Rooting Herbs From the Grocery Store

 

Spring is almost here and we are having spring like weather!! I am busy planning my garden space, old and new, for this coming season. One thing I want to grow this year are a lot of fresh herbs. I do grow thyme, oregano, sage and chives. This year I am going to add several more to this list.

I have seeds for basils, cilantro, rosemary, dill and a few more that I cannot remember at the moment. These things will grow from seed but it is a slow process, especially for the perennials, so I am attempting to root new plants from fresh pieces I purchased at the grocery store for the cost of a package of seeds.

Today I bought rosemary and last week I bought and planted terragon cuttings.

When I look through the packages of fresh herbs at the grocery store, I look for pieces that have tiny bits of root still attached. These will need less time to continue rooting and start growing. I am not sure this is root. It could be a piece of the stem that didn't break away cleanly but I will leave it there, just in case it is a root piece.

I don't know for certain that rosemary stems will root but I will try it anyway. I am not losing anything, as I will still have the pile of leaves that I stripped from the stems. I can continue to cook with those.

The first thing I did was fill a small container with light potting soil. I buy the inexpensive stuff from Walmart for this. It is better for rooting and seeding if you mix it with perlite, but I am not going to at this point. Mainly because I don't have any at the moment.

I use all kinds of containers to plant in. This is the bottom half of a vegetable juice cocktail jug with holes in the bottom. The aluminum foil is to catch the water that runs through when I water it. Dampen the soil with warm water before starting.

I use rooting hormone gel for this. I put a tiny bit in the corner of a throw away plastic thingie (its an industry term ;-). I keep my rooting hormone gel in the fridge. I have read that this gives it a longer life span. I don't know this from my own experience, but, it can't hurt and it doesn't take up much room in the fridge.

Lay out the branches of the fresh herb. Remove all but a few leaves at the top. One piece with long enough for me to make two rooting pieces out of it with a few leaves left at the top of each one. When this is done, recut the bottoms of all except the pieces with a slight root still attached. Leave that alone.

Dip the end of each piece in the bit of rooting hormone. Poke a small hole in the damp soil and insert the end. Fill in the soil around it.

I plant all pieces in one container together. It takes up less room that way and it will be awhile before they are so big that they need a pot of their own. I am hoping they can go into the cold frame, or even the ground, by that time.

These are the terragon cuttings I rooted a few days ago. They wilted at first but seem to be perking up now. I did not cover these with anything but I am going to put a bag over the rosemary to help keep them moist while they root. Put the cuttings in a light place but not in direct sunlight until you see real, new leaf growth.

I am looking forward to using these fresh herbs from my garden this year. I use them to make soap, as well as cook with them. One thing I want to make this year is a lot of pesto! I might also make myself some herbal bath oil, hand lotion and hair rinse.

 

Drying & Processing Herbs

Drying and Processing Herbs

First gather the fresh herbs you want to use. The herbs I use are what I can easily get where I am located. If you have access to others, do your research first, and use those. You are not restricted to just what I use. Be sure the herbs you choose to use are safe for yourself and everyone else before you decide to add them to your salves. 

For my general healing salve, I use plantain, purslane,dandelion, horsetail, yarrow, calendula, lavender, rose, spruce, lemongrass, rosemary, peppermint, clover, feverfew, cayenne, stinging nettle, thyme, oregano, usnea, chamomile. This is the basic salve recipe but there are others I can and have used, i.e. creeping charlie, dead nettle, hen bit, sow thistle. All of these have anti-inflammatory, anti-bacterial, healing properties. You might want to do an allergy test before using these herbs, just to make sure you aren't making a salve that you react to. Know the herbs you are using. If in doubt, skip it.

I enjoy gathering, drying and working with herbs. It's relaxing to be out in the fresh air and sunshine, gathering. I like the herbal smell they give my house and I find the handling of the fresh herb to be healing, especially for my hands. I try to gather leaves and flowers with long stems or small branches so I can hang them in bunches. I dry small pieces on a paper towel, turning them daily or on a screen. If you can score some large screens and bricks you can make a screen shelf on a covered porch, specifically for drying herbs and seeds. I like to put a layer of window sheers over the screens to catch the tiniest seeds and herb pieces. If this set up is outside, the mice and squirrels will like it too. That's what cats are for..

You can dry herbs quickly in your car on a hot day and your car will smell wonderful. You can dry them in the oven on a very low setting. You can also dry them in the microwave, but I don't recommend it. It only works well if the herbs are half dry to begin with. If you put fresh herbs in the microwave, they will often spark and start a fire. Not recommended! Believe me...it can happen...I know... I think many of the stronger herbs contain too much mineral for the microwave. I prefer to dry them naturally. It takes about two weeks in the home for them to be completely dry. It's important that all ingredients in the salve be completely dry. Even one small drop of moisture of any kind, and the salve will grow mold. 

I use tin ties to tie the bunches of herbs. (No, I didn't put the tin ties in the microwave. lol). I add a scrap of paper as a label. The dried herbs often all look alike, so it's important to label them. I then tie the bunches to a clothes hanger for easier hanging. I have strung wire under the porch roof for hanging, I have hung herbs on lights and lamps, on hooks in the wall, on shelves, on string across the wall, on curtain rods, on ceiling fans, anywhere I can find to hang them.

If you are hanging herbs to dry naturally, you will need to tighten the ties every day for a few days. The herbs will shrink as they dry and fall out. If your floors are clean, and you can get to them before the dogs and cats, I would just hang them up again. I hang herbs high enough to be out of the reach of the cats. Mine love horsetail and anything minty! 

When the herbs are very dry, I crumble and grind in my spice grinder, if they need it. Some are fine enough without grinding. Then they go into glass jars with tight lids. Clean pickle jars work well. Any clean glass jar will be fine. The herbs will keep for a very long time like this. I collect, dry and process them in the growing season, then make the salves in the winter.

Indoor Herbs

It's fall, here in Fort Nelson, BC, so I have brought in my tender herbs for the winter. Some are not necessarily tender, but they don't always come back in the spring up here. I treat the feverfew and purslane tenderly, as they are not available to forage or buy here. I grow them from seed, so I like to keep a small piece over the winter. I will start more in the early spring from seed, but I still like that safety net of having one growing indoors.

I have two south facing windows with big sills which are a good place to grow things, except in the darkest months. At that time I need additional lighting but it doesn't take much for these few plants.

I have brought in the lavender, rosemary, oregano, purslane, feverfew and one
calendula. This is the first winter I have tried calendula indoors over the winter, so I'll just have to see how it goes. If it fails, i can always grow again from seed. Those seeds are readily available just about anywhere."

Queen Anne's Lace (Wild Carrot)

Well, I have been shocked a few times this year while researching the things that grow in our fields! Some of these things that I have always considered "weeds", are now being looked at in a new light. Queen Anne's lace is one of these.

I know it makes a great cut flower and is one of those things you can colour by putting food colouring in the water, but I had no idea it was such a useful medicinal herb!

According to the "Carrot Site" (the "Carrot Museum"), "Queen Anne's lace (a wild carrot): "is an aromatic herb that acts as a diuretic, soothes the digestive tract and stimulates the uterus. (Pregnant women should definite NOT use it!) A wonderfully cleansing medicine, it supports the liver, stimulates the flow of urine and the removal of waste by the kidneys.

An infusion is used in the treatment of various complaints including digestive disorders, kidney and bladder diseases and in the treatment of dropsy. An infusion of the leaves has been used to counter cystitis and kidney stone formation, and to diminish stones that have already formed...A tea made from the roots is diuretic and has been used in the treatment of urinary stones.

An infusion is used in the treatment of oedema, flatulent indigestion and menstrual problems. The seed is a traditional 'morning after' contraceptive and there is some evidence to uphold this belief. Ongoing studies are proving this to be a very valuable plant, useful in many areas of alternative medicine, a few are Alzheimer's, Crohn's disease, Parkinson's disease, Infertility, Asthma-preventive, most types of cancer, Diabetes, Leukaemia, HIV, Spina-bifida, Migraine headache, obesity, and much more, even the common cold. Used as a medicinal herb for thousands of years as an abortifactint, anthelmintic, carminative, contraceptive, deobstruent, diuretic, emmenagogue, galactogogue, ophthalmic, and stimulant..."
Wow! According to these people, Queen Anne's lace will fix just about anything! I wonder how much of it is true...

My Winter Garden

This is my "winter" garden. It is indoors under a sunlight LED light that has a pink colour. The light is brilliantly pink. I have toned it down in the photos. The geraniums in the background are in full bloom all winter long, if I remember to feed them. I love geraniums indoors in the winter. They don't need much light and will get very large and bloom all winter, with a little regular feeding. 

The plants look a bit rough. I have two kittens, 5.5 mos old now, and they seem to like the plants. Some they even eat, like the spider plant I got from a special friend. They loved it. I had to protect it with small canvases I had on hand to paint. They don't eat the others, they just walk on them. I don't worry about it. I love my cats and they live here too. I'm just happy to keep the plants alive until they can go outside (the plants, not the kitties).

I keep small pieces of  important herbs growing here over the winter, in case the ones outdoors don't make it  until spring. I have chocolate mint, lavender, sage, purslane, feverfew, rosemary and probably a few others I have forgotten about. I use the feverfew for migraines. The tea works very well! I dry the leaves all summer and use it for headache tea all winter too. It works as well as the fresh leaves to lift the weight and relieve headaches. 

I grow the purslane because it is a killer bug bite relief! Really, its amazing! It grows as a rampant weed all over in Ontario and in Kelowna, just not up here, sadly. I used to be able to just pick a leaf anywhere, rub it on a bite of any kind and the swelling and itching would be gone in just a couple of minutes, never to return. I can't do that up here, but I do make a bug bite salve with it, as well as the plantago and yarrow that do grow wild up here. I sell it occasionally, when I make a large amount. I sell small samples for $2 and 120g large containers of it for $20, as long as I have enough for us to use all summer. We like it because its all natural. I do use the deet spray occasionally, when hiking in the woods but I try to avoid it if possible. 

Purslane & Feverfew

I also start veggies from the grocery store under this light. These are green onions I started from the onion bottoms. They will go outside soon. They get huge in the garden and reseed everywhere. I love garden volunteers! Again, they would look a lot better if Shadow and Abby didn't walk on them...

Under this winter light is also a container of seeds that were outside all winter until yesterday. I brought them in under the light to sprout. They are seeds that need stratification (a winter to germinate) so I am hoping they will start to sprout soon! I planted them in December in a large, round plastic container with a lid. I put it outside in Dec to spend a couple of months in the winter temps. This is called "winter sowing". In the big snowfall, I shoveled them off the deck, forgetting they were there and I just found them yesterday, intact! (I'm thrilled. I had some valuable seeds in there. It was upside down, so I'm hoping the seeds didn't fall out.) Now I wait to see if they come up. I have had winter sowing success in the past.

winter sowing in previous years

One of the special herbs I grow indoors is chocolate mint. To the right of the geraniums in this picture. I love it! it really does smell and taste like chocolate mint. I cut and dry it all summer and use it in tea, put it in my coffee, grind it and bake with it. I made a gallon of chocolate mint wine a few years ago and loved it! I plan to do that again this year. It grows like a weed, just like every other mint. (See previous post "Using All That Mint" for ideas.)

I gave many small rooted chocolate mint cuttings away this winter and warned everyone to keep it in a container. You can see runners spreading out of the pot in the picture left.  

It's not all practical. I do have a few ornamental houseplants in there too - just little ones. I have a Christmas cactus, lipstick plant, begonia, pothos and what remains of the spider plant. They don't look that well, like I said, the cats walk on them...As soon as the others are out of there, and I have time, I plan to repot these and take better care of them. 

This pink light shines very brightly outside my window at night. I'm sure my neighbors think I'm growing something ELSE in there! lol! 

Wildcrafting In The North

We moved from Ontario and now live in the Northern Rockies of British Columbia, Canada. Short growing season, super long days in summer and short days in winter, but we love it here! The days we get in the winter are short but very sunny. The more southern warm regions of BC are usually rainy and rarely sunny in the winter.

We live in a very small town in the wilderness, the "bush" as it's called. There is little up here but wilderness and this gives us a great deal of access to the wild things.

Bearberry (Uva-Ursi) leaves drying under a tarp outside 

I am constantly amazed at the number of medicinal herbs and berries that grow up here! I spend much of my summer time gardening and collecting plants from the surrounding wilderness. I gather as many herbs as I can and hang them to dry out of the sun and rain. Sometimes in the house, sometimes in the shed and some on the porch. I make herbal salves in the winter. 

I recently lost a large amount of yarrow to a bunny rabbit who lives nearby. We occasionally leave things out for him, but this time I didn't leave the yarrow out on purpose. I just didn't think about it and left it outside on a rack to dry under a cover, out of the rain, just until I could get it properly hung to dry. The next morning it was all gone, every last piece! He ate all the fireweed (willow herb) flowers too, not the leaves, just the flowers. I guess he likes fireweed flowers and yarrow. He likes spinach too...

Yarrow drying in the shed

I have learned a lesson here and put all my herb bunches up out of the rabbit's reach, if I don't hang them right away. I don't bother with the feverfew, as I know he won't eat it. Nothing eats feverfew! lol! It's fabulous for headaches, even migraines, but it's the most awful tasting stuff growing. I have gotten used to the taste and am thankful for it, if I have a migraine. If you have migraines, you know what you will go through to get relief! Feverfew doesn't grow wild up here. I plant it on purpose. 

I love yarrow! It's one of my favourite herbs and is good for just about anything. It's particularly good at healing and preventing infection in wounds. It also makes a good herbal tea base. We use a lot of it. 

I guess I will have to collect more fireweed flowers too. They make excellent tea and jam! Fireweed is also called "willow herb" and has some good properties. We may sell the dried fireweed leaves, and the flowers, if I have enough to sell, after the rabbit's visit.

Another herb that grows up here in plenty is usnea, sometimes called "old man's beard". It's not really an herb. It's a lichen that grows on the trees. It is a seroius anti-fungal agent and an antimicrobial dressing for wounds. It goes into the healing salve, along with the yarrow and several other healing herbs. 

We hope to have our herb and seed store up and running this winter. When we lived in Ontario, we had a successful online seed store and we hope to start it again, selling the seeds along with the dried leaves and salves. 

I love Chocolate Mint

I love having the chocolate mint for tea, coffee and wine. I have made a gallon of chocolate mint wine in years past and loved it! I put it in coffee and use it in herbal tea. However, It has its good side and its bad side.

Today I released my chocolate mint into the ground in the back yard for the winter. I wasn't sure it would survive our winter in a pot and just didn't want to use the space to grow it indoors all winter. I know it will survive here in the ground. Its very hardy! 

Its also very invasive. As a matter of fact, it had runners growing around and around the root ball inside the big pot. Scary! If it had been in the ground all summer, it would have spread over a large area. I have had that happen with chocolate mint before. One summer I nearly lost my entire large herb garden! 

So, I kept it in a pot all summer. I feel bad for the poor thing now that I see all those runners. I am considering letting it go wild in my wild woodland back yard next summer, but I think I might regret it in years to come, as I pull out pieces of it everywhere, so...maybe not. 

I did take some cuttings and brought them inside to start new plants, just in case. I think I will always grow it in a container, but maybe a larger one next year.


I'll make up my mind before spring comes next year but I think its going into a large planter or a tall and deep container garden. I could plant lemon balm with it and just let them battle it out. That might be interesting. I don't usually grow lemon balm as I prefer to grow lemon verbena for my "lemon" herb, but I might...maybe. 

Unique Storage Space

I have decided to use my veranda ceiling for stoarge. When we first moved here I had grand visions of filling it with dried herbs, sunflowers and beautiful things like that, just hanging there drying like an old fashioned farm.
I took a few days and strung the wire using U-nails. I stretched it all the way down the entire vernada roof.


I put three strands of wire across the entire length, skipping the part just over the front door. I figured that visitors wouldn't want things like dried herb leaves and flower petals falling on their heads. Who wouldn't want lovely smelling dried herbs and flowers falling on them?

This year I decided to use it. I hung all my grapevine wreaths and hanging pots up there when I tidied the porch. I intend to hang sunflowers and herbs up there to dry! I might also use it to dry tobacco and other useful things.

It makes a good storage space for anything else I want out of the way. I completely ignored it for two years! I can't believe I didn't take advantage of such a useful storage spot before now! I could hang all my useless junk up there and have a redneck porch...uh, maybe not.
I made this handy hook out of a mop handle. I got the idea from a Martha Stewart magazine. Can you believe that! Martha Stewart and I think alike! (No, really. You can quit laughing now.)



It just hangs up there out of the way until I need it.

I bet you thought the snow had killed me off, didn't you? It almost did!

Comfrey

We grow our very own fertilizer - comfrey! It is easy to grow and spreads rapidly but we consider this a good thing. We use quite a lot of it on the garden throughout the summer!


Comfrey has a very deep tap root that collects nitrogen and other minerals from deep in the soil and stores them. When it is cut, it releases these things back into the soil. It makes a nurishing mulch for the garden! It also makes a healthy feed for fowl and farm animals!



I cut a couple of wheelbarrows full yesterday and mulched all the vegetables with it. It's quickly and easily done with a hack saw. I didn't strip the leaves off the stems, just laid the whole things on the ground around the plants.