SWEET SURRENDER

Our garden beds

I love the beets!  They are so beautiful.

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Here is our latest bed, a key hole bed.  We double dug it a couple of weeks ago and Steve, of course, built the frame.  You can't tell from this photo, but it is actually at an angle in our yard, to capture the most sunlight.  We have mostly shade in our yard, so we are capturing every sunny area we can!

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How to make Yarrow Oil

Yarrow is a volunteer herb growing in my yard.  It has many medicinal benefits, so we scooped up some of the volunteers and planted them purposefully in our small herb and flower bed.  When taken internally, it's good for menstrual cramps, it's a digestive aid, it can help lower fevers.  Externally, it is good for cuts, scrapes, and burns.  A woman at my farmer's market was selling yarrow sticks and after buying one from her, I found out that it made an excellent lip balm as well.  It was the only thing that was working for my dry lips actually.  And since I have quite a bit of experience making herbal oils, salves, tinctures, etc. and I knew yarrow grew in my yard, I thought to myself, I should make that. 

So first off, in case you have never seen yarrow, here is my attempt to show you what it looks like.  In the first picture, the flowers are a blur, I know, but at least on my computer, you are able to make out the leaves.

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To make the oil, you have to wait until the flowers are in bloom like the ones above.  For the oil, you use the flower blooms, the leaves, and the stems.  I just read on one site about yarrow that after the early summer blooms are gone, you can cut down the plant for a fall bloom as well.  I am just making a small amount here because I know it will be plenty for my needs.

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After gathering the herb, you need to macerate the herb- crush it, so that it is able to release its medicinal properties in the oil.  The stem is pretty fibrous.  I personally haven't tried using a mortar and pestle for this which would definitely be a nicer way to go about making the oil.  I am not sure how the stems would do though.  I think with the mortar and pestle I may only try the leaves and blooms.  I just load the herb into a food chopper and grind it down and then place the final product into a glass mason jar.

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 You then want to cover the herbs with oil, covering them by an inch or two.  I am using organic extra virgin olive oil, but nothing fancy- just a store brand.

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And then to compensate for using a food chopper, I use the sun's energy to extract the properties of the fresh yarrow into the oil.  It sits in the sun for 2-3 weeks and I shake it every day, sometimes twice.  Alternately, you could pour oil over the macerated herb in a shallow baking pan and bake on a very low (like 200 degrees) temperature for a few hours.

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I hope to make a post in the next couple of weeks about the actual making of the yarrow sticks, so stay tuned!

Adventure with the buckwheat sprouts

It was fun trying my hand at sprouting buckwheat.  Here is what I have learned from the experience so far. 

First, I sprouted the buckwheat (that has not been removed from the hull) until its tail was as long as the grain itself.  Then I filled a seed tray (which I cleaned really well first) with a soil mix of peat moss, vermiculite and leaf mold- something Steve had mixed up to start our garden seeds in.  I laid a pretty thick layer of the buckwheat sprouts over the tray.  I think a thinner layer would have been fine,  but I only had one tray prepared and many sprouts and the sprout people said that in their experience that it was fine to layer thick, so I did. 

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I covered the whole tray with a dark plastic bag that I poked air holes into.  The next day, I noticed some white "fuzz" all over and I had a little freak out (i.e. I called Steve at work asking his opinion) thinking it that it may have been too moist because I had watered everything and then put plastic on.  So, I took the plastic off and let the tray air out a little.  All the white fuzz turned out to be little root hairs that were growing, so that was a relief. 

I sprayed the sprouts a few times a day, but never had to water the soil again as it retained enough moisture.  They grew quickly.  My book said they were ready when the first two leaves were unfurling and had poked off the hull in the process.  It said that if there are several at this stage then it is good to harvest because young sprouts are more tender than older ones.  To harvest them, you just use a knife and sort of "saw" off sections. 

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As you can see they got rather tall and a lot of the sprouts have pushed off their hull (the dark brown thing on some of the tips).  So, I went ahead and harvested them.  They were sweet and watery and crunchy- kind of like a bean sprout, but with a milder flavor.  I realized after harvesting though that not many of the leaves were unfurled and maybe I should have waited for another day to harvest.  Also, it was quite labor intensive to rinse off all the hulls that have a tough fibrous texture.  (I used the directions on the sprout people website.)  I thought that maybe if I had waited longer, that there would be less hulls to rinse off.  However, since I had planted so many seeds in the first place, once I sawed off the first layer, there was a whole other layer waiting to grow up, so I continued to spray and watch them grow.  This time I let them go a little longer.

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I think this might be a more accurate stage to harvest them at, but I wonder if they should be more green.  My book said to keep them out of direct light, but they were really reaching for the sun, so maybe I need to put them in more light than I did. It is still a bit of a pain to rinse off the hulls.  I spend a good 15 minutes at it.   I made a balsamic vinaigrette that we dressed them with and they were quite tasty and fresh alongside our dinner.  I think they are a very nice thing to keep on hand for the winter. 

I definitely want to keep experimenting and maybe do some more research on harvesting.  The whole family enjoyed them a lot. 

   

Lavender wands and Yarrow Oil

Here is a little bit of what I have been up to over the summer.   

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Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Share Photos - Free Video HostingThe lavender wands were something that I had been wanting to try for several years now.  Our lavender that we planted a few years ago was finally big enough to yield to a project like this and so I just had to try it!  I started small and only tried two just to get a knack for it.  It is best to start when the lavender stem has only one to two flowers open on it.  The first two rows are the trickiest to weave, but after that it is pretty smooth sailing.  I did find that you can't let them sit too long before finishing them up because they get brittle.  I learned the hard way and a couple of the stems broke on me as I was weaving.  Aimee (who was up for a visit at the time) suggested that maybe if they were stored in a plastic bag they would have retained some of their moisture.  Next year I would like to make many more since they are fun, pretty, and I think they would make nice gifts.  The story I tell myself is that when I am not traveling out of town every week, I may have a bit more energy to do more.  We'll see how accurate that is next summer! 
Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Share Photos - Free Video HostingI am sorry that I didn't take more pictures of the process of making yarrow oil.  This is the second time I have done it and it is marvelous stuff.  Basically I grab a ton of flowers (when in bloom), leaves, and stems.  I then macerate them and put them in a big jar and cover them in a blend of vegetable and olive oil.  I like to put the jar out in the sun and let its energy and heat draw the properties from the herb into the oil.  After a few weeks, I strain the oil and this fall or winter I will mix the oil with bees wax and pour it into chap stick tubes.  It is the most awesome remedy for dry, chapped winter lips!  My brother in law, Jon, loves the stuff!  I have hooked him up with many tubes.  We love to give it away to friends and family.