views to show you!  Stay cool if you can.  Will talk to you tomorrow.

Celebrating the 2016 Herb of the Year, Capsicum! Well Almost!

My Favorite Pepper Mill from Penzey's!

It has pepper in its name, but it isn't quite what is being celebrated.  A couple of readers have asked about growing peppercorns, one who lives in Florida and one who lives in Vermont.  And silly me thought it was perfect because the 2016 Herb of the Year is pepper.  Well, not really pepper.  It is capsicum, the true pepper.

Pepper was prominent in the ancient world and was a source of fabulous wealth during the medieval and colonial spice trade.  Pepper provided the pungency of Indian food until it was partially replaced by chilli peppers from the New World.  It remains the most important and popular of all spices in overall value and trade volume.  Peppercorns are from the genus Piper which has a very large number of species, but only P. nigrum has any importance as a spice.  Black pepper is native to the Indian equatorial and tropical forest regions, especially along the Malabar Coast (South India).  Besides India, it is cultivated in Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia, Brazil and China.

The plant is a climber, with stems that have green oval to heart-shaped leaves, 3 to 7 inches long and adventitious (meaning they are formed accidentally) roots anchoring it to the ground.  It has inconspicuous flowers.  The fruit or peppercorn is a berry like drupe about 3/16 inches in diameter.  They are green when they are unripe and then red.  Plants are propagated from seed or cuttings.  The developing seedlings need to be staked and are kept low so that growth is horizontal.  In their native lands they can grow to 20 feet.

Production begins 5 years after planting.  The spikes of fruit are harvested before they mature so as not to lose the fruits.  The spice that is obtained from the fruits is made up of black, white and green pepper.  Black pepper comes from whole fruits picked just before they are completely ripe and are briefly cooked.  White pepper from ripe fruit with the endocarp (the inner most membrane surrounding a seed in the fruit) of the pulp separated from fermentation.  Green pepper are made by pickling the unripe fruit to keep them from darkening.

Ground pepper quickly loses its aroma, so that ideally it is stored whole.  The spice has stimulant, digestive and eupeptic (good digestion) qualities.  Black pepper is used in practically all savory dishes and even in sweet ones.  When I was at the Spice Festival at Kew Gardens last fall, a chef combined strawberries with black pepper.  They were delicious.  Because I am into jam and jelly making, here is a  strawberry and black pepper jam recipe! May have to substitute raspberries instead!

The pungent principle is piperine (only 1% as hot as capsaicin from chili peppers).  White pepper is more pungent and has musty flavors resulting from the fermentation process.  The peppery aroma is due to rotundone, a compound also found in Shiraz wine.

So the real question is can Florida or Vermont grow peppercorns?  My guess is that Florida has a better chance than Vermont just by location.  I did find a post from my friend, Jim Long's blog about growing peppercorns from plants he purchased in Florida!  It is called Growing Black Pepper.  Hopefully his tips will be helpful to Linda in Florida.  I would just say to my Vermont reader, Bev, buy the best quality peppercorns and use a pepper grinder to get the best flavor.  I would also mention buying in bulk is not always the best way to buy spices.  Even though it may be more expensive, the spices will be used up in a timely fashion.  If you have a favorite spice company, please share it.  I buy a lot of spices from Penzeys Spices.  Hope you are having a great day wherever you may be.  A gloomy day here in the 'Burgh.  Talk to you later.

Angelica Rising and Dust Too!

A Hedge of Angelica!

I just love big herbs that take up space and look good at the same time!  Angelica is one of my favorites in that category.  And this year they are going to be spectacular, herbally speaking!  They have stood up very well to the colder nights we have been having.  I keep saying this but I think we have turned the corner and I don't think we are going to have another frost night until the fall.  Fingers crossed!

One of my early posts when I started to blog was called The Year of Angelica.  Click on the link and find a recipe for crystallized angelica from one of my favorite herbal authors, Bertha Reppert.  Here is an additional link in 2010 talking about the sweet smell of the Angelica blossoms called The Sweet Smell of Angelica!   I also talked about purple angelica or Korean angelica (Angelica gigas) and here is a link to that post called Purple Angelica again from early in my blogging life.  You can find it in the Well Sweep Herb Farm catalog.  I am definitely going to get another one or two.  They are really a very pretty plant.  Is there a particular big herb in your herb garden that you look forward to seeing every spring?  Please tell me about it. 

Still moving boxes and dust around!  By the end of next week, we will be done with the windows project.  Just exhausted by the whole thing!  The Herbal Husband keeps saying we have enough boxed up, we could just move!  He loves to kid around, but this has made us think about lessening the extra clutter.  We will see how that moves forward.  We are expecting rain later.  Hope you are having a great day.  Back to moving that dust.  Oh before I go, Linda G. has asked that I write a post on growing peppercorns and since capsicum is the 2016 herb of the year, I guess I need to start talking about it!