Drying Sage

The harvesting of herbs is still a work in progress. So many herbs, so little time before they go to flower. Today we have sage, freshly snipped from the herb garden. When I go out to collect herbs I have been bringing an old baking dish to throw the sprigs in. I have read that one of the great things about growing your own herbs organically is that you don't have to worry about washing them (except for the occasional dirt splashes which can occur). Make sure of course that you have shaken off any insects and other non herb particles like... dandelion seeds.

You want to harvest your herbs for drying before they go to flower. I'm cutting it close with the sage as you can see a flower bud forming above. Sage flowers are actually very beautiful in their own right, which makes sense as it is part of the genus salvia. The name salvia, however, is more commonly seen associated with flowers. After your done harvesting them you'll be able to enjoy sage as a nice flower.

Seed Tray Extravaganza

Things are getting busier and busier around here with the garden. The frost free date is fast approaching and there is a lot of work to do yet. This post I decided to share photos of SOME of my seed trays. All of the seedlings you will see here were all planted by me from seed and either grown under lights in the house or ... as an experiment grown outside in their flats under sunlight(which seems to be working just fine so far).

Above you can see my first wave of cabbages (with some basil on the right) both red and green. The day this photo was their last day in a seed tray as they graduated to the garden shortly after this was taken. The seeds were planted on March 24th.

Here we have parsley in the front, more basil (I'm determined to have lots of basil this year) and Brussels sprouts. The seeds were planted on April 4th.

In one of my outdoor seed starting trays I planted a whole flat of sunflowers (something I'm also determined to have this year). This shows a before thinning view of some sunflowers that are growing from seeds I've saved from last years ONLY surviving sunflower.

After being thinned a day ago. On the left you have sunflowers from store bought seeds and on the right you have ones from the seeds I saved from last year. Last year I direct sowed sunflower seeds in the garden... only to have most of the seedlings devoured by slugs and the surviving ones eaten by... a ground hog (I think, but still am not sure. What else could be tall enough to chomp off the head of a over a foot tall plant?). The sole surviving plant was actually an accidental planting in the yard, which I let grow of course and saved the seeds from that before the birds got to it. These plants originate from our days in the community garden and warrant their own story another time. These seeds were sown on May 2nd.

Ah squash, yet another attempt at success from last years horrid failures. I swear nothing seemed to work out last year where I either tried to pre-sprout squash seeds in between paper towel or direct seeded into the garden. Most did not even germinate and the ones that became plants were totally pathetic and we'll leave it at that. So this year I decided to do something I've never done before, and that is to start seedlings indoors (here zucchini on the left and cucumbers on the right). Squash plants do not like to be transplanted, its something to do with sensitivity to the shock of the process. Or so I've read. Yet I've heard of gardeners successfully transplanting seedlings they have grown and also see them for sale at garden stores... so I'm wondering if the transplanting shock warning is just a finer point. I'm not typically a fan of peat pots (they dry out too fast) but this was the only way I could see of making a compromise for the plants. Peat pots can be planted into the ground when its time to transplant, which will mean I could minimize any disturbance to the roots this way- I hope.

The seedlings after thinning. As hard as it was to let go, its for their own good. Thinning makes me think about the balance between life and death. I will not wax philosophical here today. These seeds were sown on May 2nd.

Eggplant! I've never ever grown it before. In fact the only time I've seen it grown was in one garden plot back in the days of the community garden. So I'm giving it a try.

Tomatillo! Again something I've never grown before, but am very excited about. The first time I saw a tomatillo plant was a couple years ago in the amazing garden of a friend of my boyfriend's brother. Salsa verde here I come!

Both the eggplant and tomatillo were sown on April 4th.

Oregano Harvest and Herb Drying

The perennial herb garden one month ago. Not much to look at.

A lot of dead leaves and weeds (of which I tried to clean out a bit of).

But a months time can be a big difference as here we can see just a section of the herb garden as can be seen now. What you see here is one of several oregano plants I have, many of which are four years old.

It all started when I decided to try my hand at herb growing for the first time four years ago. At the time we had no place to have a garden and rented a plot at a nearby community garden. Oregano seeds are extremely tiny seeds, so when I sowed them I was a bit nervous a breath of wind would blow them away or a simple rain would wash them into history. They took a good while to grow (it felt like a month or more), but eventually there were teeny tiny oregano seedlings dotting the row I planted. They didn't grow to be much, but upon realizing that they were perennial plants I decided to dig them up and take them home at the end of the season (with this particular community garden everyone had to pack up and leave every fall for the area to get plowed). Oregano, transplants very well. It was as though it never realized it left the ground at all. At our apartment I dug a small hole in the ground and plopped them in. Well into January I was continuously amazed at how the plant stayed green. It survived (obviously) and it has been transplanted in various locations throughout its life and each year it keeps coming back. It has vigorous growth, as can be seen with the images above. And this year I decided I would finally make a harvest of this herb while taking advantage of a lounge-y day at home (because it was 35 degrees outside- in May!) to do some herb drying.

There are many ways to dry herbs. I have adopted the oven drying method. I am not sure if its the best or not in preserving the oils of the herbs, but its the only way I've been able to successfully DRY herbs. Here you can see that the snippings of herbs have been spread out evenly on cookie sheets and placed in an oven.

The oven should be set to its lowest setting possible and the door left slightly ajar. You don't want to cook them, just dehydrate them. Check on them periodically by squeezing the leaves between your fingers, if they freely crumble, then they are ready to take out. Replace with a new tray of herbs and repeat and repeat, until you have as much as you want or get tired of baby sitting the oven.

I crumble the herbs over a baking dish and then transfer to a container for storage. Your container should be clean and very dry. The more airtight the better. I reuse old glass jars (in this case one that was used for honey) and they have worked out fine so far. As pretty as your homemade herbs may be you should always store them out of sunlight, like in a cupboard or pantry. And don't forget to label them... as I have and accidentally end up with a minty tomato sauce once because those dried leaves in the unmarked container looked like basil.