A few years after we planted “Papaws” climbing rose I began collecting a few petals from it. I love the smell of roses, and these had a unique smell to them. For a long time, I just used them as a potpourri. Eventually my curiosity convinced me to look up other uses for rose petals. There were so many, and it was a shame not to use them for something.
The first thing I tried was tea. Several articles I read mentioned that rose petals were high in vitamin C and antioxidants. Beginning by adding them to the tea I already made for my sons we decided to try it. I figured it certainly wouldn’t hurt to add a little vitamin C to their diet. Especially when they were under the weather. The rose petals also added a wonderful flavor to the tea, meaning they were more apt to drink all of it. Often, I now make tea with just rose petals, inhaling the steam. I not only like the taste, but I also love the smell of those roses.
To make tea all you need to do is gather the petals and steep them in boiling water just like you would a tea bag. I dry a lot of the petals and then store them in glass jars for use when the roses aren’t blooming. You can use a tea ball, or you can just use loose petals and strain your tea into another cup. If it is not sweet enough just add a little honey.
Eventually I decided to try infusing rose petals in coconut oil. I am allergic to so many store-bought skincare items that I had begun using plain organic coconut oil on my face. It really helped my skin maintain balance, not too dry but also not too oily. I kept reading that rose petals are good for the skin. I have used this ever since. Last year when my husband was so sick, I let go of self-care much more than I should have to spend all my time caring for him. Although I felt it was necessary at the time, I can really tell the difference from letting myself go. So, I am getting back on track now. The jar to the right is ready to warm and strain.
This is how I make my rose petal oil:
Rose petal infused oil
Choose a carrier oil. I used coconut oil, but you can use olive or almond oil. Crunch rose petals into a jar and cover with oil. Add the lid then swirl just enough to coat the petals without shaking. Warming the oil will help release the scent from the rose petals. I use a coffee cup warmer or set in the sun until warm. Let it sit for 4-6 weeks in a dark cupboard. After it has sat long enough, warm the oil and then strain out all but a few of the petals.
Being fascinated with herbs and their many uses for as long as I can remember, I have grown and used many of them in cooking since I was a teenager. A friend introduced me to Mother Earth News when I was 15 or 16. After reading about organic gardening, I became especially interested in various herbs and their uses. I continued to read and do research over the years and began to make teas from many of them. Eventually I added wild herbs and flowers to my collection.
My first tea was peppermint. It settled a belly ache and our doctor said it was safe for my first baby Charles, who was colicky for quite some time. He was eventually found to be lactose intolerant. Charles will be 26 as of July and still drinks my mint tea. He joined the Navy when he was 18. Last time he was deployed I asked what he would like me to send him. The only thing he wanted was my mint tea and chocolate mint which I also started making during his childhood years.
From the time my youngest son, Chris was a baby he would not swallow pills and would spit out any liquid medicine I gave him. He would, however, drink mint tea. My grandmother used dandelions and was pretty much never sick, so I did research on them. Apparently, it has antibiotic properties. So, I began adding it to my mint tea whenever he was sick. He could have the worst flu ever and would only be sick enough to stay down for one day. He has drunk that tea every time he gets sick for 22 years now. Evan as an adult Chris will come in and say “Mom I am so sick; would you make me some of that tea?
As a child we lived out in the country for short periods of time. My dad would take us on walks or bicycle rides on Sunday afternoons. We often picked berries along the way, to take home and eat the next morning for breakfast. At some point he showed how to pull out the petals of a red clover flower and suck the liquid out of them. It was sweet and we began doing that anytime we saw red cover. This memory gave me an idea and I tried adding it to the mint tea. The tea was not sweet enough for my youngest and I really try to avoid sugar when possible. Red clover was a hit! Both boys loved it. Thus began my journey into foraging.
Now that cold weather has settled in and outside gardening is done, I am starting on gardening inside. I grow herbs as well as vegetable, fruits and flowers. Mint is my most prolific herb. The largest crop is peppermint, but I also have chocolate mint. The chocolate mint is my nephews favorite as well as a friends grand daughter. I generally dry quite a bit of both to use in winter for tea. My sons always loved the taste and it seemed to settle their stomachs during flu season. This year I am also using mint in my windowsill garden, just because I like to use fresh mint occasionally in a drink or as a garnish.
Peppermint starts with one Chocolate mint start.
I also love to grow creeping rosemary and use it in cooking. It is a great ground cover in between other herbs, except it dies off every winter. I usually dry what is left when it dies out, this year I have decided to try transplanting it for indoors, adding it to another windowsill garden. I have not tried growing it inside before, but if it does not live long I can still dry it and add it to my herb bottles.
Creeping Rosemary with a little Peppermint plant on the side,
Today I managed to transplant several starts in between other things that needed done. I will do a few more over the next week or two. I have a box full of tea or coffee cups that my yongest son and I picked up at secondhand bargain shop a few years ago. I plant starts in them every year. Sometimes I give them as gifts to beginning gardeners. Maybe the peppermint will be Christmas presents this year. It does seem to be the flavor for the season.
Walking onions are another herb I have never tried indoors, so that might be another one of my next experiments. The stems are much like chives and can be used in place of chives until they begin sprouting little onion bulbs on top. They then fall over and plant themselves for the following year. I do have enough to try one inside so I can eat it on a baked potato now and then.
Do any of you have a favorite herb that you grow or might like to start growing? If so please mention it in the comments.
I am determined to find a way to keep on doing what I do no matter how old, or what obsticles I have to overcome.
At the end of the year it is time time to prepare the garden for winter. The last couple days I have gone out in between the rain and storms and cooler weather, to prepare my raised beds for winter. First thing is to clear out the dying vines, plants and weeds. Then I swept up leaves off the pavers and threw them on top of the dirt. As you can see in the picture below, the dirt is dark and rich great for growing anything. I will continue sweeping up the leaves and piling them up thick enough to completley cover all of the dirt. By next spring the leaves will have decomposed to the point of looking pretty much like the soil under them. We will add compost from the bottom door of our bin and the soil will be ready to start all over again.
I leave the tomato cages in the raised beds all winter to keep our dog from digging in them. She seems to think they are a great place to bury her toys. She watches me and tries to help when I plant in the spring and then watches how everything grows, so maybe she is trying to grow some new toys. You never know with that silly thing.
I had a visiter over the summer who told me I should write about how I do everything for my gardens. She grew up helping out on a farm so I thought she probably new all about gardening. So yes they had an acre garden and farm equipment and several people doing the work, so nothing like I am doing. She said she was fascinated with some of the ways I did things. She also said that she bet a lot of people would love to know the little things I do to care for my gardens and how I use what I grow. So I am sharing what I do and you can try some of the different things I do if you want, or you can share some of your tips with me for next years gardens. Just write them in the comments below.
I love to try new things and there is always more to learn. I started hearing about and reading anything I could find on organic gardening when I was 21. I had my first home that spring and so I got to have my first garden on my own. I did Circle Style organic garden and had so much food from a very small area.
The woman who lived behind me had a huge garden all in rows like you would typically see back then and she thought I was crazy. Kept telling me that she had been gardening all her life and her way was the best way. So me being me as always, being the different one in th bunch, (my sixth grade teacher told me that I was unique and I should embrace that) I ignored her and did it my way. So using a method I had read about in an old Mother Earth Magazine my first sister-in-law had given me a few years earlier, I made my circle garden.
First I used a tomato cage in the center, like the one in the picture. The cage was for compost and we threw all of our food scraps, as well as adding raked up grass and leaves all summer long. I then planted tomatoes all the way around the outside so they could climb up the cage and much closer than a normal garden. I then used three long branches and tied them together at the top. Then pushed the bottom of each branch into the ground teepee style around the cage. At the bottom of the branches I planted viny things like green beans.
Outside of the cage area I divided the circle into four sections and planted something different in each section. I had cucumbers, radishes, carrots, and all the things you normally see in a garden, but in much less space. Every time it rained, it washed the nutrients from the compost in the center down into the ground all around it and fed my little garden. I had an abundance of vegetables and canned tomatoes by myself for the first time.
My neighbor came to the fence one day to brag about all the tomatoes she had canned from her huge garden and I politely told her that I had canned slightly more from my tiny garden, which by the way was still producing more. She never had anything to say to me after that. The reason I am writing about my neighbor is not to make myself out to be so great. It is to show that you can always learn more and continue growing as you get older if you are willing. I still research and try new things all these years later.
So about seven years ago I finally decided to try the raised beds. I started having problems with my knees and legs, not being able to bend and stoop as I had always done. Long story short, it took several years to get diagnosed and spiralling downhill with my mobility I thought it would be a good idea to go with raised beds so I could continue gardening until the day I can no longer move.
That year the boys helped me put down the first row of cinder blocks and each year we added a little more until they were three blocks high. Now I can tend to them without stooping. Two years ago I was falling a lot and having to use a walker, so my husband put down pavers so I could use the walker and still do my gardening. Since then working with my doctor and a rhuematologist, I am finally able to get around with just my cane handy in case I lose my balance. I am determined to find a way to keep on doing what I do no matter how old, or what obsticles I have to overcome.
We are just having an extended growing season with beautiful weather.
Today when I went outside it was with the intention of clearing out my vegetable garden beds. I usually do that this time of year, but they were not ready for it this time. The bell peppers are still growing as shown in the first picture top left. The next picture shows that these pepper plants are still getting blooms. I had picked every pepper on them when we had our frost warning. Now besides this pepper that is about ready to pick there are several babies of various sizes on these plants.
Next, I checked on the tomatoes and, as you can see, there are more tomatoes since I picked them last. The one in the picture is the largest that I could see, but there were several of them. We are just having an extended growing season with beautiful weather. Same thing with my red lettuce. I left just one to go to seed for next year. Today it finally bloomed, which means it will go to seed soon. Usually I would have had my seeds and cleared this bed.
Last but not least, my peppermint garden. I started pulling up all the old stems a couple weeks ago, finishing the end of last week. I have Irises growing in the back, which bloom before the mint gets very tall in the spring. The blooms are lavender and have beautiful large blooms. One of my cousins donated them when we first moved here. They have spread all down the side of the house and I have thinned and shared bulbs with several people since then. This time of year, after the mint is thinned out, new growth starts and is perfect for harvesting and drying for tea in the winter. Since I don’t have to clear my garden beds yet, I may start on that this week.
We got a frost warning for tonight or tomorrow so today I went out and picked the last of the tomatoes and bell peppers. That is all we had left this this week. No sign of the pests we sprayed, so if it decides not to frost, we may get a few more. The red lettuce is almost gone to seed so hopefully a few more days and I will be able to collect the seeds for next year. After bringing everything in, it was time to start working on using more of our fresh veggies.
Cole slaw, sweet and sour style was as far as I got. If you ever need to chop cabbage for anything this handy little chopper is the best. I had never seen or used one until I met my mother-in-law. She made and canned or froze everything you can imagine. I don’t use her recipe because my family likes this one better, but her methods worked better than any I had tried. I learned a lot from her.
For sweet and sour Cole slaw I just use cabbage and carrots. Some people like to add other veggies like radishes, so if you like other veggies add them and shred everything. For a large bowl like this one cabbage and two large carrots. After shredding add 3/4 cup of sugar (I use organic) and one cup of white vinegar. Let it sit over night. For my dad this was it, the way he liked it. Most of the rest of my family add a couple large tablespoons of Miracle whip. As are almost all of my recipes, this is adaptable to your taste. Add more veggies or use red cabbage more or less sugar and the same with Miracle whip or Mayonnaise if you like that better. I am big on adjusting recipes to suit my family’s taste, so try different ways until you find your favorite combination.
The weather was beautiful today and perfect for spending some time outside. I sprayed the tomato and pepper plants again, with the water and dish soap mix. Still some aphids but not near as many, so I will continue spraying them daily until the end of the growing season. We both spent some time cleaning up the yard a little and enjoying our dogs.
Chief enjoys watching us work
Still trimming out dying and damaged leaves each time I go outside. I think I will plan on have the soap spray ready soon after planting next year. Never had pests hit as early in the summer before, but the hottest weather that brings them out never hit this early since I can remember. I could be wrong, as I do not remember as well as I used to but at least not in recent years. I lost a lot of my greens because of that. Better to be prepared and not have a repeat, than to lose them again.
Man’s best friend helping Charles
Cai tried to help Charles away some of the branches that have grown up between our fence and the neighbors. She follows him everywhere trying to copy what ever he is doing. She was even sticking her nose into the fence area to show him where to work next. Silly thing loves to help us garden and do yard work as long as we do not use the mower or weed eater. If we start them up, she will attack the wheels on the mower and the base of the weed eater, so I leave that for a time when she is inside with Charles.
We plant Tomatoes, among other things, in our raised beds every year. The weather varies from year to year, so we plant early crops and late crops a few weeks apart to be sure we get tomatoes all season long. The pests that hit us vary from year to year also somewhat dependent on the weather. Most years we get the hottest driest weather in early to mid-August. That is when we get a pest that hits our kale and greens the most. This year that came early so out greens got hit early. That was before I decided to start my blog, so I did not get pictures.
This week our tomato plants got hit with aphids. Most of our neighbors already harvested their tomatoes and are done for the season, but we still have quite a few left, so we are doing what we do to try and get rid of or at least control them until first frost. First let me show you what they look like and what they do to your plants. The following photos show first actual size plant that is infested. Then you will see the close-up photos to help you identify if you have the same pests.
We had a couple days of cool and rainy weather, so we were working on other things and did not spend as much time in the garden as usual. That is all the time it took for the aphids to show up. Our first clue was leaves turning brown as they might in hot dry weather, but our hot spell had ended at least for a week so that was not likely. That is when we inspected the plants more closely and found the aphids. Time to take action. As we have continued to grow organically so as not to harm helpful insects, birds, rabbits and any other wildlife, we have found safer methods to control pests.
We have a large sprayer that we are using it to spray them. So, I added about three tablespoons of dish soap that is safe to plants, to the full container of water. During the shadiest time of day yesterday I went out and sprayed all our plants, including the bell peppers. They were not hit by the aphids yet but are prone to be, so I do not want the aphids to just move from the tomatoes to the peppers. A couple hours later I went out and started removing a few of the dead leaves and stems. It was getting dark, so I did not get them all.
Today I went back out to check on the tomatoes. Still have aphids but not near as many as yesterday. I removed several more leaves and stems and sprayed again. It is cloudy today so I will do this several times throughout the day. So far, I have been out to spray three times to spray and continue to remove more of the damaged leaves. There are still several tomatoes and blooms, so it is worth the effort to save them. Each time I go out I see fewer aphids. The soap works differently than harsh chemicals that would kill on contact. As I understand it, they eat the soap and it dries them out. So, it takes a little longer, but it is safe on the plants and the fruit which will be ripening soon.
Last but not least, my handy little garden helper. Yes the blue bucket that I put weeds in to carry to the compost (not the dead and dying tomato leaves that would infest my compost) is a handy thing, but I am talking about the spider pest control helper. He lives in the back corner above our plants. I also have several Praying Mantis in this garden, but they would not come out for a picture today.
