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Mint – The Essential Summer Herb in the Garden

August 25, 2020 By Rachel Leave a Comment

Mint is one of my most used summer herbs.

Summer might be on the way out but mint and lots of other herbs are still growing reasonably well in my garden.

MintNot that I don’t use it all year round but the fresh and sharp flavour makes it ideal to serve with drinks, cocktails, salads, fruit, desserts and teas. I really couldn’t imagine not having mint in the garden. For me it’s such an essential herb and I thought I’d share a few pics of how I’ve been using the various mints this year.

Growing Mint

Mint

Spearmint and Pineapple Mint

There are many different types of mint that will work well with food of course not forgetting the medicinal uses. I like to have a few varieties growing, all in pots and containers in my herb garden for easy access. As you can see above there’s lots of Spearmint, better known as garden or common mint and pineapple mint .

When we moved into our west of Scotland house 29 years ago parts of the garden were awash with garden mint and it took years to bring it under control and clear it from the beds. These days I grow in containers to restrain the plant as it’s such an invader in the garden. However, I must admit that if I had a suitable area I would grow Mint in the ground as in my experience the plants grow much stronger and last longer than in containers. And, for a great mint harvest every year, I find the bigger the container the bigger and better the harvest. When I’ve planted in smaller containers the vigorous growth means the plants have quickly become pot bound with the quality of the growth and leaves less healthy.

The other varieties I’m growing include, Moroccan mint, lavender mint, Indian mint, ginger mint, berries and cream mint, lime mint and chocolate mint.

Chocolate mint is excellent for using in baking or desserts, especially chocolate mousse. It’s easy to identify with unmistakeable subtle chocolate aroma and the brownish tinge running through the leaves. When I’m working around the garden I often chew on a few leaves for a wee chocolate hit.

Chocolate Mint

Garden mint and Moroccan mint are my 2 favourites for tea and are indispensable for many gut issues. A cup of mint tea after a meal is a great digestive aid and can also help ease upset stomachs and wind.

Mint

Mint makes a lovely addition to summer drinks and cocktails and I like to use lime mint in gin. The leaves can also be individually frozen in ice cubes for adding directly to drinks.

Lime Mint

A handful of herbs lift the flavour of a salad and mint adds a fresh and tasty zing.  I like to use it in salads with fruit and cheese, especially Halloumi and feta.

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Mint

This Berries and Cream mint is a new addition to my collection and as you would expect with a name like that this one is ideal for pairing with ice cream and other desserts or cakes.

Mint

Specialist herb nurseries are usually my first stop for new plants but mint is easy to propagate from runners or cuttings. And, it’s the cheapest way to get new plants. I found most small herb plants costing around £3 – £4 this year. Some of my younger new plants are now past their best in terms of growth for this year and I’ve started to prune some back. Most are sending out runners but the best time for rooting these or taking cuttings is in spring as new rhizomes and growth appears. Check out You tube for examples of how to do this.

Mint

Mint usually dies back around October and sadly this year with lockdown and the demands of family life, I just wasn’t organised enough to dry the best of the new growth in spring and early summer but I’m hoping to dry some bunches of leaves before the good weather leaves for another year.  It’s very easy to dry and I usually either hang the bunch to dry or use a dehydrator.

Fingers crossed for a few more sunny days.

Filed Under: Gardening, Gardening, Gardening, Lifestyle, Seasonal Tagged With: Herbs

In The Herb Garden – The Calendula Project

August 9, 2020 By Rachel Leave a Comment

The Calendula Project as its been called, is a wee lockdown hobby I’ve been enjoying in my herb garden. It’s a flower I’ve always grown in the garden as it’s such a good companion plant for the herbs, salads and vegetables I grow. Calendula Officinalis is also an invaluable herb in its own right.

The Calendula ProjectCalendula is renowned for excellent skin care properties and these include being anti inflammatory, anti fungal and anti bacterial. There are many good calendula oil and cream products available commercially and for me it’s an essential part of skin care and a staple for skin first aid.  Complementary therapies have played a huge part in our family life and in the 80s and 90s when I was at home with my boys, I trained in Aromatherapy. Using essential oils, carrier oils and herbs sits perfectly with my ‘look after your health rather than your illness’ and ‘let food be thy medicine’ approach to life. And, it feels good to be actually producing my own therapeutic oil.

Calendula

Calendula

Apart from the therapeutic qualities, Calendula or Calendula Officinalis to use the botanical name, makes a welcome and colourful addition to summer food when the flowers are in plentiful supply and I regularly add to salads.  The tangy flavour of the petals makes a good substitute for saffron in paella, bringing the bright yellow colour to the rice. The petals make a good food dye for colouring foods such as dairy produce, omelettes and use the fresh flowers to decorate celebration cakes.

I’m drying the flower heads and macerating in almond oil to make calendula oil. Maceration if you’re not familiar with it, involves steeping the petals in oil and leaving on a sunny windowsill for a few weeks until the volatile oil from the calendula is extracted.  The finished oil will contain the healing and therapeutic qualities of Calendula. The infused oil can be used as a skin care product or mixed with other ingredients to make a range of skin products such as creams, salves and lip balms.

This is the first time I’ve dried calendula and although it’s not rocket science, admittedly it’s been a bit of a learning curve. I started off using an electric dehydrator and despite the machine running for an incredibly long time it didn’t dry the flowers well enough. A more efficient way has been to spread the flowers out on the dehydrator trays to dry naturally.

The Calendula Project

The pop up hanging drier I bought looked much smaller in the picture and in the bag when it arrived. However, when it popped up I discovered each section is almost the size of a tv satellite dish. Just so impractical for using in the house. It’s now hanging in my shed and doing a great job of drying the flower heads.

The Calendula Project

Theres been no shortage of flowers for picking and it’s true that the more you pick the more flowers the plants will produce. The flowers are best picked in the morning and before midday as the hot sun will evaporate the plants volatile oils. This is much the same for any edible flowers and herbs as you really want to get the very best qualities, when using therapeutically or in food.

The Calendula Project

The Calendula Project

The first jar of petals is currently macerating in sweet almond oil and It will take 2-4 weeks for the oil to be ready. The next stage will be strain the the oil to remove the flowers for bottling. This jar will yield around 1 pint and should keep for a a year.

The Calendula Project

For the next jar of oil, the plan is to macerate the whole flower head as a comparison. I planted around 40 organic calendula plants and I’m finding that there’s no shortage of flowers for drying. With this quantity I can also leave plenty growing on for the bees and other pollinators that frequent the garden.The jar is filling up nicely with the dried heads and hopefully in a day or 2 there will be enough to add the oil for macerating.

The Calendula Project

Check in with me in a few weeks time to find out how I got on with my first jar.

Filed Under: Gardening, Gardening, Gardening, Lifestyle

Springtime in the Garden

April 17, 2019 By Rachel Leave a Comment

Springtime in the garden is a time of wonder, and that usually means wondering what has survived the winter and despite labelling a bit of head scratching as we try to remember where the various perennials every year

Springtime in the Wee Pinch of Sugar garden

It’s now less of a puzzle as I started photographing the garden to help keep an ongoing diary of the progress we’re making.  Although we’ve had this garden for over 30 years, its only since the boys left home that were starting to develop some of the ideas we’ve had since moving here. Its fair to say and I’m sure many gardeners with well established garden will agree, its always work in progress.

The garden is south facing and benefits from the shade of several mature trees. It’s set over three quarters of an acre and there’s a small stream runs through between the bottom of the garden and the house.

Springtime in the Wee Pinch of Sugar Garden

There’s also a separate vegetable garden where I grown soft fruit, herbs, edible flowers and some vegetables. We didn’t grown any vegetables over the winter and the reasonable spring weather has allowed to us to tidy up and get the beds ready for this years plants.

Looking back at the colourful images from last spring and summer gives me a great deal of satisfaction, but winter has been and once again the spades, forks and loppers are to hand as there’s much work to be done if we are create the same attractive pictures in the coming months.

Here’s a snap shot of the vegetable garden from last year.

The raised beds divide the garden into manageable chunks and over the years have provided a healthy load of vegetables for us. Sadly we lost the greenhouse to a winter storm and we’ve never replaced. I’m hoping this year will be as fruitful and I’ve already made a good start on that by planting cauliflowers and kale in one bed and some new herbs into the herbs into another.

Springtime in the Wee Pinch of Sugar Garden

I used to grow courgettes in the greenhouse but I find the plants prefer being outside and produce more flowers and veg.

Springtime in the Wee Pinch of Sugar garden

Edible flowers bring great colour in the summer and last year I grew lots of nasturtiums, borage and calendula. These were great to use in salads and I also used some to decorate a few celebration cakes including my son and daughter in law’s wedding cake.

Springtime in the Wee Pinch of Sugar garden

 Calendula

It’s a constant struggle keeping on top of the weeds on the paths as I don’t use weed killer. Over the next few weeks we’ll be tackling these by laying weed suppressant fabric and new gravel.

Springtime in the Wee Pinch of Sugar garden

Every kitchen garden needs a collection of herbs and I grow as many possible including my favourites, Rosemary, a variety of thymes  and sages, several different mints, parsley and fennel. Alongside the rhubarb there’s a healthy crop of sweet cicely and both of those will be put to good use this weekend.

Springtime in the Wee Pinch of Sugar garden

                                                     Sage

Springtime n the Wee Pinch of Sugar garden

Chocolate Mint

This will hopefully be the first in a series of posts about the progress we make this year. Thanks for reading and pop by soon to see how the garden is changing as the weather warms up and we move further into spring.

 

There are so many great garden blogs to read and I’m linking this post to Down By the Sea blog where you can see some other fantastic gardens.

Filed Under: Gardening

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