While I do love veggie gardening to be able to grow and harvest food for our family, I am first and foremost a flower gardener. I am always amazed at the exquiste design and beauty of each flower, so many shapes, colors, smells and uses. Here is a little peak into what we have blooming in our flower gardens these days. I planted this gorgeous bee balm just for the hummingbirds … [Read more...]
Preserving Kohlrabi
This spring I decided to a plant a bunch of kohlrabi in our gardens since we now have a tasty family recipe to use them in. Earlier this summer, I shared the family recipe for Kohlrabi Soup that was taught to me by my husband’s German and Hungarianfamily (you can read it here if you missed that post!)Some of the kohlrabi in our gardens were growing faster than others so not … [Read more...]
Making Tinctures and Infused Oils
Making your own herbal tinctures and infused oils at home is so easy I can't believe I never made them until now! With a few basic tips, you can start making your own infused oils and tinctures to use in your home crafting or herbal medicine chest. After our little nugget was born, another mama in town gave me the book Wise Woman Herbal for the Childbearing Year by Susan S. … [Read more...]
Homegrown Herbal Tea Recipe
This week I harvested a large bunch of mint and lemon balm from our gardens to dry and store for use in teas. That same night I was hosting our monthly book club at our house so decided it would be fun to make an herbal sun tea for us to sip on while we chatted about our book selection for the month. Last month I posted a recipe for making Meadow Tea … [Read more...]
A Family Tradition: Preserving Sugar Snap Peas
Growing up we always preserved the majority of the veggies we ate by blanching and freezing them. Every year when I start my veggie preserving, I always think of all the women in my family who preserved produce for their families and passed on this knowledge to the next generation. I am so gratefulto my mom, grandmother and great grandmother for passing this on to me, the … [Read more...]
Red Clover Harvest
For the last few weeks, I have been searching for red clover anytime we headed into the woods on an adventure. Growing up in Pennsylvania farm country, red clover was everywhere and was seen as an invasive weed and not a nourishing flower to harvest for medicinal purposes. Where we live in western Montana, red clover is much harder to find growing naturally. In case you’re new … [Read more...]
Foodie Friday: Garden Harvest Salad
This week we were invited to lunch with another mama and baby in town. Our contribution was to be a salad, so I decided I wanted to try to make a salad with only ingredients from our garden. Those of you reading this in warmer climatesmay think that is nothing too special, but in Montana we have a cool, short growing season so to be able to start harvesting more veggies now is … [Read more...]
This week’s flower harvest
Now that our Montana summer has finally started warming up and the sun is shining more, the plants in my gardens have really started thriving and blooming. Which means harvest time can begin!Lavender I tied the lavender in a loose bundle and hung to dry where I will see it and smell the wonderful scent everyday as I pass by into the kitchen.Chamomile, a prolific grower! I … [Read more...]