New post at GCHS blog

http://geneseecountyherbsociety.blogspot.com/2010/03/march-meeting_14.html

link to GCHS blog

For those interested in the Genesee County Herb Society, I posted some memorabilia over at the GCHS blog (link) yesterday.

Last night at GC Herb Society

We had a good meeting, as usual, and the weather wasn't too bad for nighttime driving. Some of these women have been steady and reliable members for over 20 years, braving whatever weather Mom Nature throws at us, to get to the meetings. We're all volunteers here, in our love of herbs as our common purpose and in our friendships with each other. No one gets a paycheck for showing up - we just do it. Like in that old Nike commercial.

Our discussion ran, as we were talking 'business' about our upcoming Symposium, to the subject of raising the ticket price. Frankly, we live in an area, mid-Michigan (specifically Genesee County) that has seen the worst of the recession and the heart of our county, Flint, has been in a slow moving economic Hurricane Katrina for the past thirty years. The statistics tell that over thirty years Flint has lost as many percent of residents to the changing of the economy from an industrial base to a information/technical/financial base as NOLA lost to a single weather event.
Only when it happens quickly, people run to your aid.
Flint is the original bootstraps city, only our grit and determination keep us fighting the good fight. There are neighborhoods of wealth nearby, but we are all affected by the plight of our neighbors, and respond in our unique ways, "pressing on, regardless."

We have decided one more time to keep our ticket prices steady, and of course, as a non-profit organization, our profits will be used to help and educate others in our community as is outlined in our bylaws. I must say, I'm proud of our herb women.

Craft: Firestarters for the depth of winter

November was so busy (wasn't it?) I'm only finally getting a chance to catch up now ... so today I want to shed a little light on a simple craft that I contributed to a craft sale/open house that the Herb Society participates in every fall at our local historical tourist attraction, Crossroads Village.

Marketed to deer widows, Ladies' Night Out is a lot of fun - the weather is a factor, but by early November the lovely Christmas lights are up at the Village, and women who attend get a preview showing, as well as all the other goodies the Village marketers and supporting organizations brew up. The Herb Society last year ran out of our complementary make-it-and-take-it heat sealed tea bags filled with lavender, and this year, we ran out of bags for our fill-your-own potpourri bags. The event gets bigger every year! and selling our crafts and baked goods helps fill our 'ways and means' coffer to spend on our programs and projects.

That said, my friend Ulrike gave me a bag of pine cones when she was clearing out her excess craft stores last summer, so I Googled around and found some recipes for good old fashioned waxed pine cone fire-starters, like the ones we made in Girl Scouts when I was a kid. This is what I came up with:


Craft Recipe: Waxed Pine Cone Fire Starters

In a double boiler, or better yet, in a Pyrex measuring cup placed in hot water in a controlled heating pot such as my dedicated former Fry Daddy, melt old candle stubs and/or canning paraffin until just liquified. Fish out the old candle wicks and discard them.
(Let me mention, melted wax is dangerous, flammable. Watch it carefully and keep the temp low - just enough to melt your wax.)

Place candy or mini-muffin sized paper cupcake liners in a mini-muffin pan. Smoosh a wad of cotton dryer lint in each cup. Carefully fill each lint/liner with some melted paraffin and set aside to dry.
Meanwhile, wrap a length of candle wicking around the bottom of each pine cone, leaving a bit to light sticking out. Dip these pine cones in the melted wax, using a tongs. While still soft, place each dipped pine cone in turn on it's own wax and lint-filled cupcake liner to dry. The melted wax dripping from the pine cones will stick the cones to the lint.

When thoroughly dry, take the whole waxed cone/lint/paper with the tongs, and dip the whole thing again in colored, scented wax. For the second, colored, dipping, I used old red, then green, candle stubs from Christmases Past. (To add depth of color, add some peeled Crayola crayons.) For a Christmas-y scent, I added a swig of cinnamon oil (find it in the candy/frosting making aisle) to the red wax, and peppermint oil to the green wax.
Allow to dry thoroughly in the mini-muffin cups. Voila!



Package for gift giving by filling the bottom of clean recycled baskets (re-gifted, thrifted, or garage sale rejects) with holiday tissue paper. Arrange the fire starters in a single layer. Add a bow or some greenery - they can be dressed quite prettily. They cost practically nothing to make, except your time.


Finally, I printed "Use and Safety" inserts to package in each basket, (you always hope that people act like adults around fire. But You Never Know!) Here is the text:

Caution: These are fire starters, NOT candles! They burn hot -with a flame- for about 20 minutes.
Use ONLY for starting fires in fireplaces and fire pits.
Expect about 2 Tablespoons (1/8th cup) of wax to melt from them, so plan accordingly. If using in a fireplace, place on a small fireproof pan to protect your firebrick from melted wax.

To use: Lay one starter on its side with the wick underneath. Light wick and edges of paper liner.
Add tinder or fatwood, larger sticks, then larger wood and logs in sequence.
Always use safety precautions around fires.
Never leave fire unattended.
Douse ashes completely when finished.

Note: Anxiety ridden mother that I am, I did a test run on the patio, so I could write with authority on the safety and use concerns ...

making cement leaves with friends

The ladies of the Genesee County Herb Society met in Joyce's garage for our meeting. Joyce and Diane taught us how to make cement leaves! We also took a tour of Joyce's beautiful gardens and home and shared a salad supper. A thoroughly enjoyable evening.
I took photos of the process so I could recall how to make more, but you would have really enjoyed photos of Joyce's home and garden, OMG! But somehow I would have felt strange blogging about someone else's stuff, maybe a little intrusive with the camera. I wouldn't make a good paparazzi.








We took our mud pies home to let them dry for 24 hours before finishing them, and here is what I ended up with:

Why are volunteer gardeners always exhausted in the spring?

Not gardening ... no, Meetings and Classes and Committees and Events...

Now that the Genesee County Herb Society's 2008 Spring Herb Symposium is history, I should give a few impressions. I'd first like to report that we did make money to support our projects, and we did successfully fulfill our stated mission of educating the public about herbs. The comments on the evaluations and other feedback have been very gratifying. I was too busy to get many photos, but I have a few.



Our speaker, Donna Frawley is a personable and knowledgeable lady, and she gave us a fine day of educational entertainment. Her first talk, our keynote presentation, was about Cooking With Herbs, and it was one of those fast paced, multi-dish shows like you see on a cooking show.

She prepared a multitude of dishes all made with herbs, and the samples were delish! Nothing says comfort food to me like a homemade minestrone soup, and Donna supplied the guests with all of the recipes so we wouldn't get lost in the rapid preparation.
After our workshops and lunch, Donna was back with Herbal Breads, again with recipes and samples. I hope no one was on a diet!



Donna was a home economist and professional baker so she had some good stories to tell while she did her demonstrations. She is on the board of the International Herb Association and she has owned a home based business, Frawley's Fine Herbary, for 25 years specializing in herbal blends and other herb related foods, and published her own cookbooks and now has a dvd.

I sat next to Donna at lunch and she told me she has been writing a column for the Midland Daily newspaper for several years, now. So I looked it up to post a link here.

The entry plant sales by His and Herbs of Montrose.


I'd write about my workshop, "Dry Herbal Seasonings - Better Than Store Bought" but I'm giving the same presentation to the Herb Society in a few months and I wouldn't want them to read it all here. My class was very enthusiastic to say the least, and we may have some prospective members show up for the May meeting!

I should say a few words about the Genesee County Herb Society Spring Symposium

A week from tomorrow the Genesee County Herb Society will have our biannual Herb Symposium, "Cooking with WHAT? Herbs!" We still have a few tickets left, so I'll tell you about what to expect in case you are nearby and would like to attend.

Our guest speaker will be Donna Frawley of Frawley's Fine Herbary based in Midland, Michigan, who will give two presentations and who will during the day be selling a variety of her herbal products.

Donna's keynote talk, in the morning will be "Cooking with Herbs" and her shorter afternoon presentation will be "Herbal Breads."
I've personally been to one of her presentations for the local District meeting of the Federated Garden Clubs and she does a great presentation, complete with demonstrations while she talks and yummy samples. Donna sells herbal culinary mixes has authored cookbooks and now has gone high tech with videos.

When you come in the door you'll be given your name tag and a goody bag and be directed to find a seat at one of the beautifully decorated tables in the auditorium, but before the day starts you can shop at our marketplace and preview the silent auction. We have added a plant vendor from one of the local nurseries, 'His and Herbs', this year and asked to have a good supply of culinary herbs to coordinate with the theme of our program. The GCHS is a non-profit organization and our biannual Symposium is one of our major fund-raisers to support our educational programs so we encourage you to shop til you drop.

However, if you need sustenance we have one of the best morning tea buffets, homemade sweet and savory treats provided by our membership ... so before the program begins you should take time to choose a plate of goodies and a nice cuppa tea and get settled. By the way, the centerpieces will be offered for sale in the silent auction, so choose your favorite! Take a moment too, to look around at the springtime decorations and herbal educational display.

After a few official remarks and the Keynote talk by our speaker, we will break out into your choice of one of seven workshops that our members will be teaching.

The make-and-take classes this year are:
Dried Herbal Seasonings - Better Than Store-Bought (with recipe booklet)
Herbal Tea in a Decorated Jar (with recipe booklet)
Place Cards for your Tea Table
Post-It Note Holder Made with Pressed Flowers
Holiday Table Favors - 12 designs, make 3!
Herbal Meals in a Jar
Using Herbs for Medicinal Purposes and Cosmetics

A delicious Luncheon follows, and then we will enjoy a second presentation by our guest speaker. Donna has told me she'll have a bread machine going, to add the fragrance of her herbal bread to the air while we enjoy her talk.

At the end of the day, don't leave before picking up your auction purchases, and have a safe drive home!

Green Thumb Sunday - tender lavender blooming in the window

Gardeners, Plant and Nature Lovers can join in every Sunday, visit As the Garden Grows .

The first time I participated in a volunteer project at Crossroads Village with the Genesee County Herb Society, a pleasant, knowledgeable woman gave me a fragrant tussie mussie of fresh herbs she had just made as a demonstration for the visitors. I knew then these were the kind of people I wanted to be around. Milli is still one of our stalwart members, and I'm getting to be an old hand.

I took the little bouquet home and took it apart - and rooted the tender lavender in a small pot. That little variegated feather lavender (I know, common names drive me crazy too but I'm not looking it up) grew for me for years until I let it get root- bound and baked one summer on the patio.

My take home point here, however, is that tender lavenders in pots are some of the easiest and most rewarding herbs to grow. They grow easily from cuttings in plain old potting mix, and will grow without artificial light if you can put them in a south window, and remember to water before the tips droop too awfully much.

The felty gray-leaved variety here has been neglected in this pot for years, and the small blooming stems are a reminder that I should do something for goodness sake. This year, little lavender, I promise some fresh soil, but let's wait until spring...


You can see in this third photo, how I'm doubling up my indoors-square-foot gardening-in-front-of-the-window scheme by stacking the smaller Dutch lavender on top of the soil in the French lavender's pot,in a space left bare by some heavy pruning back done last year on the French lavender. A curry plant is also having a good winter right there in its front row seat.
Waiting for spring...

Holiday Spirit, part 2

If you missed the Ladies Night Out evening at Crossroads Village on Monday, you oughta plan to do it next year!
The Master Gardeners had a spectacular table that I know they worked on for weeks, and there was a community project having to do with making afgans, but I'm really not crafty. I did, however sign a strip of the quilt the ladies of the Village will be piecing together to show next year. I wrote Merry Christmas & Peace on Earth and signed the names of all of my girls - hopefully next year we can all see it together.

I had a nice chat with a lady who raised alpacas - she spins their fiber and had felted some very nice bags and hats and things. There was plenty to look at and sample in the Village - food, decorations, music, and the weather was still not so darn cold that we couldn't spend time walking around and drinking it all in. I want to thank Milli (even though, yes I know, she doesn't use computers and won't be reading this) for a nice walk around the Village - I'm keeping her in my thoughts.

Back in the Warehouse, the ladies of the GCHS did our part, with a couple of complementary "make and take" projects for the visitors: lavender buds in a bit of tuille, tied with ribbon for drawer sachets, and bath tea bags: scented epsom salts in heat-sealable teabags. So many of the guests had questions about herbs and the Herb Society, it made a good outreach event for our group.

I did have enough sense to bring my camera at the last minute, and even with the low lighting in the Eldridge house, got a few photos to share with you. Our dear old Eldridge House looks pretty good, doesn't it, like something out of another, simpler time...

Getting in the spirit

I had a great day Saturday at Crossroads Village, working with the ladies of the Genesee County Herb Society. While one team worked in the Eldridge House, decorating that mid-1880's family home for the Christmas season with historically appropriate, natural and mostly herbal decorations; ourdoors we gardeners cleaned and put to bed the culinary herb garden, the fragrance and cutting garden, and the doctor's medicinal garden at the Doctor's office next door.
There's Norma, our president.
The kitchen smells like cinnamon and herbs when you walk in from the cold.


(Hi Milli, Sharon and Joanne!)
Here's the doctor's office, from the backyard:

And the doctor's garden (there's Diane):

I must say, Michigan can have some glorious, memorable autumn days.

(A note to the ladies of the Genesee County Herb Society: if you'd like to see more photos of our doings, double click on the orange Flickr badge on the right side of the screen... for the 'friends only' viewing permission to see more GCHS photos, write to me and I'll pop an invite in the e-mail.)

Eat Your Thistles

The herb study for last night's meeting of the Genesee County Herb Society was "thistles", so for the refreshment table I brought a tasty "Hot Thistle Dip" to go with snack crackers, carrot sticks and little toasts.
Actually the recipe has been around for a long time: I just changed the name. You probably would recognise it if I said "Hot Artichoke Dip". The platter was cleaned, and the recipe requested, so here it is...
It's quick and EASY, and you can keep the ingredients handy, but I wouldn't serve it to the family all the time if I was worried about cholesterol. I just wanted to try it because it was a catchy little hook to teach about the lowly weed that symbolizes nobility, the thistle.

HOT ARTICHOKE DIP

1 container shredded-style Parmesan cheese

1 small jar Hellman's mayonaise

1 12-ounce jar marinated artichoke hearts, drained and chopped

2 cloves garlic, crushed

about 1 Tablespoon finely chopped red sweet pepper

(optional: 1 teaspoon dillweed)

Combine the ingredients in a bowl, pile into a pie plate. Bake at 400 degrees for 10-15 minutes, until the cheese melts and warms through. Serve warm.

If you follow the link above, you'll see that Wikipedia has a quite well done page concerning thistles, which are members of the aster/daisy/sunflower family, Asteraceae (which we used to call Compositae), with links to the many interesting thistly genera within the family.
The delicious Globe Artichoke that we ate last night is Cynara scolymus, and if, as a herbalist you've ever grown a cardoon, blessed, or Scottish thistle, you'd see the family resemblance.

The Cardoon has a breath-taking blossom:

I've grown seed-sown Centaurias and Centranthuses in my borders for their pretty cerulean blue and butter yellow flowers.

Centauria montana

Centranthus somethinorotherus

One year in the last century I grew from seed Our Lady's Milk Thistle which had the most attractive deep green glossy leaves with white streaking which was said to resemble Mary's maternal milk. (I will try to find a photo to post.)
But my most memorable intentionally grown thistle was the noble Scottish Thistle, Onopordum acanthium.


It began as a beautiful and large, felty grayish white rosette which made quite a lovely and unusual statement. In it's second year it became a ten-foot tall object of wonder, however, and gave me to understand that I had to get a handle, so to speak, on my love of unusual plants. Don't laugh, you've been there, gardeners. Maybe not as far down the rabbit hole as I was, but you've been there if you're a gardener.
So here it is.
Don't laugh.
Honestly, it just kept growing! After a while I just wanted to see what it would do!


Thank goodness the noble and TALL Scottish Thistle is a biennial.

On reflection my year of the Scottish Thistle was a good memory, and I liked to read this bit about the plant on Wikipedia:

"The thistle, in particular Onopordum acanthium (the cotton thistle or Scotch thistle), is the national flower of Scotland, and is featured in many Scottish symbols and logos. Legend has it that a Viking attacker stepped on one at night and cried out, so alerting the defenders of a Scottish castle. Nowadays many football clubs in Scotland use Thistle in their name, to give themselves both a patriotic and fierce perception by others."

and: "In the Language of Flowers, the thistle (like the burr) is an ancient Celtic symbol of nobility of character as well as of birth: for the wounding or provocation of a thistle yields punishment. The thistle was subsumed as a device of The Most Ancient and Most Noble Order of the Thistle and is a national symbol of Scotland."

A characteristic of these lowly but noble weeds is their seeds' longevity. It is said a viable thistle seed can live submerged in the soil for decades before it decides with Nature's indecipherable wisdom, that it is time to begin again. Something to think about.

Beautiful Veggies and Flikr Updates

Theresa just posted some cool pics (link) of the Home Street Demo Veggie Garden over on her blog. I must say, 'the beautiful veggie garden' is really producing vegetables... difficult weather, late start, and Doubting Thomases (me) aside!
The seminar we presented to meet with the neighbors and showcase the garden to the Land Bank worked out great! Next year will be even better :) Congratulations and "a job well done" to Theresa, Phil, Mel, Sharron, Helen and Erin and Thanks to our sponsors, Keep Genesee County Beautiful, the Genesee County Land Bank and the Applewood Gardening Initiative.

Also, I'm going to add my gardening project photos to one general gardening "set" on my free Flikr account, but it'll take time and I can only add a certain amount per month (unless I upgrade to the paid account.) For you to look at the pictures in my Flikr set you need to double click on any of the flikerin' the photos right there IN the tag, right.
When you link to the Flikr page, there should be a "set" called Herb Sampler that you can click through with the arrows, or view as a slide show. If you'd like to see a nice larger picture of any photo you see, click on it from the set. Pretty easy. I've also added some pretty pics of one of the Genesee County Herb Society's continuing herb garden project - the Doctor's Herb Garden at Crossroads Village. More to come!

Stinging Nettles and the GCHS Brush with Fame

I was surfing the 'net this morning and came across
this cute article about a (Stinging) Nettles Day
celebration in Devon England:

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2007/05/national_be_nic.php

In the story was a link to this very nicely done page
that you could call an "on-line herb study" of nettles:

http://www.nettles.org.uk/

It ALMOST makes me wish I had a boatload of nettles
growing in my yard, but... maybe that statement IS
going a bit too far. I had a minor brush with a stinging
nettle (I immediately understood what it was) while
weeding a few years back.
While doing my usual bare-handed weed-pulling I
naively grabbed a single nettle plant and
I still recall the instant recognition of something I'd
only, until that moment, read about in books.
The seed had probably been brought in with a bag of
composted manure since the plant is not common in
my immediate neighborhood.
After reading these websites on the nettle I'm suddenly
interested in nettles, one sign of a true herbie.
I could probably put out the word and find a
gardening friend who would be willing to part with
some nettles... probably if I did her weeding.

You say nettles don't float your boat? and what did the
title of this message mean, the Genesee County Herb
Society's mysterious "brush with fame"?
Well, a few days ago on another surfing expedition,
I ran across a cooking blogger who listed
"the ten strangest cookbooks on his cookbook shelf",
and our GCHS "Herbal Favorites" was number 8!

The writer of
LunaPierCook (link) explained our selection:
it was the Nettle Soup recipe (as well as the highly
herbed Lavender Ice Cream recipe) that did
us in. But at least for a strange cookbook list, we
were in good company, along with Dixie Dave and Anthony Bourdain.

Back!

Dropped off the face of the earth... no e-mail for three days, and too much to do.
But I'm back: all it took was a bribe of a nice Italian dinner to get the computer guy over to do his voodoo magic on my "settings" which *somehow* got out of whack.
But Thanks, Tony!
Good grief, if I could only read fast enough over his shoulder to figure out what he did to restore my connection.
I should take a class.

Speaking of classes, I brought this quick Lemon Tea Bread last week for my class to sample. The recipe is one of favorites of the ladies of the Genesee County Herb Society, and can be found in our book, "Herbal Favorites."

Lemon Tea Bread
Yield: one loaf

3/4 cup milk
1 Tbsp. finely chopped fresh lemon balm
1 Tbsp. finely chopped fresh lemon verbena
1 Tbsp. fresh lemon thyme leaves
2 cups flour
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt
6 Tbsp. butter, room temperature
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 Tbsp. fresh grated lemon peel

Juice of two lemons
Confectioners sugar

Method:
Preheat oven to 325 degrees.
Grease a loaf pan or 3 small loaf pans.
Heat milk, stir in herbs, let steep 15 minutes until cooled.
Mix flour, baking powder and salt. Set aside.
In mixer bowl, cream butter and sugar until light. Beat in eggs, one at a time. Stir in lemon peel.
Add flour mixture to creamed mixture, stirring, alternately with herbed milk. Do not over stir. Pour into pan, and bake for 50-60 minutes.
While loaf is baking, combine lemon juice and confectioners’ sugar to form soft pourable paste.
While baked loaf is still hot, poke holes in top with skewer. Pour glaze over hot loaf and allow to cool.
Remove from pan, place on decorative plate. Here is where some sprigs of fresh herbs, preferably lemon-flavored, would make a lovely garnish. Slice to serve.

Bonnie's Purple Coneflower

Bonnie sent me this today, and it reminded me to post some of my own Echinacea photos. I'm slow. I'll get to it.
Note for Herb society gals, I also added it to the Echinacea Herb Study photo album in the Yahoo Group.

For GCHS members...

I started and will moderate a (GCHS members only) Yahoo Group for the Genesee County Herb Society. You are invited to join if you have paid your 2007 GCHS dues to Ulrike. Welcome!
(FYI: You'll need an account with Yahoo, but it's EASY, and FREE to sign up. You just make up a "screen name" and a private password)





Click here to join gcherbs