Herbal Harvest at Home

This year I decided to grow more herbs. I just do not have a big enough yard with enough sun to grow tons of vegetables (darn it!) Herbs are so easy to grow. What I started with this year was cooking herbs. I plan to add medicinal herbs next summer. To start I had to focus on what herbs that I like to cook with. Why grow what you will not use. Since this was my first year of growing herbs with the intent to use and store for cooking I had to plan out what herbs to buy. Here is the list I started with.

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  Shiso (Asian Perilla)

German Thyme

Lemon Thyme

Sage

Pineapple Sage

Sweet Basil

Stevia

Greek Oregano

Italian Oregano

Sweet Mint

Ginger Mint

Apple Mint

Chocolate Mint

Peppermint

Spearmint

Mojito Mint

Rosemary

Lemon Balm

Dill

Shiso (Asian Prilla)

Curly Parsley

I will be adding to this next year for sure. The key thing is to prune your herbs often to make them bushier. You should prune in the mornings after the dew, if any is off the plants.

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I saved all kinds of jars to put the herbs in. I prefer mason jars for storing all the food stuff. To start when I started harvesting I would do only what I could fill in the dehydrator. I wash the herbs because there was also fires near by this last summer and I was finding some ash on the plants still. I do not use pesticides on my herbs either.

I laid the herbs out to dry and then I would cut all the leaves off before dehydrating.

I should have taken more pictures of the herbs in the dehydrator. (Next year :)) I do not crush the leaves when I put them in the jars. I crush them at the time of use.

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Depending on how much we use of these herbs will determine how many plants of each I buy next year. I also took cuttings from many of the herbs and I am trying to see if I can winter over some of them for next year. The dill, I let some of it go to seed and saved the seeds. I have a collection of my own seeds that I have started also.

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In addition to growing herbs, I love to propagate plants and collect seeds.

PAINTED PUMPKINS

Here is a quick and easy project. Paint clay flower pots upside down and turn them into cute pumpkins. I sealed the pots first with water sealer. Painted them and then sealed them.

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Pick as many sizes as you want, find interesting places to place them. Great Dollar Store project.

Till next time

Roxanne

Halloween Spider Webs

I don’t know about you but I love holidays, I love Halloween and the fun of finding and creating decorations, costumes and the food! This year I have been short on time to get everything done due to family health issues. It is always difficult getting things done when more than one person can take up all your free time. I am also the caregiver of my mother and that is time consuming. But, I managed to sneak in this project and before I finished one I had an order for a second one. The project is a machine embroidered spider web. This was actually very easy to make.

To make this web it is more authentic with 100% cotton thread but you can do this with any embroidery thread. There is 8 pieces that you must sew together. I used two layers of water soluble stabilizer for each triangle I embroidered. You do not want to do more than one part of the spider web because it will pull away from the hoop and throw off the stitching.

I use one solid piece of stabilizer and then I use pieces of stabilizer to make the second layer.

I found with this project that it was easier to stitch the pieces together with the stabilizer on. Once you stitch all the pieces together, rinse the whole web in warm water. I tried several way to dry this. The first one I dried on a cookie rack. I was not happy with the results. The second one I pinned it to foam core board with a towel on top of it. (do not use a fuzzy towel like I did.) This is a form of blocking. It dries flatter and looks nicer when done this way.

I did not notice I had done this till I was done. I do not like the points. They do not meet. I will re-wet the points and pin them closer together. I like it to the point. Now it will take you better part of the day to embroidery 8 pieces and stitch them together.

The pattern is from Urbanthreads.com

Good luck with your spider web and all the rest of your decorating. I keep adding things all they way till I have to take down the decorations. How about you?

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Have fun, see you next time,

Roxanne