HERBS 103: Harvesting, Preserving & Overwintering Workshop Report

by Carol Kagan, Penn State Master Gardener, Franklin County

Although it was a crisp autumn start at this October 18 workshop, 17 attendees and 7 (yes, 7) Master Gardeners had a fun and informative (according to the evaluations) session.

At their seats attendees found peppermint cuttings that Jerry Lewis brought in.

Carol Kagan talked about air drying herbs and Trey Gelbach showed his dehydrator, putting in some herbs which he brought out near the end of the morning to demonstrate how quickly and thoroughly they dried. Barb Petrucci passed around samples of roses and other flowers she either air dried or dried with a desiccant. The difference in the colors and shapes were evident.

Barb, Jerry, Trey and Sue McMorris led the group over to the herb garden with baskets and shears where attendees were able to harvest a variety of herbs and flowers to take home. Popular take-aways were lavender and gomphrena.

Jean Schlecht and Maria Giles set out the refreshments and Maria put materials at each seat for a hands-on activity to prepare herbs to dry in the refrigerator.

When everyone returned from the gardens, refreshments were served and the hot mulled cider was popular. In addition there was cold cider, lemon-grass infused water, Apple Sage cake and Lavender Tea Biscuits (recipes below), as well as Trey's homemade dip of smoked jalapeno with homemade crostini and Sue's dill dip with chips.

Sue shared more methods of drying herbs including freezing and screen drying and reviewed the best way to preserve a variety of culinary herbs for later use.

Maria went over preserving herbs by drying in the refrigerator and had everyone folding up their thyme into neat little envelopes.

Trey, self-proclaimed "chili-head," showed off a variety of home-grown peppers, some of which were air dried and some smoked, passing these around along with some of the chili powders he made from them. Here he pulled some of the herbs from the dehydrator to show how fast they dried.

Carol reviewed the three methods to overwinter herbs: Protect outdoor perennials, bring plants inside, and create an indoor garden from seed, plant division or rooting cuttings. She also demonstrated pruning a winter savory (or perhaps a thyme plant, as there was a bit of pleasant dissent among the Master Gardeners as to which it was) and tips for rooting.

Along the way our students asked many good questions and among the seven Master Gardeners answers were found and sometimes explanations and cautions mentioned. Some of the participants attended all three of this year's Herb Series and received "Herb Enthusiast" certificates.

The session ended as Jerry shared some of his tips, especially about seed saving, and Jean Schlecht distributed the parsley and honey-melon sage she brought to share.


Honey melon sage (Salvia)

As per request, here are the two recipes for refreshments served at the workshop.

Lavender Tea Biscuits (Makes 6 doz. little 1” biscuits)

Ingredients

½ C. softened butter (1 stick)

½ C. sugar

1 egg

1 C. self-rising flour

1  ½ Tbsps. lavender buds

Preheat the oven to 350° F.

Cream the butter, sugar and egg. Add flour and lavender buds and mix well. Wrap and roll the mixture into 1" tubes (about 4 or 5 tubes) and refrigerate for 1 hour. *

Spray a mini-muffin tin with non-stick spray. Spoon marble-size (small) pieces of dough into each cup. Gently press with a wooden pestle dipped into water or sugar or use the back of a small spoon.

Bake 10-12 minutes. Remove while warm.

* Alternately you can freeze the tubes of mixture to use later. Cut 1/4" or smaller slices from the tube and place on a parchment covered baking sheet. Bake 10-12 minutes.

Apple Sage Cake (9”x13” pan)

Ingredients

3 large eggs, room temperature

1 ½ C. sugar

¾ C. vegetable oil

1/ ½ C. all-purpose flour

1 ½ tsp. baking soda

1 tsp. salt

3 C. Granny Smith apples, peeled and shredded (about 3 apples)

½ C. fresh sage leaves, minced fine

Preheat the oven to 375° F.

Butter a 9”x13” baking pan and line it with parchment paper.

In a large bowl, whisk together the eggs, sugar and oil. Add in flour, baking soda and salt. Mix until well combined. Stir in apples and sage and mix well.

Pour into baking pan, releasing the air bubbles. Bake approximately 30 minutes, until the cake tester inserted in the middle comes out clean.

Let cool and serve as a cake or cut into small bites.

Snip Your Herbs: Use or Save for Winter

by Carol Kagan, Master Gardener



My Herb Garden July 2014

Another nice morning to work in the garden although at 7:30 am it was already a bit muggy.

Some C'munks in the Back Yard

Dale is alternating between munching on bird seed and raisins and chasing some other chipmunk around and out of the garden. I'm not quick enough with the camera to catch them running in and out of the petunias, daisies and herbs.

There seems to be a few new c'munks this year, hanging out in the back yard. Maybe they're scooting around front to munch on birdseed. We'll have to throw some out back, too.

 

The weather has been kind to the plants in my yard, providing just enough rain and warm weather. The herb bed, moved this year from the back raised bed due to black walnut contamination, is thriving.

Garden Sage

 The garden sage needed pruning so I took the opportunity to document what has become known as Maria's Drying Technique (after MG Maria G.). This is in preparation for the October 18 MG Workshop: Herbs 103: Harvesting, Preserving and Overwintering Herbs. *

Here's my first try at documenting this. The big picture is that the herbs, after washing and drying thoroughly, are wrapped in a paper towel and dried in the crisper or butter compartment of your refrigerator. This won't work with all that basil. Make pesto and freeze it.

After 2-3 weeks, the dried herbs can be removed and stored. The herbs dried with this method retain their color and do not turn that funky gray-brown like many of the air dried herbs.

Wash, dry thoroughly (Tip: Use a salad spinner to get most of the water off.), and carefully remove leaves from the stems. Place in a paper towel and fold up to a triangle. Fold the flaps in toward the center.

Fold the top triangle down past the bottom fold. Wrap the flap around to the back and tuck it in to form an envelope.

Close-up of the folded envelope

* Penn State Master Gardeners, Franklin County hold workshops all year. To register for a workshop, to get on the e-mailing or snail-mailing for information about workshops and events, call 717- 263-9226.

 

Here's a few of the upcoming workshops held at the Franklin County Ag Center, 181 Franklin Farm Rd. unless noted otherwise.

Sat, July 12:  Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head: 9-11 -Learn how to use rain barrels to store and use water in your garden. Make a rain barrel ($40) or just sit-in ($10) Deadline to register to make a rain barrel is July

Sat, August 2:  Succulents: 9-11 Learn how to grow and propagate these beautiful and nearly indestructible plants

Fun Events include

Sat, Aug 23: Tomato Tasting Day: 10-2pm Day change by popular demand!    Moved to Saturday- Open to the public. Free parking. Save the Date. Do blind taste tests of over 20 tomato varieties. Taste and vote in the Salsa Contest. See the winners of the ugliest tomato and the biggest tomato contest. Pick up some great tomato recipes. See and feed the ducks in the stream. Enjoy talking with Master Gardeners.

Sat, July 26 Summer Garden Experience: 9-1 pm -Tour the center, do tomato tasting which includes paste tomatoes this year, enjoy seminars; Speaker-Stephanie Cohen, Perennial Diva $10/carload– Located at 1446 Auction Rd Manheim, PA 17545



Loading the Larder 2 - Onions, Winter Squash, and Sweet Potatoes

Onions, Garlic, and Glad

I brought the onions in from the garage last weekend, and cleaned them up today for winter storage.  White Glad picked just before the storm.




Onions from Barn









Here's how they looked before clean up.

Sweet Potatoes, Egyptian Walking, and Multiplier Onions

Butternut and one Spaghetti Squash

I planted the 2013 crop of garlic, Egyptian Walking and Multiplier Onions this weekend.

Larder loaded and a bunch of fall chores done.  Feeling good.

Loading the Larder 1 - Pickled Peppers

Colored Bell, Fish, Hinkel Hatz, Zavory, Black Pearl
 Red Habanero Peppers

I took advantage of the time the storm provided holed up at home to put up some peppers, and get some end of season chores done. 

Steve Bogash brought the bell peppers from the High Tunnel Colored Pepper Trials at Landisville to share with us late last week.  The green one is from my garden, picked just before the storm hit.

Here's the process.

Prepped Peppers Soaking in Salt Solution

Checking the Recipe (Cross Checked for Safety)

Accoutrements

Additional Ingredients - Hardneck Garden Garlic

Garlic Peeled and Prepped



Non-Reactive Pan for Heating Vinegar/Salt Solution



Water Bath Cannner

Pickled Peppers in Pantry

Voila!

Victory Garden 2012 Log - August 20th

1944 WW II Victory Garden Poster

"Waste not want not" is a philosophy ingrained in me by my grandmother, so preserving what we grow is an important part of any vegetable garden learning experience.  We have to do it safely, though.






The National Center for Food Safety at the University of Georgia is the go to site for information about preserving fresh produce safely.

Their book, So Easy to Preserve, along with the Ball Blue Book of Canning and the USDA Complete Guide to Home Canning are reputable sources for tested, up-to-date procedures and recipes.

The Penn State Extension Food Safety Blog also has timely posts and tested recipes on the subject, as do other Land Grant University sites.

Lots of research and testing has gone into updating the procedures for water bath and pressure canning since the mid 1990's, so it's important to follow the newer research-based methods.  Many older recipes and mechanisms were determined to be unsafe during the research.

If you are determined to can your grandmother’s recipe and you want do so safely, you might contact Martin Lo at ymlo@umd.edu - He’s a food science professor at the University of Maryland who operates a private laboratory that can test your recipe for a fee.

In the meantime, here are two fact sheets describing the pathogen Clostridium botulinum, the organism that can cause Botulism from the University of Nebraska Lincoln and Colorado State University.

Back in the garden, we harvested Basil.

Celery.

Swiss Chard

Beans

Tomatoes (Principe Borghese - the original Sun Dried Tomato)

"Shopping"

Harriet heads home with her harvest!

2012 Tomato (and other stuff) Harvest

 I started picking tomatoes in earnest this week. Enjoy the pictures.

Pole beans producing well.

Seed saving for 2013 season underway.

New variety - Indigo Rose - a true purple color high in anthocyanins.  The fruit needs to be exposed to the sunlight to get the deep bluish purple color.  Bred by Oregon State University.

Fresh herbs for spaghetti sauce.

Wound up with 6 quarts for the freezer.

Jason hunted some mushrooms that were added.  These are corrugated milky cap mushrooms Lactarius corrugis.

Tamarillo Jam

Awaiting Harvest

When I researched Tamarillo, or Tree Tomato (Cyphomandra betacea) for this post, and later, to put a fact sheet together for the plant sale, when I started about 16 plants from seed, I came across this simple recipe for Tamarillo jam, and made a mental note to try it the next time I had enough fruit to harvest.



Ready to Pick

Washed and Ready to be Peeled

The recipe calls for 3/4 cup sugar, and 1 teaspoon lemon juice, for every cup of peeled and chopped fruit. Peeling was easy enough, using the same process as is used to peel the skins of tomatoes or peaches - drop them in boiling water for a minute or so, move to an ice bath, then peel off the skin.

Pulp Strained with Sugar Added

I then cooked them down with an apple to add some natural pectins, strained it through a foley mill, added the sugar and cooked for 50 minutes or so, until it gelled.

Six 1/2 Pints for the Pantry^

Pretty good results.  I plan to offer it, along with the black raspberry and strawberry jams I made when I serve breakfast for guests at the B&B. I expect it to be a conversation starter, as well.

We Need Homes

I have 5 left from the ones that didn't sell at the plant sale and garden tour.

Enjoying the Leftovers

The birds enjoyed the seeds and stuff that I emptied from the foley mill.