Herbal Monday

Time to harvest some herbs for my upcoming projects. Today included lavender, borage, chamomile, lemon balm, and thyme.

First, time to strain my first batch of lemon thyme oxymel that has been infusing in the fridge. Oxymel is a honey-vinegar-herbal concoction that I will be taking a spoonful of a day for the rest of the year to hopefully boost my immune system come winter. It is actually really tasty, tangy, lemony, and sweet at the same time.

Just had to strain the herbs, add a spout cap (and label!), and it’s all set to be used.

Next up was lavender. I needed lavender for two uses. The first was full sprigs to try making lavender wands with Montana. My plants are just babies, and they are English lavender, which aren’t as quite as long and thin as other types. But we made it work! We also made a delicious-smelling mess!

You need 21 sprigs per wand (or really any ODD number will work).

First thing is cleaning the sprigs, removing any leaves or blossoms that aren’t part of the top flowerhead.

Then you bundle them up, using a rubber band just below the flower heads to secure. Then you knot one end of your ribbon over the rubber band. Then you “fold” each stem down over the flower heads, creating a type of “cage”.

Then you start weaving over/under alternating sprigs. It takes some patience at the beginning.

Getting the hang of it! But can you see my mistake?

We both had fun making our little wands. While we are not quite ready for the Lavender Awards, I learned enough to give it another try later this week!

Fun project!

Back to the garden to harvest the rest of today’s herbal goodies. SO many happy bees!

First up is yarrow, a rangy plant that grows wild in a variety of colors. For some reason I just absolutely love yarrow. I had to look up a few herbal uses for it, but I would grow it even if were useless.

Here is the yarrow flower heads air drying in the greenhouse, with mullein leaves from Montana drying above.

I also had to cut some chamomile flowers, which I will also freeze dry and use for some tea blends later this year.

And then comes my FAVORITE, borage. Look at this messy, rangy plant - I just love it! It’s those little blue flowers. I didn’t actually plant any borage seeds this year, yet it is ALL OVER the garden, and I leave it in as many spots as I can.

All parts of the plant are full of these little fuzzy filaments.

There’s a happy bee.

On to the second lavender harvest of the day, this time I’m just taking flower heads for freeze drying.

Last stop is the herb circle where I nabbed some of the lemon thyme (the purple flowers) and lemon balm (the green leaves) to freeze dry and save for my next batch of oxymel and/or maybe my tea blend.

Meanwhile, the contractors are dismantling our porch to wrap the front beams.

They are pulling the old boards from the beams - I was wondering how they were going to wrap on top of those old boards, especially because some had warped a bit at the tops.

Josie is very concerned about our porch safety violation.

Then it’s back in the house to get the plants freeze drying.

Left to right, front to back: lemon thyme, rose petals (leftover from our criminal activity last week - Montana saved them with a wet paper towel in a container in the fridge, and it really worked!), lavender heads, chamomile/borage/lemon balm, and more rose petals. Quite a haul!

Into the freeze dryer they go!