Drying Bay Leaves

Bay leaves are the one herb that I harvest in October. All other herbs are at their peak in May or June, and sometimes I'll take a second cutting, but no later than August.

Bay leaves, on the other hand, are best taken in the fall. It gives the plant all summer to size up its leaves. Otherwise, the small new leaves curl up while drying, and are fairly tasteless.

Yesterday was pleasant - it wasn't raining at least - so I clipped a few branches on our monster bay tree. I washed off some scale insects that were clinging to a few leaves, and hung them in the kitchen to dry. They take a while to dry nicely, but not as long as basil. I don't bother trying to keep the leaves perfectly flat. They don't curl up that badly, and once dry, I either keep them in a glass jar, or generally, just leave them hanging in my kitchen, waiting for me to pluck a leaf for soup. The color of the stuff you buy at the store looks like mine after they've been dead for a year. Hmmm. Makes you wonder how long the store-bought have been around.

I've had an interesting time growing bay leaves (Laurus nobilis). Many years ago, a friend had a small tree that she gave to me to keep while they moved from a house into an apartment. A year later, the tree moved with us to our new home, and I planted it on the south side of our house. It's partially shaded, which seems to give it a compact, brached habit.

When we put the herb garden in, I planted two more trees thinking that my friend would be moving into a house again soon. These trees, planted in full sun, grew very fast, reaching eight feet tall in just a few years. The branches were long, and perfect for making wreaths. What a pretty way to display my bay leaves! I rank it right up there with garlic braids. My friend's tree also grew quite tall, and when they finally moved into a house, the tree was twelve feet tall! There was no way we could move it, so I guess it's mine now. It's now about 20 feet tall. Did I say it had a compact habit?

Unfortunately, a few years ago we had an extremely cold winter. Every so often we get a cold blast out of Canada. It hit zero degrees here with a brisk north wind. The two newer plants weren't protected from the wind, and didn't have the house to keep them warm. Both trees died. My friend's tree, although cold-damaged, survived. The next years' growth was stunted, but it's come back quite well.

So, the bay leaves are drying away to add flavor to another winter's worth of soups. Based on the amount of time they're warning us about the winter we're supposed to have, it's probably a good thing I'm drying lots.

Planting Garlic

I took advantage of the warm (77!), sunny day and planted my garlic. Since it's supposed to be a cold winter, and the rest of September seemed like October, it was probably a good time to plant.

While researching garlic bulb spacing, I ran across this site by Colorado State University which shows a study on bulb spacing and irrigation. They say that six-inch bulb spacing is the way to go, rather than the three-to-four inch spacing that I've been using. While I've been getting okay bulbs, I'd prefer larger ones.

So I spaced the bulbs six inches apart in "rows" eight inches apart across my four-foot beds. I had Thing 2 help set the bulbs, only having to rescue a few that were upside-down.

I spent a good portion of the day weeding out one of the herb beds and cleaning up around the front of the house. Mr. E trimmed a tree and sheared the hedges, so our house looks a little more cared-for. He also cut me some muchly needed kindling. Tomorrow is supposed to be cool and wet, and I think a fire in the wood stove would be nice.

Thing 2 and I looked to see if the squirrels left us any filberts from our tree. Usually there are quite a few left on the ground for us. This year, however, I couldn't find a single one. Not one! It makes me wonder if this is a sign of the kind of winter we're going to be having....

First Day of Fall

The first day of fall 2010 finds me in the kitchen. It's a dreary day, drizzle with a high of only 55 degrees here. I had to turn the heat on, or face a very grumpy Thing 2. Even with the heat on, he's cold. "Put a sweatshirt on," I say, and hear a grumble in response. I wish we could have at least had a warm fall to make up for our lackluster summer.

I'm in the process of preserving as much as possible right now. I have about 60 pounds of apples to deal with at the moment. I haven't even had the time to weigh them all, and so have only been doing it as I use them.

Today I dried about eight pounds of apples. Eight pounds fills my dehydrator trays, which in turn fill one one-gallon ziploc bag once dry. I dried another eight pounds a couple of days ago, and will do another two or more batches this week. Thing 2 loves to have them in oatmeal, and prefers eating dried apples to fresh.

I peel, core and slice them on my contraption that's used for such purposes. It takes under an hour to fill the trays, and another six hours before they're dry. Then, into a ziploc they go, as much air squeezed out as possible, and they stay in pretty good shape for months in the pantry.

I was going to order Clear Jel from Amazon, but they were sold out already, and I have no clue where to find it around here. I wish I had some to can apple pie filling. If anyone in the Seattle area knows of a place that carries it, let me know! I'm thinking applesauce this weekend at any rate.