How to Dry Herbs

Do you grow lavender, thyme, mint, oregano, marjoram, tarragon, basil...or any other herb in your garden? Drying herbs is so easy and you can enjoy those flavorful or fragrant herbs year round by drying them at their peak flavor and scent.

This is thyme. Can you tell which is the store bought thyme and which is the home dried thyme? And the store bought time is not old! I just bough it a few months ago.

I remember the first time I used my own dried oregano in a recipe I had made many times before. The whole pot of jambalaya tasted better than it ever had. It's definitely worth it to dry herbs yourself, and it really doesn't take much time or effort.

Here is the process step by step:

1. Cut herbs from the garden.

For small leafed herbs like oregano, thyme, marjoram, etc... you want to cut the stems as long as you can so that they will be easier to handle and dry. You can bundle the smaller stems with a rubber band or twine. For larger leafed herbs like basil, you can cut the full stem, but you may want to just dry the leaves and not the whole stem too.

When should you cut your herbs to dry? Just before they flower. This is when they will be the best without being bitter.

Do you have to cut them before they flower, what if you missed it and the tops are blooming? Or what if you want to dry everything at once and one of the herbs isn't close to flowering yet? You can still dry them. I have done so and had good results. They may not be the best, but they still taste great and are fresher than you'll get from the store. Just be careful because the bees like them after flowering. And be sure to trim off the tops so you are only drying the leaves and stem.

2.  Wash the herbs.

Bring the cuts you made inside and give them a good rinse to get any bugs, dirt, weeds, or any other debris off.

If you have a smaller amount, you can just pat dry them off after rinsing. If you have a large amount, I suggest laying them out on clean dry cloths or paper towels to get excess water off. You could also use a salad spinner.

3. Decide how you want to dry them.

  There are a few different methods to dry the herbs at this point. You can hang them up to dry, lay them out to dry, or put them in a dehydrator.

For smaller amounts and stems or large leaves, I like using the dehydrator or at least laying the herbs out on the dehydrator shelves (without turning it on). Technically, allowing the herbs to air dry does preserve more flavor, but it takes longer. So if you have time, you can lay everything out on the dehydrator shelves and allow it to dry without turning the dehydrator on.Alternatively, set the dehydrator to it's lowest setting (mine is 95 degrees). If you leave the dehydrator off, it will take a few days to a week for everything to dry. If you turn the dehydrator on, it takes about 4 - 8 hours depending on the size of leaves and how much you pack into the trays. The leaves should crumble easily when dried completely.

If you don't have a dehydrator, you will just bundle the herbs in sections and secure them with a rubber band or twine. I like to hang up the larger herbs to dry instead of taking up dehydrator space anyway. Be sure to separate the herbs into small bundles so that the middle can dry before getting moldy.

Then just hang them up upside down in a dark place away from sunlight. I have hooks in my pantry that I loop the rubber bands around. If you want to save yourself a bit of mess, you can also place a paper bag underneath the bottoms or on the floor to catch bits of leaves that crumble before drying all the way.

4. Remove the leaves from the stems.

If you dried just leaves (sage, bay, basil), you can just put the whole leaves into a container. I find the flavor lasts longer if you crumble the leaves just before using. If you dried the plant stems and all, you will want to remove the leaves by sliding your fingers down the stems to break off each leaf into a bowl. On smaller leaves/stems, you may need to crumble the leaves off as the stems will break with this method.

Once you have removed all the leaves, then transfer them to a container for storage. You could technically put the leaves from the stems directly into a storage container, but in my experience, without a wide mouth receptacle, a lot of leaves will end up on the counter instead of in your container.

Whatever type of container you use, I suggest labeling it with, of course the name, and also the year. 

A few more tips:

For lavender, you want the purple flowers to be closed when you dry them. Cut the plant just above the leaves so that you are just getting stems.

Pictured below is thyme. I don't have a ton of edible thyme growing in my garden right now, but even if you have just a little, it will still taste better than store bought. So just dry what you have!

If you save a bunch extra, you can give small jars of dried herbs out as gifts for Christmas or another holiday that you celebrate.

Enjoy the extra flavor in your cooking!

What are Beneficial Nematodes?

Let's start with how to pronounce "nematode." Is it Neema-toad or neh-ma-tode? Well, according to dictionary.com, it's....drumroll...[nem-uh-tohd]. What is a nematode? They are tiny, non segmented, cylindrical worms. They live in large numbers in places like water and soil. There are beneficial nematodes that help your garden, but there are also nematodes that can destroy it (roundworms). If you don't have the right mix of  microorganisms in your garden currently, beneficial nematodes might help your garden like I hope that it helps mine. 

This post contains affiliate links.

I mentioned in the blog post about the Garden of Eden Gardening Method, that I was getting a large number of fungus gnats around the new beds. So I ordered some nematodes on Amazon (these kind):

to help combat the gnats. The nematodes are supposed to go after a number of unwanted species that live in  your garden including fungus gnats. In the package from Amazon, there was a cold pack to keep the nematodes cold. And you are supposed to store the nematodes in the refrigerator upon receiving them. Here's what it looks like. A white powdery substance.

The instructions stated to mix the package of nematodes with 1-5 gallons of water and then spray it on the garden. I mixed the pack of nematodes in a cleaned out milk jug.

I then used a hose sprayer container like this one and turned the dial all the way up. The spray container did not hold a gallon of water, so I just filled it up a few times with the milk jug of nematodes and sprayed it on all of my garden areas.

The instructions say to keep the soil wet for two weeks after application. I'm crossing my fingers that this helps with the gnats. But if you read the reviews on the nematodes on Amazon, there were a number of people that didn't even mention gnats, but said that their gardens looked better than ever after using these. I have high hopes! And I'll update you all here on the blog.

As always, let me know if you have any comments or questions below. 

Happy Gardening!

How to Make Compost Tea

Today I'll show you how to make tea. For plants, not people. Compost tea to be exact. The batch I'll show you here is small, it's for my grow light seedlings (tomatoes and peppers mostly). You could do this same thing on a larger scale for the garden outside.

The word compost probably means a lot of different things depending on who you ask. You could definitely go out to your compost pile and use this method with that type of compost. What I used this time, was actually an organic pre-made fertilizer which contains ingredients like blood meal, fish meal, and seaweed. It smells lovely. Anyway, the plants like it.

I started by putting some of the fertilizer in a square of cheese cloth. I wrapped it up and secured a rubber band around the top. I then put that in a container with some water and let it soak for 24 hours.

As far as how much compost and water to add, you might need to experiment depending on what type of compost you are using. Since I bought a pre-made fertilizer, it actually had instructions on bag that states the ratio to use. This is the kind I bought:

It's Dr. Earth brand. I actually used this fertilizer last year in the garden and really liked it. You can buy this kind on Amazon HERE. I bought it last year because of the awesome reviews it got.

Here are the instructions for the compost tea on the bag. Since I mixed this compost tea up to fertilize seedlings. I made the tea at half strength (1/2 cup fertilizer to a half a gallon of water).

This post contains affiliate links.

Since I put the fertilizer in the cheesecloth, I didn't need to strain it out before adding it to the plants. you could easily strain it instead of using cheesecloth, but this way is less messy.

Hope this post helps! Let me know if you have any questions or comments below.

Happy Gardening!

Garden of Eden Gardening Method

Below is a picture of my gardening area currently (March is not colorful!). This area used to be lawn, but we cut out this corner of the yard for my gardening area about 5 years ago. I started with two raised beds with plans to make more in the future, but, #life. I also have plans for the future to add a fence across the front area and grow grapes on it. There will be an arbor at the center where the stones are with either more grapes or vining roses up the sides. Around the perimeter I currently have two smoke bushes, two mock orange bushes, and a rose bush. I also have 2 service berry trees and some raspberries. I plan to fill in the rest of the edge along the fence with more edible berries, flowers, herbs, and two small fruit trees. Oh, if only I had unlimited amounts of time and money to get it all done now!

I've always done raised beds in the past which have for the most part worked great. However, I wanted more space to grow since I only have two medium sized raised garden beds. I've also always wanted to plant in the ground, just to try it you know? Plus, raised beds are awesome, but a bit cost prohibitive if you want to use long lasting untreated wood and fill them with good soil. I heard about this method of gardening last year and figured it would be a great way to add more growing space.

That's one of the Garden of Eden beds!

So what is the Garden of Eden Method? It was created by a man named Paul Gautchi. Now, he put out a whole video on his method which is heavily sprinkled with religious overtones, however the gardening bits are quite good. You can watch that video on YouTube  HERE if you're interested. Below is a picture of one of my Garden of Eden areas which I raked rows out of to let them warm up for planting.

The idea of the method is that in nature, soil is never uncovered. Think of a forest floor, it's always covered in leaves, branches, and other plant debris. And that plant debris decomposes over time to become part of the rich humus soil underneath. The benefits of this are that the soil underneath the layer of plant debris (mulch) stays moist for much longer than exposed soil (you won't need to water as often, or possibly ever except after planting seeds if you live in a rainy climate). Also, the thick layer of mulch, keeps unwanted weeds at bay.

Translated to the home garden, this means that you start with:

• Any old patch of soil, 
• Add a layer of newspaper or cardboard if it's a weedy spot, 
• Lay down 4 inches of compost,
• Then add 4-6 inches of wood chips on top of that. 

To be clear, bark is not wood chips. Paul Gautchi is referring to a tree with leaves that is put through a chipper. I got wood chips for free using a service called Chip Drop where arborists in the area drop chips on a requested driveway instead of hauling the chips to the dump. This saves the arborist time and money (dump fees) and gives you free wood chips. HERE is the link for that site if you want to sign up. Keep in mind, you can sign up or take yourself off the list at any time, but there is no defined date or time of drop. And it might take 2 days or 2 months to actually receive a drop. It's all chance on who is cutting down trees in your area. From the research I did, you should request not to receive chips from certain trees including walnut trees. Also, pine trees take a long time to break down due to the resin, so this may not be a good choice either.

Did you spot the huge pile of wood chips? That wasn't quite all of them.

In the best case scenario, the wood chips will be slightly decomposed at the time of addition to the garden. I put my two Garden of Eden Method beds last fall, so the chips have sat there for for about 7 months so far. It will be interesting to see how well my plants grow in these beds this year. It may be that each year, the soil becomes a bit better and so do the plants.

To plant, you will need to pull the bark chips off of the soil where you want to plant first. If you are planting seeds, you will keep the wood chips away from the area where the seed is planted until the plant becomes established, then move the wood chips around the base of the plant to keep the soil moist. If you are planting starts, you can move the chips back around the plant after planting.

Garlic planted in the fall. These were actually buried under 3 inches of wood chips all winter.

During the planting and growing, you will need to add applications of nitrogen rich compost, manure, or fertilizer over the top of the wood chips (everything will soak down into the soil from above). As long as the wood chips are on top of the soil and not mixed into it, it won't be stealing all the nitrogen from the plants, they just won't be providing it either.

My observations so far is that the soil under the chips definitely stays more wet. In late winter, while my raised beds were not quite dry, the soil under the Garden of Eden beds was soggy. The wood chips are already starting to break down after only a half a year, so I know some benefit there is already starting. There are a lot of little creatures in the Garden of Eden beds. In my raised beds I've seen earth worms, ants, and spiders. In the Garden of Eden beds I've already spotted earth worms, centipedes, potato bugs, and more.

The one issue I've had at this point is that there are a large amount of fungus gnats flying around the tops of the wood chips. I've done some research on this, and found that while the flying insects aren't an issue, their offspring in larva form are. The larvae actually feed off plant roots. You've probably seen fungus gnats in your house if you have ever grown house plants. I guess these can be an issue in green houses too. Commercial greenhouses generally just wait for things to dry up a bit and the problem gets better. I'm hoping that happens in my garden. But, as an extra precaution, I bought beneficial nematodes on Amazon that are supposed to go after the gnats. THIS is the kind I bought if anyone is curious. I'll update you all if I see improvement after application. One reviewer on Amazon actually said that beyond the gnats, their plants looked a lot healthier than they ever had after releasing the nematodes. Oh, and if you are wondering what nematodes are, check out THIS ARTICLE from the Mother Nature Network.

If you have any questions for me, please let me know in the comments below. If you have tried this method of gardening before and have any tips, please leave them in the comments below as well. I'd love to hear from you!

Happy Gardening!

How to Plant Seeds Under Grow Lights, A Step-By-Step Tutorial

You can get a head start in your garden in late winter or early spring by planting seeds inside under grow lights or near a window. It's not too much work, and it's really cost effective in the long run. A seed packet generally costs $1-$4 and contains anywhere from 10 to 300 seeds. Whereas most plants at a nursery start at $2 and can get very expensive as they grow bigger or are heirloom. You do need a grow light if you plan to plant indoors and you don't have a room with great sunlight most of the day (I don't, and my kids would make a huge mess with the dirt).

 If you do plant indoors by windows, keep an eye on your seedlings to make sure they aren't getting leggy (long and spindly) and leaning one direction.

Source

The lights might be around $20, a stand is also $20. Or maybe you are crafty and thrifty and you can build your own stand and find a light on the cheap. I've had my light and stand for at least 5 years now and it's definitely paid for itself.

The other great thing about growing from seed, is that there are so many more cultivars out there than are probably at your local nursery or hardware garden area. I went a little crazy on tomatoes this year, but look how fun these varieties are! Sorry about the shine from the t5 light ;). If you can't see, I have:

• Blue Beauty
• Get Stuffed
• Amish Paste
• Kelogg's Breakfast
• Beefsteak
• Mortgage Lifter
• Raspberry Lyanna
• Tomato Isis Candy Cherry
• San Marzano Lungo No. 2
• Sweeties
• Romas
• Plus Pink Brandywines I saved last year (not pictured)

Apparently the gardener that invented the Mortgage Lifter Tomato literally "lifted" his mortgage back in the 1930s buy selling each tomato for $1. He sold tomatoes for 6 years and was able to pay off his $6000 mortgage (source). Wouldn't it be nice if mortgages were only $6000 these days (pretend inflation kept up with everything else)!

You probably just want to know how to plant seeds under lights (who cares how many seed packs this crazy tomato lady bought right?). On to it.

How to Plant Seeds Under Grow Lights

The following steps assume you already have a grow light. 

1. Set up your grow light. You want to put this in a place that's not too cold as warmer weather seeds need warmer temperatures to germinate (at least room temperature). If you have a grow light stand like mine that lowers and raises, you are ready to go from here. If you don't you will want to find a way to get your plants and light within inches of each other to start. As the seedlings grow, you will slowly raise the light to keep it just above the top of the plants. If your light is too high above the plants, they will become leggy and fall over. My seed magic happens in the furnace room. The floor is concrete, but it's warm in the room with the furnace and a refrigerator nearby.

Another option to help the seeds germinate faster and more uniformly, is to use a heat mat. I haven't used one myself, but it's a nice add to the seed starting set up.

2. Decide on your growing medium and containers. There are a ton of mediums and containers that seeds can be grown in. If you want to do it the easy way, you can buy the jiffy type seed starting trays with the peat pods that go in each spot. You just add water and the pods expand out and up. There is some controversy on whether or not peat is a sustainable medium. So, if you are wanting to be eco-friendly, using a sterile seed starting mix might be the way to go. You can use left over multi-planters bought at a store previously, or make your own newspaper planters. I've tried using toilet paper tubes, egg cartons, and various plastic food containers. The important part is that you use a medium that is sterile (not potting soil). You don't want a bunch of big sticks or gnat larva in your seed starting mix. If you use a sterile mix, fill the containers almost to the top, leaving about 1/4" head space.

These little yogurt containers are perfect.

3. Plant your seeds. Make sure your growing medium is wet, but not soggy before you plant. If you squeeze the medium and it drips, it's too wet.

You'll want to come up with a system to remember which seeds you planted where. I like to make a diagram like this one:

And just label it as I go. Other people like to use plant label sticks or colored tooth picks. Do what works for you. But make sure you do label or you'll most likely be smacking your forehead in two months from now.

I like to use the back of the pen I write with to push a little hole into each pod or planter and then drop 1-3 seeds inside. For most of my pods, I used 2 seeds. For seeds packs that I bought a few years prior, I added more seeds under the assumption that the viability of these seeds would be lower. If you have really expensive seeds like the Aji Charapita Pepper seeds that only have 10 in the whole pack ( $4.00), you might only want to put one seed in each hole since if two sprout, you do end up pinching one off. As far as depth, you'll want to follow the instructions on the seed package. If there is no information, the general rule of thumb is double the seed width. So if it's a tiny seed, plant it very close to the top of the soil. A large seed like a pea, plant it deeper.

After planting the seeds and covering them up, gently press down on the top of the soil to tamp the seed down. Then give each seed a light watering using a small container or spray bottle.


4. Cover the seed trays. While the seeds are germinating, you will need to put a cover over the seed containers. If you use a seed starting tray, it should come with a plastic cover. If not you could use another plastic top or even some plastic wrap to keep the seed trays evenly humid until the seedlings emerge. As soon as you see green, take the lids off.

Then lower your grow light to just above the seeds (or raise the seeds to just below the lights). Turn on your grow light and leave it on for 12-16 hours per day. A timer is at the plug is a great way to do this. Or you can, of course, manually turn the lights on and off each day. If you happen to forget to turn it on or off one or two times, the plants will survive. Just try not to make that a habit.


5. Fertilize your seedlings. After the true leaves appear (the first leaves that appear are called cotyledons, these are not the true leaves. The next leaves to appear are called "true leaves"), you can fertilize at 1/4 to 1/2 solution (as determined on instructions for fertilizer).

Now, how often, is up to you as well as which kind of fertilizer you use. Some sources say to fertilize twice a week, and other say once every two weeks. For many years, I didn't fertilized at all. I do, however, think that fertilizing your starts is a good idea. The plants will be bigger, stronger, and healthier when it's time to put them in the garden, which makes them less susceptible to pests and diseases.

The type of fertilizer is also a personal choice. If you want simple and cheap, buy a simple chemical liquid fertilizer like Miracle Grow. If you want to go more organic and sustainable, try a fish emulsion fertilizer (I guess they make ones that aren't as stinky too!) or a seaweed based fertilizer.

6. Transplant to larger containers. Once the plants have outgrown the first container (unless you planted in larger containers to begin with), you will need to transplant them to something where their roots can grow out and not become bound up. If you look on the under side of the container and a bunch of long roots are dangling out, you know it needs something bigger.

7. Harden the plants off. Once the weather is warm enough to transplant your beautiful homegrown plants, you will need to harden them off. You might be saying, hard what? That's just the term the gardening world uses to mean, get the plants used to being outside with wind and the strong sun and fluctuating temperatures. Your plants have been babied, it's time for them to grow up and see the world. Anyway, bring the plants outside a few hours each day starting in a slightly shady area and moving up to full sun. You can do this in a matter of days or a week or so. Be careful, because the soil will dry out a lot faster outside especially if the containers are small.

Also, when you move the plants outside, be sure to mark the front of the container if you have diagrammed them so you know which seeds are which when you bring them back in.

8. Transplant your plants to the garden. After the plants have been sufficiently hardened off, you can put them in the garden. Don't forget to check the frost date for your area if you are planting tender warm veggies like tomatoes and peppers.

That's it! I hope I gave you enough information to get started. If you have any questions or comments, please let me know below.

Happy Gardening!

Organizing and Storing Seeds

How do you store your seeds? In a box, a bag, a big jumbled mess on a shelf? And where? In the garage, the storage room, inside your fridge? Planting seeds and keeping track of what you have can be hard if you aren't organized.

In this post we will talk about the HOW and WHERE to store your seeds for best organization and preservation.

HOW

There are many ways to store your plant seeds as I'm sure you know! But, I'll just give you a few ideas if you are wanting to be more organized.

To start, you can keep them in the packs they came in if bought commercially of course. You can also use snack or sandwich sized bags to make sure no precious seeds fall out. If you save seeds yourself, the ziplock bags also work great. Just make sure to label with the exact cultivar and the date so you don't forget how old they are next year!

Now that you have all the seeds secured, where should you put them to keep them organized?

Accordion Style File Folders

I use an accordion style file folder to store my seeds. It's small, but folds out to be bigger. It's size is manageable to haul around with me to the garden and store easily. And it closes so I'm not worried about the seeds falling out.

It's pretty thin once all the seeds are inside, so I can tuck it under my arm and take it to my seed starting trays or outside to the garden.

You could order your seeds alphabetically if that works best for you. I personally like to order them chronologically by the approximate planting time. So my first categories are cold root veggies and cold greens and then cold other. Meaning plants like lettuce, carrots, beets, peas, broccoli, etc. are at the beginning. Then I have the warmer weather vegetables like tomatoes, peppers, melons, squash and more. And at the end I have some categories for flowers and herbs which have a variety of planting dates.

Binders

Source

If using a file folder isn't your jive, how about 3 ring binders with plastic pocket style inserts? Trading card plastic inserts are really useful here too like the picture below.

Source

You could use tabs on the sides in the same way as I used the file folder tabs above. You could even have a different colored binder for each type of seeds. Like Green for vegetables, purple for fruit, and pink for flowers for example. You might even take notes about each cultivar for better results the next year.

Plastic Storage Containers

There are a ton of different types of storage containers. Here's an example I found on Amazon. These snap closed and are stackable. They are clear, so it would be easy to see what's inside and you could make a big label and tape it on the front for better organization.

Amazon

I'm sure there are more ways to organize your seeds well. Do you organize a different awesome way? Let me know in the comments!

Where

First of all, what do seeds need in order to germinate?

• moisture 
• appropriate temperature (generally warmer)
• light after they sprout 

So to store seeds, we really want the opposite conditions. The seeds need to be thoroughly dry before storing (if saving your own seeds), and they need to be stored in dry conditions. Seeds can be stored in a refrigerator or in a cool dark room. Generally a garage or a warm sunny room would not be an ideal place for seed storage. If you live in a humid area, store the seeds in an air tight container with a desiccant pack or dry milk powder (wrapped in tissue paper, paper towels, or a reusable tea bag).

Source

I personally store my seeds in the refrigerator in the accordion style file folder as seen in the pictures above. I live in a dry climate, so I haven't used any drying agents with my seeds and have had good success with this method. I have quite a few seeds that are older and yet they still germinate each year.

Let me know in the comments how you store your seeds. Have any questions? Let me know below as well!

Happy Gardening!