Holiday Decorating with Pinecones

Recently Tina Sams, the editor of the Essential Herbal Magazine, was showing pictures of her chandelier decorated with pine cone ornaments.  I love pine cones as holiday decoration and have said on several occations that I want to decorate an entire tree with pine cones ornaments one year, but collecting only one or two a year, it will be sometime before I can fill an entire tree.

That got me to thinking.  I have made scented pine cones in the past and those are great ornaments.  How about making more brightly decorated pine cones?  Around my apartment complex are several different conifers giving a nice variety of cones.  I suspect you could try this too!

Collect cones from your yard.  It will get you outside for a walk and you can enjoy the season.  When you bring in the cones you must clean them.  Run them under cold running water and lay them out on a baking sheet covered with wax or parchment paper.  Place the tray in the oven at 250 degrees for 20 minutes.  This will open up the cones, remove excess sap, and kill any bugs or bacteria hiding inside.

Let them cool.  You will see re-crystalization of some of the sap which gives the cones a natural beauty, then get creative.

You can scent the cones with a mixture of ground spices (see this previous post) or you can decorate them for use in displays.  Here are a few suggestions for decorating pine cones.

1. Paint the tips of the pine cone wings. (Yes, that is what they are called!) With white poster paint paint just the tips of the wings to look like snow, then sprinkle with clear or white glitter or even granulated sugar for sparkle.
2. Spray the cones with clear acrylic or paint them with clear glue and tumble in a zip lock bag filled with colored glitter.  You can use one color at a time, like red, green, silver or gold on blend the glitter together for a combination effect.
3. Dot the cones with craft glue and press on colored sequins.
4. Wedge fun spices and herb twigs in between the wings, like juniper berries, allspice berries, star anise, broken cinnamon sticks, and cloves.  This is a rustic natural look that will also give off a scent.
5. Dip the cones in wax and use to decorate the mantle, then use them as fire starters for a Christmas night blaze.
6. For a crystal effect, paint on some clear glue then roll the cones in faceted or smooth glass seed beads.

Five ways to use Lavender in Your Home this fall

No other herb is quite so prized for its fragrance and beauty, or more evocative of romance than lavender.  The season for harvesting lavender has just passed and I have a number of screens full of dried buds.  

Lavender has a laundry list of good-for-you properties.  It is antiseptic, anti-bacterial, anti-fungal, anti-inflammatory, anti-convulsive, and anti-depressant. Lavender benefits stress, anxiety, exhaustion, irritability, headaches, migraines, insomnia, depression, colds, digestion, flatulence, upset stomach, liver and gallbladder problems, nervousness, and loss of appetite.  With this in mind, I glanced through just a few notes in my file drawer and came up with five great ways to put lavender to work for you.

Relaxing Lavender Bath
Make a strong infusion by adding a handful finely chopped lavender leaves and flowers to a cup of boiling water. Let it steep 10 minutes, strain and add to your bath.  Lavender will not only relax you with its scent but will reduce the stressful feelings with it essential components.

Drowsy Potpourri
Fill a bowl by your bedside with rose petals and dried lavender flowers. Add a drop or two of lavender essential oil. Finger the bowl before drifting to sleep.

Sleepy Sachets
Put lavender flowers and a few drops of essential oil in sachets to slip beneath pillow or inside the pillow case for a soothing release of scent if you wake or turn in the night. Or if you don’t have time pick up a few Lavender Sachets from the Backyard Patch to slip into Birthday cards and hostess gifts.

Lavender Moth BagsMix equal parts of the herbs from the following list. Place them inside muslin bags or if you are feeling especially crafty, sew squares of thin cotton or use heat seal tea bags to create sachets.  Lay them in with your blankets and towels or put them in between your clothes in the drawer.

Dried Herbs to use:

lavender flowers

lavender leaves

mint

rosemary

southernwood

santolina

marjoram

  

The Backyard Patch makes two different Moth Sachets as part of our Green Cleaning line and one has a recipe very similar to this one, using lavender to combat bugs in storage.

Lavender Room SprayAdd 5 drops lavender essential oil to 50 ml distilled water in an atomizer. You will need to shake the atomizer vigorously before each use. Do not make large quantities as the keeping time is relatively short.

Hope you enjoy this short list and remember to use your lavender for all the seasonal effects of shorter days and time changes.

Make a Herb Car Freshner

One of my favorite comments when someone climbs into my car is “Wow, it smells so good in here.”  I have to admit what they smell I do not because the scent of herbs is in my home and car and on my clothing so much that I have learned or been conditioned to ignore it.

But if you would like to get these types of comments, it is really simple to do.  My car smells like herbs because of the scents left behind when I transport my programs, lectures and show supplies, but you can make an herbal bundle to do the same thing without all the hard work of hauling the crates.

Bundle some fresh herbs, like lemon balm, lavender, mints, or scented geranium leaves and hang them in the car or lay them in the back window.  I love the smell of scented geraniums and I often cut small twigs of leaves and tie them together to hang from the rear view mirror or tuck into the side door pocket if my car starts to smell like garden mulch from hauling supplies out to the garden.

Try it, you will love this better than a pine-scented freshner any day!

Herb of the Week - Scented marigolds

The heat has not bothered the Scented marigolds, which makes them the perfect herb of the week!

Yesterday I got out to the garden for the first time since last week. and to my great surprise the border planting of scented marigolds has popped into bloom.  We've finally had some rain and not quite so scorching of heat.

Don't they look beautiful?  And with the back drop of my Lemon Basil they accent as a border.  My production garden does not always have the luxury of being "pretty," but yesterday it surely was!

The Tagetes family is a great selection of flavored marigolds that grow much better in zone 7 and above than they do here in zone 5, but I love to grow them as an annual.  (These are not your traditional French or African Marigolds - known as Tagetes patula.)

What I mean to speak about today are the scented (also called flavored) marigolds.  The flowers are small and the leaves and flowers are strongly scented and very tasty.  They fall into the category of edible flowers (which you can check out in a former blog post here.)

The marigolds I want to talk about have several names.  In zone ficve they grow wonderfully well as an annual and can be grown from seed.  Wehn you scatter them like I did they bloom in July, if you start them indoors they start blooming in June and they are a continuous bloomer that will decorate for the rest of the season.

 Here are the various scented varieties:

Tagetes lucida - The species Tagetes lucida, known as "pericón," is used to prepare a sweetish, anise flavored medicinal tea in Mexico. It is also used as a culinary herb in many warm climates, as a substitute for tarragon, and offered in the nursery as "Texas tarragon" or "Mexican mint marigold" (Tagetes erecta).

Tagetes minuta, native to southern South America is a tall upright marigold plant with small flowers, and is used as a culinary herb in Peru, Ecuador, and parts of Chile and Bolivia, where it is called by the Incan term huacatay. Huacatay paste is used to make the popular potato dish called ocopa. The taste and odor of fresh Tagetes minuta is like a mixture of sweet basil, tarragon, mint and citrus. It is also used as a medicinal tea in some areas.  I have never tied growing this one, but Lemon Verbena Lady has grown it.

I love the lemon and tangerine flavored the most.  I got hooked on them when I found the Lemon Gem at the Freinds of the Oak Park Conservatory herb sale my very first year.  I bought them there for over a decade before they stopped carrying them.  If you are a seed saver, marigold seed is easy to colelcted and save so you can repeat the crop year after year.

Tagetes Lemmonii



Tagetes tenuifolia - lemon gem



Tagetes lemmonii  leaves are truly lemon scented. I like to put them on the border becasue when you brush past, you release the scent. Even a slight breeze will bring the scent wafting into my apartment from the potted ones on the patio.

Tagetes tenuifolia - Comes in two varieities, Lemon Gem marigold producing lemon-yellow flower heads and its sister Tangerine Gem with that hint of orange scent and pinkish orange flowers. Both are a natural insect repellant for herb and vegetable gardens. There are bushy dwarf marigolds that look great in a rock garden or in a border. Blooms are incredibly profuse on low-growing mounds of scented foliage. The petite, single blossoms of lemon and tangerine taste as good at the name suggests!

According to some I have read these plants can grow to 4 to 5 feet in perfect conditions in Arizona and TX, but here in the north they stay closer to 6 to 10 inchs making them perfect for borders and pots.



Here are both Lemon Gem and Tangarine Gem at the Chicago Botanic Garden



To Grow

T. tenuifolia, which has 8-inch mounds of lacy, citrus-scented leaves and ½-inch red, orange, or yellow single flowers need only warmth to grow quickly. Sow seed indoors a few weeks before the last frost or direct-seed when the soil is warm. Give them full sun in average soil and moisture for best results, but don’t worry if the soil is poor or dry. Excess fertility may promote lush growth, few flowers, and soft stems, especially in the tall cultivars, which then need to be staked. Wash spider mites off with regular, strong hosings or control with soap spray. Remove spent flowers regularly to encourage more blooms.

To Use

Make a paste by mashing the flowers and a few leaves in a mortor and pestal with a few drops of oil.  Then use the paste to color the sauce in Ocopa.  My husband did his archeaology freildwork outside Arequipa Peru where these flowers grow well and this dish is popular.  Called Ocopa Arequipena, the dish has some similarities to Papas a la Huancaina. It consists of boiled and sliced yellow potatoes covered with a sauce of made of aji (chili pepper), walnuts, a Peruvian herb called "Huatacay" (that gives it a vivid color), fresh or white cheese, sided with lettuce, boiled eggs and olives. It is usually served in restaurants specializing in Peruvian Food or restaurants serving food from Arequipa, a southern Peruvian City. 

Ocopa (serves 4)

• 3 chilies mirasol
• 1/2 cup ground walnuts
• 6 oz. farmer's cheese
• a maceration of scented geramiun leaves or flowers (first choice Tagetes minuta but you can substitute Tagetes tenuifolia)
• 1/2 cup oil
• Salt and pepper
• 2 lbs. yellow potatoes cooked, halved

Directions:

1. Remove seeds from the chilies and let soak in water overnight.

2. Put in the blender the chilies, walnuts, cheese and oil. Liquify until a smooth sauce. Season with geranium leaves, salt and pepper.

3. Place the potatoes in a serving dish. Cover with the sauce and garnish with lettuce leaves.

You can also use scented marigold flowers in any dish where edible flowers are used, including cream cheese spreads and salads.  See the blog entry on Nastritiums for some recipes you can substitute Scented Marigolds.