Surprise Harvest

Living in Missouri it’s not unusual to sweat of a morning and freeze by noon. In this case it was early in the season for freeze warning and I froze from the moment I stepped outside, it’s something new for me to get cold easily. I love our fall weather here normally wearing long sleeves and hoodies with shorts, now, since my HA (heart attack) it’s long pants, coats, and stocking caps for me.

I will go ahead and thank my new meds, mainly blood thinners for my love of changing seasons. Once bundled up and the threat of freezing temps I needed to go harvest as much produce and herbs not only from the church garden, but my garden at home. My dad got me into working the church garden with him, after he passed I couldn’t give it up. I truly love working with plants and in the garden, for me it’s relaxing to sit in the garden and trim and pick what has grown. Almost everything planted in the garden is from seed minus a few plants I get from a nearby Mennonite community, but that’s something I will share another time. Please excuse my rambling, back to topic of bundling up and threat of freezing. I picked as much produce as I could that was available along with rosemary and basil. I will try and root start a rosemary and basil stem to keep in the house through winter months for fresh herbs. With the rest of the herbs that’s left I will dry, this is what i want to show you.

When you bring in all of your herbs after cutting, soak them in cool water in your sink. If you use chemicals on your garden you might want to throw a little white vinegar in the sink with the water to make sure everything is washed well. I will definitely go over more about gardening at a later time, I do not use chemicals, that’s just what I choose. When you start cleaning the herbs this is a great time to notice bugs or in my case a spider hiding in your herbs.

Once you have someone else grab the spider and remove, go ahead and pick out dead leaves, sticks, etc that came in while cutting your herbs. Lay out on a towel to get excess water off. You can dry herbs many ways, I do it in my dehydrator, easy and helps make your home smell wonderful. I have a Oster dehydrator that works great and have used for year. It doesn’t take long unless you have really packed them in, which I do not recommend. When you lay them on the trays try not to overlap much.

Once they are dry you can remove the leaves. Simply hold the stem and run your fingers down the stem and the leaves will come off easily. I put all of my dried herbs in a coffee bean grinder and pulse a few times.

Small jars work great preserving your spices. Super easy and having herbs on hand are important when you’re minimizing sodium intake. Once you start using more herbs and spices to enhance your dishes you can get creative with flavors.

Most of the produce picked we will take to church for the congregation. It is fun watching everyone get fresh produce. A lot of our members are older and appreciate fresh grown produce, many have lived on farms or at minimum had their own gardens at one time.

What herbs are a must in your kitchen? Make sure to comment so we can all learn.