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How to Make Herbal Vinegar

June 22, 2017 by Jeanne Leave a Comment

It’s easy to make herbal vinegar and the results are delicious!

Make Herbal Vinegar

Have you ever seen fancy bottles of vinegar and oil at home stores? They’re usually colorful bottles filled with herbs and liquid. Many people give them as gifts and housewarming presents.

If you’ve ever tasted fresh herbal vinegar (and oil), you’ll know that nothing compares to the taste of homemade. Fresh herbs, apple cider vinegar, and clean glass bottles or jars are all you need to make herbal vinegar.

I made oregano vinegar using this recipe and it came out delicious. The next batch of herbal vinegar is shown here. I’ve dubbed it Italian dressing because the herbs flavoring the batch include oregano, basil, and thyme.

To make fresh herbal vinegar, you’ll need:

A clean glass jar with lid. The lid should be plastic. If using a metal lid, such as the screw band lid and cap on a canning jar, you’ll also need a piece of plastic or wax paper to protect the metal. Vinegar will corrode metal.
Fresh, clean herbs to fill the jar. Pick them from your garden and rinse them off to ensure they are clean before using them. You will need enough herbs to pack into the jar so estimate accordingly.
Apple cider vinegar to fill your jar.
Cheesecloth or a strainer for the final pass.

Snip the fresh herbs early in the day and rinse them carefully under the tap to ensure that any insects or dirt are removed before using the herbs. Pack fresh herbs loosely into the clean glass jar. Fill the jar with apple cider vinegar. Place the plastic lid or wax paper and final jar lid on and close the jar. Label and date the jar.

Place the vinegar and herb mixture in a cool, dark place. It must sit for one month or more to fully absorb the flavors of the herbs. Once a day, gently shake or swish the mixture.

When the month (or more) has passed, strain the herbs out using the cheesecloth or strainer. Reserve the flavored liquid. That’s your herbal vinegar! Pour into a decorative container, salad bottle, or another clean, glass container with a lid and enjoy.

I went to a demonstration back in May at the Evergreen Lavender Farm where Cathy, a local herbalist, used this method to make herbal vinegar. She had sage, rosemary and a few other types of vinegar already made. They were both beautiful and tasty.

Let me know how your flavored vinegar turns out when you make herbal vinegar!

Harvesting and Storing Fresh Green Peas

June 15, 2017 by Jeanne 1 Comment

Harvest and storing green peas is the big “to do” task in the kitchen in June. It’s almost the Summer Solstice and the peas are coming in thick and fast. The new Vine Spine Linking Trellis system that I have been testing worked great for my sweet green peas. I am now harvesting between one to two quarts per day.

With so many fresh green peas coming in from the garden at once, I need a way to store them for off-season use. Luckily, peas as easy to blanch and freeze.

How to Blanch and Freeze Green Peas

What is blanching? It’s a way to halt the enzymes within the living tissues of the plant, or at least to slow them down significantly so that the food doesn’t spoil in the freezer. It cannot be used to store food outside of a freezer but it does prepare it properly for long-term freezer storage.

To blanch and freeze green peas:

Shell the green peas. Compost the shells and save the sweet peas.
Prepare a large bowl of ice water.
Boil a second pot of water.
Pour the peas carefully into the boiling water.
After the peas have been in the boiling water for 1 minute, 30 seconds, remove them from the heat.
Pour through a colander to drain the boiling water away. (Be careful! It’s hot!)
Pour peas into the ice bath.
Allow them to cool completely.
Drain peas from the ice bath in the colander.
Carefully pour the blanched peas into freezer safe bags. Label, press out as much air as you can, seal and store in the freezer.

I measure out one cup portions of green peas into each quart-sized freezer bag. This provides exactly one meal’s worth for my husband and myself and makes each bag easier to store. I press the air out so that the bag stores flat, and I layer the bags in our storage freezer in the basement.

Fresh green peas are one of my favorite vegetables. I am so thankful that I have enough room to grow them now. The vines are almost finished and mildew has set in, but I am still picking peas every morning faithfully. And when the peas are done, the beans will go into the raised garden bed. It’s a cycle of growth, harvest, and growth once again that I have come to cherish.

Happy gardening. Keep growing!

Recipes for Green Peas

Common Garden Pests

June 7, 2017 by Jeanne Leave a Comment

This spring, we’ve seen an abundance of common garden pests ranging from the big (deer) to the small (potato beetles).

Every garden is subject to some sort of pest. I don’t care how big or how small your garden, something else wants those vegetables, fruits, and herbs as much as you want them!

In our case, we have deer who try to pull peaches and apples from the orchard trees, potato beetles ruining the potatoes and then moving on to the tomatoes, and crows feasting on berries and tomatoes.

Deer in the fruit tree orchard June 2017.

Strawberries almost ready for the crows – and the people.

Last year’s tomato crop, ruined by crows.

“My name is Jeanne. You killed my potatoes. Prepare to die.” – Potato beetles.

What’s an organic gardener to do?

The standard treatment for insects is a pesticide with a long list of safety precautions and an even longer list of warnings. Between the people, the cats, and the wildlife, I’m afraid to use them.

The standard response to deer or crows (at least around here) is to reach for a shotgun. I don’t want to kill the wildlife, just encourage it to go elsewhere.

What to do about common garden pests?

Barriers Keep Pests Away and Out of the Garden

Many common garden pests include deer, rodents, rabbits, and crows or other birds can be kept out of the garden by using barriers. Barries include wire cages, such as the one in the picture above with the deer in my fruit tree orchard. The cages around the young trees keep deer from eating lower limbs. Fruit on the higher limbs isn’t available to the deer, so we may lose some from the lower limbs and nothing more. It’s a trade-off I am willing to take.

Cages keep the deer away from the lower portion of the apple tree’s trunk and branches.

My raised bed vegetable garden is fenced completely with wire. The fence is 4 feet high but can be expanded to 8 feet if deer become a problem.

You can also keep insects off of plants by using floating row covers or a special garden fabric that allows light and water through but keeps bugs out. I do not use it – yet. I am seriously thinking about adding it to the garden.

I use bird netting over my strawberry bed to keep all types of birds, but especially crows, out of the garden. It’s an inexpensive net that I place over a wire frame to make it easy to reach the berries (for me) but hard for the birds to grab them.

Removing Insects by Hand

Colorado potato beetles are one of the easier insects to remove by hand. I know that sounds gross, and many of you are cringing at the thought, but you get used to it quickly.

To remove Colorado potato beetles, their larvae and pupa, fill a clean, empty glass or plastic jar with a lid 1/4 full of warm water with 1 teaspoon or so of liquid dish soap. Put on a pair of plastic gloves. Simply pick off the bugs with your fingers and drop them into the water. I’ll also place the open mouth of the jar under a leaf and gently tap the leaf to tumble a bug into the water. The soap coats their wings and they can’t fly out, so adults are trapped. Larva and pupa drown by themselves.

You have to repeat this process several days in a row with potato beetles and then every other day to catch them all. They’re wily little creatures and hide under leaves, fall into the soil, and miss being killed. That’s okay. I understand. But it’s me versus them when it comes to my potatoes and tomatoes, and I’m not willing to give them everything. They can have a little, but not a lot. So it’s off to a watery grave for them.

Creatures that Are NOT Pests!!!

One thing I want to add is that not every creature in your garden is a pest!

MOLES dig tunnels which can be a danger if you’re walking across the lawn and twist an ankle. But they DO NOT – repeat, DO NOT – eat plant roots. They dig for grubs, earthworms, and bugs in the soil.

SNAKES are generally good for your garden! Many species of snakes eat insects as well as rodents. We have a corn snake, nicknamed “Merlin” for his ability to disappear quickly underneath the garden shed, living in our garden. Black rat snakes, corn snakes, garter snakes and other harmless species are good for the garden so don’t kill them. Just let them be!

Beautiful Merlin, the corn snake who patrons our shed and keeps it pest-free.

SPIDERS, except for the brown recluse and black widow, are harmless, too. Big fat garden spiders help keep your garden free from harmful bugs and eat plenty of insects. They’re a gardener’s best friend!

Garden orb weaver spider. Big, ugly, but harmless – and a friend to your garden.

BATS are also insect eaters and will eat hundreds, if not thousands, of mosquitoes and other insects in a night.

Nature will use its checks and balances to keep pests in line. If you’re concerned about organic gardening practice, learn how to use barriers like floating row covers, fencing, and the like to keep birds, bigs and creatures out of the garden.