Thursday, June 26, 2014

Lavender and Stress Relief

There are weeks when the stress from work is overwhelming.  Unfortunately for me my favorite way to distress is to bake, and when work is that stressful there is simply no time for that.  Fortunately the sent of lavender is said to be a stress reliever, so I will be making lavender oil.  Lavender oil is also used as a headache cure, is great in a bath with Epsom salts, smells wonderful in lotion and the flowers can be used in baking (which some people claim can help with nausea).  Our lavender plants are still to small to produce an appreciable number of flowers, and its recommended you not harvest them the first year anyway, so Peter got me this bunch to use at the farmers market. 
 
In order to use these in baking you must dry the flowers.  Simply lay them out on the drying rack of your food dehydrator and set for herbs.
 

 
When dried (overnight and a bit) simply remove the flowers.

These can now be saved for baking, or to be used in your bath/lotion supplies later in the year. 

Essential oils are a bit more complicated, though most varieties (rose, lavender, and so on) are made the same way.  Remove the flowers and put them in a mortar, grind with a pestle to let out the oil.

 
 
Put the crushed flowers in a mason jar, rinse the mortar with the cheapest vodka you can find (it doesn't mater what kind as long as it is not flavored) and poor the vodka into the jar.  Cover the flowers in vodka and cover the jar with cheese cloth.
Place in a warm place and swirl it around every day until the vodka has evaporated.  Then strain the flowers out and store the oil in dark colored glass until needed.
We will see if it really is a good stress reliever, and how well it works to sent lotions!


Friday, June 20, 2014

Mid June Update

Between working, preparing for trial and winning a rather intense motion for summary judgment not much has been happening in our garden, however as the summer wears on I will be giving updates every month on the status of our garden.  We have begun to harvest both peas and radishes. 
 
 
 Our Sugar Snap Peas have begun to produce.  As it turns out Peter really likes them as they are fresh tasting and sweet at the same time.
 

 
 
The asparagus is done producing for the year, at this point it is growing into a fern which will end up being 6 feet tall before we cut it back to produce next year.
 
 
The beans are growing up and onto the fence, though no flowers yet.
Our Peach trees are producing well, hardly any of the fruit has fallen. 
 This is in stark contrast to our cherries, which have lost almost all of their fruit.  I console myself remembering that this will allow the roots to grown stronger and they will produce more next year because of the lack of fruit this year.
 
 
The grapes are growing strong, there are little ones on the vine but nothing is ready yet.
 

 
Our potatoes are doing so well that I'm beginning to wonder if, much as I love potatoes, and think they could be the staple food eaten with almost every mean, we may have planted too many.  
 For those of you who have never seen a potato flower I thought I would include the photo below. 
 
 We are now weeks away from the first berries.  These look like raspberries but only produce fruit the one time and have no thorns.  They taste much like raspberries, but somewhat milder.
 
The raspberries are probably a few weeks behind, but growing well.
 
The spaghetti squash is a winter squash and so is of course not producing any time soon, however it has flowered.   
The pumpkin, another winter squash, is also flowering.
Our last squash is growing well, but not flowering.

Oddly our summer squash and zucchini are much smaller.  I'm told these will start producing soon and I will regret ever wishing they would hurry up. 
 
The watermelon is growing strong.
The sun flowers are coming up, it will be a while until they produce seeds.
Our bell peppers are coming in strong, these are almost large enough to pick, though we have to wait for them to turn yellow as this is a yellow bell plant.
 
The hot peppers are growing well, some are starting to produce but it will be a while for those too.  
The Broccoli is flourishing, although not producing any broccoli, I'm not sure how long it takes to create florets.  
 
Similarly, our carrots are growing well, but it will be a long time until we can eat them.
 
It will be even longer until we have Brussel sprouts.  That particular plant is great in that it will continue to produce through late November, we will be really grateful to have fresh veggies that late in the year.
 The okra is growing well, though it will be a while until we can start our gumbos. 
 
 
The tomatoes are starting to flower, it will probably be months until the tomatoes are right, unfortunately.  
 
Our garlic should be ready to pull soon, although the onions still need much more time.
 
The greens (and cabbage which is purple) and mustard are growing well, it won't be long until we can harvest them!
 
 
Four of our chickens are now laying, so at least we are getting those.  We get around 2 dozen eggs a week.  Thank goodness our neighbors trade baked goods for eggs.

Friday, June 13, 2014

We're going on a mushroom hunt . . .

Since leaving law school I have found that the only real way to escape the office for a weekend is to go where your email cannot reach you.  To that end last weekend we went mushroom hunting in the beautiful Uintas.  Hiking up here in the clear air is wonderful and relaxing!

 Because Utah is a desert there are limited mushroom hunting opportunities.  You must find damp ground where there is not too much sun.  To be honest I didn't expect to find much of anything.  I was quite wrong, while we didn't find much that was edible (and NEVER EVER EAT WILD MUSHROOMS YOU HAVE NOT PROPERLY IDENTIFIED, ALSO ALWAYS COOK THEM) we did find a large variety. 





We did find a few of the below:
This is a snow bank false morel.  When hunting mushrooms be sure to use a good identifier and confirm with an expert.  While this was not hugely productive it was fun.