Lavender

I’m sure that I have experienced lavender in some way over the years but I don’t believe I ever acknowledged that experience. My first real exposure to lavender came when I visited my local spa for a massage. I was in a peacefully decorated room surrounded with the most fresh and delicate scent. Of course that was the scent of lavender. I have been a fan of it since that time.

A few years ago I had an empty spot in my garden and chose two lavender plants to fill the space. They did surprisingly well and produced an abundance of flowers. Last year I left the blossoms on the plant because they were a pretty addition to the garden. Over the winter, I ran across instructions for making bath sachets using lavender flowers. The instructions were simple: place dried lavender flowers and Epsom salt in a little pouch made from cheesecloth. The cheesecloth is meant to keep all the dried flowers from clogging the tub drain. I waited all winter and spring before I could harvest my own crop of lavender for this craft project.

Once the crop was harvested, it was time to gather supplies. I cut the lavender and set it out to dry and then pulled the dried buds from the stems. It smelled great! Instead of making cheesecloth bags, I decided to recycle my silk teabags. I split them up the side, filled them with lavender flowers and sewed them back up. Of course they were too small to include the Epson salt but it shouldn’t be a problem just sprinkling that into the water. I was right, it wasn’t a problem. What a lovely soak I had with my lavender tea bags and Epson salts.

While I was thinking about lavender I decided to do a little research on the subject. I discovered that Queen Victoria of England made lavender popular across England. She used it to wash floors and furniture, to freshen the air and had it placed among the linens to freshen them. Queen Elizabeth I drank lavender tea to help ease her migraines. The French continue to send baby lambs to graze in fields of lavender so that their meat will be tender and fragrant. Lavender is actually a member of the mint family and is close to rosemary, sage and thyme in its characteristics. I have seen containers of dried lavender in cooking stores but have never thought to use it in that manner.

Curious about the culinary uses for lavender, I did a little research.
A lavender sorbet recipe immediately caught my attention. The recipe calls for sugar, water, lavender flowers, lemon juice and vodka (to keep the frozen mixture soft and smooth). It was a simple enough recipe to pull together. Oh my, what an interesting dessert. It seemed like I was eating pure sugar mixed with scented lotion. To give it a fair try, I nibbled on the sorbet over a few days. Give it a try if you have an adventuresome palate. It may actually be the perfect dessert because it satisfies your sweet tooth while soothing your senses.

As for me, I think I’ll keep lavender out of my kitchen and in my bathroom.

Hanging Tomato Plant

All danger of frost has passed in the Finger Lakes! How we wait to reach that landmark time of year Now it's time to plant a garden. Last year I decided to convert my never-very-successful deck landscaping into a vegetable garden. The garden was a moderate success producing a few meals of beans (yellow, green and purple), plenty of zucchini, a few green peppers and some cherry tomatoes. Not really much of a crop to claim, but I loved the idea of a garden nonetheless. For at least a little while I could pretend that organic really meant something to me!

Last year, I started my seeds inside. I planted much more than I needed and transplanted much more than I needed, as well. I think one of the reasons for my small crop was that I overplanted the garden. I just couldn’t bear to “destroy” my little seedlings. By the end of the season I realized that I hadn’t done myself any favors because the plants were too crowded to produce. This year I decided to let someone else do the seedling nurturing thing. Maybe if I don’t become so attached, I won’t have any trouble thinning plants out when needed.


It was the perfect week-end for planting so I headed up to my favorite farm market. It was an absolute feast for the eyes. I tried to keep myself focused on vegetables but got a little distracted with the hanging baskets. Oh well, I did need those, too! I brought home zucchini, a roma tomato, a grape tomato, yellow and red peppers and cubanelle peppers. On second thought, I returned to the store the next day and bought some eggplant and a variety of herbs.

My experiment this year is to plant tomatoes and peppers upside down. You may have seen the topsy turvy tomato planter. This planter claims that water and nutrients move directly from the root to the fruit increasing production. I don’t know anyone who actually had any success with this planter, but a friend of mine claimed great success with planting in five-gallon buckets. His claim is that the larger sized bucket and the heavier planter protect the plant roots resulting in a no-fail crop.

Up for the challenge, I decided to give it a try. I planted my two tomato and three pepper plants in their own buckets. Tom acted as my technical director and the process went very smoothly. It's been about six hours and the plants have not fallen out of the holes. I have high hopes for success. Planting in the buckets did free up a little bit of space in my small garden and I am looking forward to a full “30 pounds of fruit” (according to topsy turvy) from my planters. I’m also hoping that my pesky woodchuck foe will not be able to reach my new plants. I’m not sure how much wood a woodchuck can chuck but I do know how many zucchini he can eat!

Gardening

Such bright, sunny days lend themselves to thoughts of fresh, homegrown vegetables. Though not much of a gardener, I was inspired last spring by Martha Stewart to build a salad table. I saw it on one of her shows and was eager to give it a try. She made it look so easy (of course). The table is constructed to be four inches deep with a fine screen on the bottom so that the water can drain out but the soil cannot. I showed Tom the plans and he built the table for me. We laughed because the materials cost more than any crop I could hope to harvest but I thought it would be fun.

Because salad greens like the cooler weather, I planted my crop of basil, spinach and leaf lettuce in mid-May when all chance of frost was past. I nurtured the seeds by routinely watering, feeding and thinning them. If I thought the night would be too cold, I covered them. Soon I had little seedlings. I thought I was doing pretty well until a friend told me that he had been eating his own spinach for weeks. How disappointing. Even though my crop was late, I held on until all hope passed sometime in July. No fresh salads for me! You can see the ill-fated salad table above.

I bought some basil plants for about $4 and enjoyed eating from them all summer long. I enjoyed the basil so much that this year I decided to get an early start and grow some basil plants inside. I planted the seeds and placed the planter under a grow light. Again, the seeds began to sprout. Today I transplanted four little seedlings into a larger pot. Their stems are a little weak so I propped them up with little sticks. The directions say to let a fan blow on them for two hours every day to simulate outside conditions. I’ll have to give that a try even though it seems like I’m racking up quite an electric bill for the pleasure of a few leaves of basil.


But how can you measure the pleasure something gives against its cost in dollars? It’s not really the basil itself that matters to me; obviously I can buy basil anywhere. It’s the satisfaction of having succeeded in producing it myself. What’s the expression? "Give a man a fish; you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish; and you have fed him for a lifetime.” Here’s to a lifetime of fresh basil pesto!