Drying Mania Begins

It happens every year.  In June the garden goes crazy with sap surging and shoots shooting and bees buzzing and everything blooming and smelling heavenly.  And I want to bring all that glory into the house and hold on to it.  Not very Zen of me, I know. 

I gather armfuls of mints and artemisia and chamomile, basketfuls of roses, buckets of thyme and oregano.  I pick lavender until my back gives out.  The things with stems I tie in bunches and hang from the curtain rods in the dining room and living room--I think my  herbs perfuming the air as we pass by make a far more
interesting "window treatment" than some boring curtain.  The rose petals and the thyme I dry on basketweave trays on the dining room table.  When a storm is threatening, as it did  today, the scent of roses fills the room.  After the herbs dry, I strip the leaves and flowers from the stems, and store them in glass jars that I line up proudly on the dry sink in the kitchen.  And there they sit until next summer. 

But while I pick my herbs, I have all kinds of plans for them--potpourris, sachets, sleep pillows, cordials, liqueurs, colognes.  Unfortunately, I only manage to bring a couple of these into fruition.  In the summer and early fall, I'm too busy gardening and harvesting and preserving vegetables, and by the time that is over, it's Thanksgiving, and next thing I know Christmas is upon us and it's too late to start the potpourris and liqueurs, which need weeks to "ripen," to give as gifts.

As I write, I must have six or seven jars full of last year's mint, chamomile, and lavender.  And yet this morning, before the storms broke, I ran out and gathered lavender (trying to keep out of the bees' way), bergamot and chamomile, and hung them up in bunches from the curtain rod on the front door.

It gives me a thrilling kind of medieval herbalist feeling, to see those bunches hanging inside the house, and I practically salivate thinking of all the things I can do with them.  The bergamot will look sensational in a glass potpourri jar, and I just found a recipe on the internet for chamomile wine (it's more like chamomile-flavored wine, since the recipe starts with a bottle of white wine).  And the roses this year are so fabulous that I'm thinking of sending off for some perfumer's alcohol so I can make my own rose cologne....

The Herbs And I

Just about my favorite thing to do around here is to go out early with my basket and clippers and harvest herbs. Like me, that's when they're at their best, in the morning before the sun gets hot. In the spring, before they bloom.

I gather armfuls of mints from the garden—peppermint, apple mint, and dusky orange mint. Gentle Melissa—lemon balm—is taking over a shady corner under the lilac, and welcome to it. The oregano is big enough to cut. And the eight lavender plants I've put in next to the stone wall are coming into their own.

The rosemary bush stays in its pot because it will have to be brought indoors for the winter, but as long as I remember to water it, it rewards me with its pungent needles. The lemon/rose geraniums are also cloistered in pots because of their cold-fearing nature, but it doesn't seem to bother them. They are putting out dozens of little pink (the books say “insignificant') blooms.

This is chamomile time. The tiny daisy-like blossoms wait until the sun is fairly high in the sky to spread their white petals. I pick them by the cupful, savoring their apple scent. The semi-wild rosebushes growing against the back of the house are loaded with still-green buds. I won't let a single one go to waste.

Feeling like something out of a Botticelli painting, I bring the harvest inside. I tie the mints into bundles, label them, and suspend them from the dining room curtain rods, where they will get only gentle northern light. In case you're wondering if the curtains get in the way: the only curtains in our dining room are bunches of drying herbs.

The lavender I also make into small bundles, which hang inside our front door: again, northern light, no curtains, and a scented greeting for visitors. The rosemary, geraniums and chamomile dry on flat circular trays made of straw, on the dining room table. And the lemon balm dries in the electric dehydrator, because that is supposed to be best for it.

What in the world am I going to do with all this herbiage?
I have definite plans for every bit of it, these plans to be carried out at some future task-free time such as the 24 hours between putting the garden to bed in November and getting ready for Christmas.

The mints will be blended into soothing teas to relieve winter anxieties. They will also, together with dried orange peels and scented geraniums, form the base of many gifts of potpourri. The lemon balm will gladden many a heart when infused in vodka for schnapps. The rosemary and oregano will liven up the stews of everyone I know, not to mention my goats' milk cheeses.

The lavender will go into soap. The chamomile into an after-dinner digestif. And the rose petals...the rose petals will be transmuted according to a medieval recipe into necklace beads that, when warmed by the skin, release a heavenly scent.

Stay tuned.