Do you ever have those moments of inspiration? The ones that come crashing in in a wave? Where you didn’t see it coming but then this overpowering sense of inspiration just crashes on you and thats when the mental spark ignites? The spark of next years garden plans hit me out of no where today. After spending a majority of the garden season sick and an entire spring bustling around trying to prepare the garden, I went out to the garden and the inspiration for next years garden hit. I wanted to do so many things with the garden this year but sadly life decided that wasn’t where we were heading. I let myself feel rushed in plans and rushed because sickness took away the majority of the good days. Yet now, the inspiration for next years garden is crashing like a tidal wave and we are going to ride it.
I missed so much this year in the form of being able to harvest. From fruit to medical herbs and even cooking herbs. There was a moment when I felt discouraged that I didn’t get to do all that I dreamed. But how was I supposed to do my dreams when I didn’t fully plan out my dreams. It was a thrown together plan that did’t spark the excitement except for the quick gratification of what a harvest could bring. So I left myself with ingredients and not many dreams. But to go out and see that the herbs have returned and we can harvest some more, it’s time to make those dreams happen. I know this won’t happen this year and I will be left with lots of ingredients but I can dream for next year. Next year I want to grow the herbs, but for better reasons, I want to grow our medicinal side, but also take the winter to try out different recipes and see what actually works for us. But the other thing is I really want to grow our own tea. I’m still in a point in the season where I can harvest apples and peaches and I can freeze dry them and prepare them for the winter and the teas, but I miss so many opportunities in beginning of the year.
Im going to be completely honest and say that I wrote the above section in a massive spurt of inspiration to writing. I get those moments where the words are just flowing out of my head and I can’t contain them. Hence everything written above. So the rest of this is written a different day and I’m going to be completely honest, it probably won’t have the same passion as I started. I’m not sure about everyone else but sometimes I can tell when the passion is off and it feels more like a chore to write. I don’t feel like writing is a chore right now but I will say the amount of passion is very different. So let me get back into the blog!
So I think what I am going to do is drive through with this plan of what I want with the garden. Ok so teas, medicinal herbs and culinary uses. Now let’s get a big set of recipes figured out and test them to see if they fit our family. Lastly then we plan for next year. Now what I am saying is I found a delicious sounding tea of blueberry mojito. Let’s start by buying the ingredients and testing out if we like the recipe, shoot with this one, let’s even make our own recipe! Then when we find the exact recipe we like, let’s make a game plan of what all do we need to harvest next year to make the tea. I would love to make big batches and then maybe vacuum seal some for later use or mylar bag too. But either way we can spend the time working on recipes that we could make during the season each item is in season.
While I don’t have a plan right now with all that I want to make, I do think I will move forward with dehydrating some items to have on hand to test out. Like I said, peaches and apples are in season right now so we are going to grab those awhile and prepare them. I also have a mess of mint and other herbs that are still growing, so I will harvest those and dehydrate too. Another wonderful opportunity, is we have a booth at our local farmers market that sells some dried herbs and I will be picking up some of those to test out. I’ve already picked up chamomile, rose petals, lavender and mint from this vendor before and loved their quality.
I think the fall and winter season will be my time to test out all of the recipes we would love to try. January seems to be the slow month and having fun exploring recipes will be a great way to spend it. Now to get the inspiration again and start thinking of recipes we can try. Currently lots of teas are floating in my mind but I also want to make sure we don’t just stop there. Im hoping to continue and expand in multiple areas for the herb side of things!!!
Let’s pray I can get some recipes tested and out for you all soon!