Wise Old Sage

This is what some other fortunate person's sage patch looks like -mine did look like this, until this summer (which shall be forever known as The-Summer-Of-the Dead-Garden).

However, I am lucky enough to have a friend who has tons of sage, and she was kind enough to cut me a grocery sack full a couple days ago.

For the various projects I had in mind, it needed to be processed while it was fresh.

First step: strip off the leaves and leaf clusters. I had enough for two large potfuls. This lot will be dried, a bit at a time, so that I have sage throughout the winter.

The stripped stems can be planted out in your garden to come up next year. Just lay them down and cover with a bit of dirt. Each segment will produce a new plant, leaf by leaf.

And this is the second pot -it was actually much darker green. This will be a sage rinse for my hair. Sage is great for dark hair, keeps it shiny, gives it body, and used over a period of weeks will cover any elusive gray hairs.

The rinse recipe is simple: strip the sage leaves (1/4 cup to 2 cups of water for a single batch) while bringing a pot of water to a boil. Add the leaves to the boiling water, remove from heat, and let steep until cool (for a pot's worth, this will be overnight). Then pour through a strainer, removing the leaves, and bottle the sage water. Keep it in a cool,dry place, and use once a week as a final rinse left-in rinse on hair.

The discarded leaves can go into the compost bucket or out into the garden.

Meanwhile, the first lot is drying, bit by bit in the oven. You can do this in your regular oven too. Lay the sage out in a thin layer, set on 250 degrees, and let it dry. Note: keep a close eye on your first batch, so you know how long *your* oven will take. According to the manual, this little oven was suppose to dry herbs in 16 hours. It actually only takes 35 minutes. Something probably got lost in the translation.

Make sure you have containers (airtight, clean and dry) ready and waiting. The sage is ready when it's a light gray, and crumbles easily.

This is one batch worth -it took 6 batches to fill the jar. The pot of sage water made 6 bottles of sage rinse, enough to share and still have enough for winter.

Finally, I kept a couple sprigs of sage and just stuck them in a glass of water. They've already started rooting and will make beautiful plants.

Then you can do this all over again next fall.

*For those with lighter fair hair, substitute fresh or dried chamomile flowers to make a rinse.

**To add red highlights to light or dark hair, substitute fresh or dried hibiscus flowers.

UPDATE:

If possible, store your extra sage rinse in the back of the frig until needed. Since there are no chemicals or preservatives in it, after several weeks, mold will form and float on the top. that's just the impurities coming out. Use a q-tip to scoop it out - the liquid rinse underneath is absolutely safe to use.

Also - an idea from my friend The Damsel - put your rinse in a squeezeable plastic bottle (I bought a 97cent ketchup style bottle). That way you can squeeze a small amount on exactly where you need it (like roots maybe), and it goes much further. I love that idea, can't believe I didn't think of it myself!

Forty Square Feet of Mint

I decided to try Damsel's recipe for making peppermint oil.
(http://damselindisdress.wordpress.com/)

In the process I discovered what I thought was peppermint in my garden is actually spearmint. At least I'm think it is.

After googling both, and finding they both basically can be stored and used for the same ailments (including relieving asthma), I decided to use Damsel's recipe with only one change: I used olive oil instead of vegetable oil, only because that's all I had, and it saved me a trip to the evil that is Walmart.

Going on the belief that any harvest should be done in the morning, to get the strongest and freshest produce, I pulled up approximately a 1 foot by 1 foot area of my mint bed. That only leaves me with another 10 foot by 4 foot patch. What will I ever do with only 40 square feet of mint?

This photo is for no other reason than I like it: this is my favorite harvest basket. I picked it up several years ago at some rummage sale, and even though it's seen better days, it's still perfect for cutting long stemmed herbs, and easy to carry even when loaded. (The reader can imagine some bucolic Hudson School painting with earthy, full-figured harvest women balancing baskets full of wheat shafts on their womanly hips, the sunlight falling softly on the fields behind them - at least that's what always pops into my mind.)

See - it's fairly shallow but you'd be amazed at how much holds.

Holds a lot huh?


The basket is sitting on top of a bucket filled with cold water. After the photo, the entire bundle of plants was placed in the water stems down, to keep them fresh until this afternoon when I could work with them.

And you know mint loves water. Not only did it stay fresh, but I think they almost started growing again right there in the bucket.

Just like Damsel instructed, strip the leaves from the stems. I too have an overabundance of mint, and no need to use the stems.

The entire bucket stripped down (watch that phrase get caught up in the search engines) to a pile of leaves about this size.

Chop into smaller pieces, again and again. (Note: the whole chopping event will clear up any symptoms of asthma, as well as clearing out your sinuses really, really well. It may have actually removed my sinuses. Plus the kitchen smells really good. )

Then pack the leaves into these classy little jars (picked up at the-mother-of-all-church-sales a couple weeks ago; read my other blog http://365daysinmoonshinecapitol.blogspot.com/ if that interests you).

Meanwhile I heat some olive oil to approximately 160 degrees (turns out you can use a meat thermometer to test the temp of liquids - who knew?). On my electric burners this means leaving it on the burner for approximately 10 minutes, with the heat set at a bit less than "3". It also turned out this was not enough oil, so I had to heat a little less than the same amount again to top the jars off.

Here's what the mint-and-oil-filled jars look like.

Aren't they pretty?

Apparently I have enough mint to make thousands of jars just like this.

We'll see what they look like after a month in the dark.

Thanks again, Damsel!

When Do Ice Cube Trays and Carpet Go Together?

Anytime you've got a garden....

If you read my 365 Days in the Moonshine Capitol of the World blog, you'll know I scored these room-size pieces of carpeting at my favorite church rummage sale this last weekend.

While I would love to have cream-colored carpet in my livingroom, it's not going to happen (4 dogs and red clay backyard -you do the math), but my garden is another story.

While the blueberry patch (picked the first ones this morning BTW) is mulched with straw, the rest of the garden has red clay, so I scrounge all the used carpet I can find, then cut it into strips, turn it upside down (fluffy carpet side down, stiff backing side up), and lay it down for paths.

It lasts for years, looks neat and tidy, mulches the plants and helps them keep their roots moist, keeps the weeds out, and is either free or very, very inexpensive (each of these large pieces ran me $5). Much less expensive than buying bags of chips or decorative mulch to make paths.

And once you've made the garden paths, your plants grow big and healthy, until its time to....

Harvest your herbs! This year I'll be chopping fresh leaves of basil into small pieces, then dividing them into ice cube trays. Fill each space full of herb, then add water. Freeze.

When the water is completely frozen, pop the cubes out into a large ziploc bag. This winter, whenever you need fresh basil (or any other herb you choose), just take a couple cubes and drop them into your soup or stew.

If you have basil, oregano, marjoram and sage you have all the ingredients for Italian seasoning. You can either freeze a fresh Italian blend in ice-cubes and have them ready to go, or, dry your fresh herbs (in the oven* at temp up to 180, for approx 4-5 hours or until completely dry), and then use this recipe to make your own seasoning:

2 teaspoons dried basil
2 teaspoons dried marjoram
2 teaspoons dried oregano
1 teaspoon dried sage

Combine all ingredients; store in an airtight container.

Use less of this mix than you usually would since home-grown is a lot stronger than the processed stuff in the store.

*Using the microwave for drying is not advised - instead of drying the leaves, it actually cooks them, and the quality and taste are poor.

See - carpets and ice cube trays. What's not to love?