Drying Herbs

Yesterday I cut some of the rampant herbs in my garden down a bit and have decided to dry these to make a tea mix. The three herbs I cut were Peppermint, Lemon Balm and Feverfew (I am not sure if this is the proper name but it has been called this in my house as long as I can remember) 

After cutting these I have laid them out to dry in the garden.  Suspending a BBQ grating between two of our kitchen chairs (arent they gorgeous, they came from my parents house and are in need of a little tlc but they do brighten up the room a lot. Im thinking of stripping them and then repainting in Aqua or a colour like that... anyways back on topic ) 

Suspending them in this way allows the air to circulate around them and the heat of the day should help them to dry out.

On the left if Lemon Balm and the right is Peppermint. The Feverfew is in flower and being dried in the understairs cupboard as it can be hung upside down here to keep more of the flower shape.

To stop the leaves getting scorched and more importantly to stop them blowing away I covered the contraption with a second hand (thrifted) vintage table cloth that I happen to have waiting to be upcycled into something new, maybe. 

Also today I have started on another dress for me in the most gorgeous Jade colour :D I probably need to get some house work done but for the moment that can wait...

Pita snack

Today I invented a new recipe for a quick snack. Creating a new filling for a pita pocket which was just calling my name.

1. Toast the Pita, then cut in half. Open out the two halves at this stage to make a space to fill the centre (if you leave this too late they will break, learnt from personal experience)

 

2.  Using your favourite pesto, spoon some into a bowl. I used this wonderful white pesto from our local international food store (love that place :D )

 add some left over tomato salad from last nights meal...

 3. My secret ingredient is my Nan's ketchup. This is a slightly spicy and not too sweet sauce. Normal ketchup or tomato purée would do nicely.

 

4. Mix together in a bowl with a bit of grated cheese, then spoon into the open pitas.  Microwave for approximately 40 s to slightly melt the cheese then enjoy ...

Yummy :D

Up the Garden Path

Ok so this might be alight exaggeration... But the herb bed now has the beginnings of a path in it...

I know it probably doesn't look like much but it is using some of the stones which have been taken away from the "rockery" which is now being removed.
I was never that keen on it but had just recently decided to plant it up this year to hide away the unsightly concrete. But now this gives me room to plan a new much lighter structure *giggles* 

Anyway back to the Herb Bed, I have started to move herbs out of the window boxes they have been living in for the last year and set them into the bed. 

From this herb box I have extracted one plant each of the chives and parsley and have split them and replanted. The parsley was simple to split as it almost did this itself when it was lifted out. But the chives required slightly more brute force as they had a nicely 'woven' root ball.

This just required finding a suitable place to split the bunch at soil level and working that split down through the roots. Don't worry about ripping some of the roots but try to tease apart the majority of them, if this is particularly difficult you could try soaking the root ball as this is supposed to help although I have never had to do it yet.

With the new path and plants the herb bed is starting to take on more of a gardeny feel to it. I cant wait for the day when it is all complete and there are a wide range of herbs for me to choose from just outside my door... Heaven...

First Garden Upcycle Challenge...

This week I seemed to have managed to shift the weekend to the beginning of the week! I have taken today off uni and am probably going to be off tomorrow which will mean that I am going to have to be in uni next weekend to make up for it... Oh well, C'est La Vie...

I have taken today off to enable me to do some stuff in the garden and raid all the charity shops :D (Actually came away with some good finds this time) and clean my room (Sulk).

I think the sun had a lot to do with having such a productive day today and the fact that the garden smells gorgeous due to all the spring blossom...

I have finally cracked out the power tools and turned the drawer that I salvaged from the back of my dads work into a container...

This

 Plus This:
 

 Equalled this lovely easy draining container:

 Which when filled with soil was half filled with seeds. Mixed salad, Parsley and Basil. I will wait to see how well they germinate before celebrating, but fingers crossed.

I only half filled the drawer with soil so that I can have another sowing later on to give me continuous salad leaves through the summer (Well at least three crops worth, as my other container is nearly ready to eat :D )

Home Made Plant Labels

planning to grown a lot of plants from seed this year I needed a way to identify which plants were which and really didn't feel like shelling out money for those little plastic labels that all garden centers seem to have these days.
So I decided to try making my own and if I may say so myself, they seem to be working very nicely.

Here is my first How To:

I have made my labels out of an old milk bottle but you could use any of a similar type of plastic.
I cut into the bottle to remove the top and bottom, leaving a ring of plastic which was cut down one corner and opened up.

From this ring I cut out the individual tags but cutting it into strips vertically. Then cutting one end to a point. 
The lines drawn on the plastic are to show you how it was cut but i normally don't bother when cutting it myself.

After these were cut out I wrote the names of the seedlings I have onto the 'inside' of the plastic, because I didn't manage to remove all of the label on this bottle. Also the inside it generally smoother as a lot of companies make the outside textured.
Finished labels waiting to go into my pots :D

I hope you enjoy using this method, as it is much cheaper and environmentally friendly.