gifts under the tree

I was hoping it would look like I painted this picture. It's a few jars of garden pickles and some honey decked out with fabric caps. We don't have room for a tree in the house this year, just this little USB one. A very cheery little plastic fir.

herb salts

Back in early November, I made several herb salts. I looked up several recipes and found that these mixes can be either mostly herb with a bit of salt for flavoring or mostly salt with a bit of herb flavoring. At first I used a recipe for the former: mostly herb. That didn't seem the most useful for me, so I added salt.

My mixes ended up with about equal amounts of salt and herbs. I use them whenever I would be normally be adding plain salt to a recipe - and I get some extra flavor. I sprinkle the sage salt on cooked carrots, the thyme salt on broccoli, rosemary salts on scrambled eggs. Very nice.

To make the salts, I combined all ingredients listed below, processed in food processor til smooth, then spread on a sheet of the plastic mesh that came with my dehydrator with a sheet of parchment below and anther plastic mesh below those. I dried at low heat (110*F) in dehydrator for a few hours. When dry, I pushed the mix through the mesh onto the parchment and stored in plastic bags.

As I mentioned above, I added salt to get the flavor I preferred. I ended up with equal amounts of salt and herbs, 1:1 ratio. Many recipes call for a 1:4 ratio of salt to herbs.

Rosemary salt
Fresh rosemary
Lemon zest
Garlic cloves, crushed

Sage salt
Fresh sage leaves
Shallots, chopped
Dried chiles

Thyme salt
Fresh thyme, stems removed
Fresh oregano, stems removed
Lemon zest
Garlic cloves, crushed


I gave several of the salts away as Christmas gifts to my siblings. Now that I've posted this I can send a link and show them how I made them.

necklace giveaway results

It was fun doing a give-away. I wish I could give a necklace to everyone who entered a guess. The contest was to guess how many dried red chilies were in my chili bowl. The answer: 248. I think a lot of people guessed low maybe because smaller chilis tended to be at the bottom of the bowl. Anyway, the winners are: The winners are Barb (273), Tomato Thymes (156) and Sarah (150). If you are a winner, please email me at kathy@skippysgarden.com and let me know your mailing address. Congrats!

a give away!! - guess how many red chilis and win seed packet necklace

I'm excited to give something to my readers. I've gotten a lot from everyone: ideas, advice, friendship and just the pleasure of chatting about gardens. I hope I give gardeners information and encouragement, especially new gardeners. Maybe even inspiration. I think it's important that we're close to the earth and find simple ways to do things. And it's so rewarding to grow food.

Anyway, I was given a beautiful "seed packet" necklace by Shari Dixon. She's an artist who incorporates flowers and herbs into her hand crafted jewelry. My pendent is a camomile seed packet and I love it!


Shari gave me three seed packet necklaces to give away. SO, we need a contest! To stay on the topic of gifts, yesterday I posted a picture of a bowl of dried red chilis that I plan to give as gifts.

How many chilis are in the bowl??

The three seed packet necklaces will go to the three people who guess closest to the actual number. Just reply to this post with your guess and I'll post the winners in one week - Sat, Nov 29. Sorry, USA only and one guess per person.

tis the seaon for making gifts

Last year I knitted hats for everyone on my Christmas list. And I had some garlic to share. This year, no knitted goods and no extra garlic, but I have lots of popcorn, dried red and green chilis, herb salt, canned pears and cucumber relish. I love having so many things to share!

I was hoping to make ristras or wreaths from the chilis and looked into that this morning. I found a fantastic how-to video: Sichler Farms chili ristra video. But I leaned that the ristra needs to be made from fresh chilis, not dried. (So that's why the ones I've made in the past have looked funny and have fallen apart.) I will put chili ristras on my wish list of things to make next year!

I found some really nice ideas for packaging herbs. One site I found shows how to make little printed muslin bags for dried chilis and another uses printed muslin bags for tea.

I think these bags will be perfect for my popcorn, herb salts and chilis. Maybe even for my canned pears and relish. Sounds like I will have a craft project for the chilly weekend coming up. I am looking forward to this!

garden christmas gifts - given and received

This year I gave, and received, a number of gifts made from homegrown garden produce or items to use in the garden.

Dried herbs: This year I dried lots of my garden thyme, rosemary, sage, hot red chilis, and coriander seeds. I packed these in little jars (from Crate and Barrel) and used ribbon to tie on labels.

Hand-decorated dried gourds: My brother-in-law found a fantastic source for the most creative decorated gourds I have seen. I love the tall snowman gourd that is now on my mantle! I'll add more photos and the source later.

Planting basket: My sister gave me a Smart Pot. Its a 10 gallon container made of a porous aeration fabric. (www.smartpots.com) I can't wait to try it.

And, I received a stack of wonderful books!

a toad house for my birthday!!

I was really lucky to get some garden gifts for my birthday this past week - a toad house, a little sign and a rain gauge. I put the toad house in a shady spot under the parsnips at my community plot. I hope Oracle Toad will appreciate his new home.

I spent an hour or so working in my plot today. I mostly removed mildewed and wilting squash leaves and vines. This gave me good space for fall seedlings. But it also removed shelter where Toad was hiding. I hope he will like his new home.

My new rain gauge is on my window sill as I admire it - a small gnome is holding the gauge. Looks like he will be good company for the other gnomes in my side yard garden.

gift for a friend

This is a beautiful book that I was given to review. It has wonderful pictures and seems perfect for my friend and her very young girls who are budding gardeners. I also gave them broccoli and pea seeds, since broccoli is their favorite vegetable. They are container gardeners with a rooftop patio, so I'm interested to see how these will do for them. Its time to plant both now!

The Family Kitchen Garden: How to Plant, Grow, and Cook Together (link)
By Karen Liebreich, Jutta Wagner, and Annette Wendland
(Review copy from Timber Press)

garden gifts

I made out very well with Santa this year.

I got chickens for Christmas! A pretty hen and a big rooster. A variety that's very easy to care for. But not so good at laying. They are antique iron ornaments. I'll let them out in the backyard in the summer and inside in the winter. Skippy posed with them.

I also got a new weed whacker of my own. (I have been using the Community Gardens'). It has a rototiller attachment and a heavy duty brush cutter. I'm definitely looking forward to using this!

What gardening gifts did you get?

father's day and first day of summer

Summer is here!

But who would know?! A Nor'easter in New England is bringing us heavy overcast, winds, and more rain....

Summer began 1:45 A.M. EDT on Sunday, June 21, 2009. This day had the longest daylight of the year - and we couldn't see any of it. Also Father's Day.

I gave my dad a couple of gardening gifts: I cleaned up his old red garden trowel that I had "borrowed" accidentally for the past few weeks (as he's been asking for it back) and I put a nice bow on it. He gradually recognized it and was quite amused. Also, another brand new cultivator and a big red begonia in a hanging pot. And we went up to his house, made him dinner, and drank his martinis. A nice visit.

Outside was 60*F, dark and WET. I took bunch of garden photos and got soaking wet. Dad's garden looks beautiful in the rain.

gift bag

This week I gave Anne Marie a bag of supplies to start a patio garden with her young daughters. It was really nice to have so many suggestions last week on what to include (link) - though if I included everything, she would have needed an acre of patio space!

In the bag was:
A planter pot (for lettuce and/or radish seeds), a bag of potting soil, compressed peat pots, wood plant labels, and a marking pen.
Also, seeds for lettuce (mesclun gourmet baby greens from Botanical Interests), radish (Cherry Belle BI), Burpee cucumbers (Sweet Burpless), Sungold cherry tomatoes (Reimer Seeds) and nasturtiums (Burpee jewel mix).
Also a print out of all the suggestions everyone gave me and a list of planting instructions that I think the kids can help to read.
I'm hoping these seeds grow and produce delicious and beautiful fruits and flowers. And lots of enjoyment.

pot and seeds for a friend

garden gifts

I received some cool gifts for Christmas. Buzz-Off items: gardening gloves, an apron with lots of pockets for garden tools and a great cap. Also vegetable note cards. (I suppose those plastic wine glasses aren't really garden items...)

garden gifts

a gift from my mom

My mother gave me an old copy of The Oxford Book of Food Plants, published in 1969. (She found it at a library book sale for $1.) I love the old drawings of vegetables. The ones above are the squashes. They look like the Delicata that I just collected seeds from.



garden gifts

gathering and giving seeds

Gathering: I saved the seeds from a sweet Butternut squash we ate at our Christmas dinner. Nice big seeds - the squash was from our local CSA farm. It feels good to be gathering the beginnings of my next garden. I've collected five or six types of seeds by now. I'm still gathering my list of seeds to order.

Giving: I gave my sister (who lives in CA) seeds for Christmas, though I think her box arrived late (I hope it has arrived by now). Cucumber, red lettuce mix, purple poppies and a interesting one called chocolate flower (yellow petals with a brown center). My sister grows lots of flowers. She tells the story about a young girl who fell off her bike in her front yard. As the mom helped the young girl up, the girl looked around with a scowl and said "This yard has much too many flowers!" Now how could that possibly be true?! I'm hoping my sister will send me a photo to post when her yard is in full bloom again.

........
Think small.
Planting tiny seeds in the small space given you
Can change the whole world or,
At the very least, your view of it.
- Linus Mundy

garden gifts

garden mailbox

For Mother's Day my son made me a mailbox for my community plot garden! Its beautiful. Metal flashing on the roof, a wood peg to secure the door. "Skippy" is hand carved on the door, which opens with brass hinges. The community gardens have few identifiers for the plots - so this will be mine. And maybe I'll get mail some day.

garden structures
garden gifts

gift plants

These are plants my sister and I potted up and gave to my parents for their vegetable garden. I was pleased with how nice they look. Almost like store bought! (I grew them all from seed.) They're a little wilty here because we forgot to water them, but they perked up very well. My dad planted them in his garden immediately when he got home. Nice straight rows. They look great!

The box includes 6 winterbor kale, 6 tuscan kale, 6 red russian kale, 12 broccoli, 6 garlic, 6 red lettuce (mervelle de 4 seasons) and 6 green lettuce (escarole blonde).

garden gifts