My Favorite Herb: Thyme

My favorite herb is lemon thyme. I always have a potted thyme around for quick harvest, it lives on the back porch in the summer and inside by the patio doors in the winter. I like all kinds of thyme plants, I have 5-6 different ones growing in the garden, but lemon is the one I have potted and always reach for when cooking.

It’s a beautiful herb with variegated leaves. It brightens the flavor of whatever soup or sauce you add it to. I will never be without a lemon thyme plant in my gardens.

Thymes are great in the garden. They’re hardy plants and they attract a lot of beneficial insects, mine are abuzz all summer with bees and butterflies. As with most herbs they are also not enjoyed by pests such as rabbits and deer. Most of them bloom, often in a purple color.

This Woolly Thyme has the greatest color and texture.

I also have creeping thyme in the garden, it’s great for hillsides, quickly spreading to cover the ground with a beautifully scented green carpet!

This is a Major Red’s Creeping Thyme, I just took this photo yesterday. Most thyme’s turn a beautiful shade of red or crimson in the fall/winter, as you can also see by the woolly thyme below.


What kinds of thyme grow in the gardens here at Chiot’s Run? Elfin Thyme, Major Red’s Creeping Thyme, Carpet Thyme, Lemon Thyme, and English Thyme. I would love to get some Coconut Thyme, Lime Thyme, French Thyme and some Orange Balsam Thyme. Papa Geno’s is a great place to find different kinds of thyme if you’re looking to expand your collection.

What’s your favorite herb?

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Garden Decor

I always put a few things out in the garden during the winter to brighten it up since there aren’t any more flowers. I have a few metal birds that go out by a birdbath right by the back door. I really like the way they look when there’s snow on the ground, they’re very cheery. They make me smile every time I come and go.


Anyone else decorate their gardens during the dull winter months? With what?

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Spreading a Little Christmas Cheer

I loved to cook long before I loved to garden (not sure why I didn’t start a cooking blog). I’m not a huge baker other than breads, probably because I don’t really like cookies and cakes. I make them when requested for gatherings, but my real love is cooking savory dishes and baking beautiful breads.

This is 98.4% Whole Grain Seeded Sourdough from Wild Yeast.

Since I don’t like to make cookies I leave those to my mom this time of year. She does a great job, making the perfect gingerbread people soft and chewy just like I like them and crispy but soft butter cookies with icing. She also makes the most wonderful spritz cookies in all shapes, colors, flavors and sizes. Since my mom is the cookie person of the family, I specialize in a little something different. My contribution to the holiday sweet table is chocolate. Delicious chocolate covered cherries to be exact. I’ve been making these for many years and my request list keeps getting longer every year. Friends come out of the woodwork around Christmas and ask when I’m going to be making them. It’s always nice to have a special thing around the holidays.

Usually I start making my cherries right after Thanksgiving. This year however, we’ve been super busy so I started a week late. I made my first batch on Sunday evening and then another on Monday. These were brandied cherries, so I soak the cherries in brandy for a while in the back of the fridge. Then I make brandy flavored fondant to wrap them in, and then they’re enrobed in delicious semi-sweet chocolate.

On Thursday I made a batch of regular almond flavored cherries (these are my favorite). This year I’ve been playing with my recipe a little, I’m using local organic butter and I’m trying to cut the corn syrup out of the recipe. It was a success! I must say, tempering chocolate isn’t for the faint of heart. If you want to make these quickly, just buy dipping chocolate from the store. Most people won’t be able to tell the difference. But if you’re a chocolate lover like me, a little semi-sweet or dark real chocolate is the way to go. Once you learn the trick to tempering it’s not too bad (it just takes longer).

Here’s the recipe in case anyone wants to make some.

CHOCOLATE COVERED CHERRIES
50 maraschino cherries, well drained
3 tablespoons butter
3 tablespoons light corn syrup
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon almond extract
2 cups sifted confectioners’ sugar
1 1/2 pounds dipping chocolate, white or dark

Combine butter, corn syrup and salt; blend until smooth. Add confectioners’ sugar and mix well. Knead until smooth and shiny; wrap in wax paper and chill for 30 minutes.

Meanwhile, drain cherries. Shape a marble-size piece of fondant around each cherry; place on wax paper-lined tray. Chill until firm, about 2 hours.

Melt chocolate over hot water, stirring constantly. Dip cherries and place on wax paper-lined tray (I find those tiny muffin cups to be perfect). Store in covered container in a cool, dark place for 10 to 14 days to fully ripen and to attain the “liquidy” inside.

Brandied Cherries
Soak cherries in brandy for at least 2 days. Omit almond extract and add 1/2 teaspoon brandy flavoring instead. Follow recipe as stated above.

So what are you famous for? Cookies, chocolates, breads?

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Birdhouses in the Garden

I have a few birdhouses in my gardens. The funny thing is that no birds live in them. I originally put them up for decoration last winter to bring some color to the gardens during the dull winters, but come spring I forgot to take them down.

They’re only eighteen inches off the ground so no birds live in them, but do have residents. One day I noticed that a wasp flew into one, then I noticed a few more wasps. So I guess they’re no longer bird houses, they’re wasp houses. I don’t mind wasps in the garden, they’re beneficial insects and with the exception of yellow jackets they don’t bother you unless you bother them.

Wasps and yellow jackets are beneficial insects. They feed their young on insects that would otherwise damage crops and ornamental plants in your garden. They can also feed on house fly and blow fly larva. Wasps and yellow jackets become aggressive when their nests are approached or disturbed. This is often when people and animals are stung. While these stings are painful (and life threatening to those that are allergic), these insects should be respected and tolerated under most conditions.

Here’s one of the residents.

This looks like a paper wasp to me. I spent some time on this great website looking at pictures trying to figure out what kind it was for sure. We have many different kinds of wasps living around here, I’ve been trying to take photos of all of them so I can identify them. Generally we leave them alone but if the paper wasps are building a nest in a high foot traffic area I usually just knock it down and they build elsewhere.

We also have yellow jackets that live around here. Last summer we had a huge nest in our front yard. We had to spray it because I’m allergic and they kept chasing me. A skunk dug up the nest and ate the rest of the wasps, so that was a relief. We leave them be if they are in the woods around the house.

This is another kind of wasp we have. They are teeny tiny (less than a centimeter long) and they love my oregano when it’s blooming (which are the flowers in the photo) as well as sedum and a few of my lace cap hydrangeas. I think they’re cuckoo wasps (also called jewel wasp, gold wasp, or emerald wasp), but I’m not positive on that.

So what about you, do you leave wasps to work in your gardens, or you spray like most people?

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What I’m Missing

I love everything about winter, the snow, the cold weather and everything else. But every now and then I find myself longing for the warmer months (especially on those cold rainy dark days). So what am I missing about the summer today? Flip Flops.

I love love love free feet. I wear sandals & flip flops all summer long. My feet hate being cooped up in socks and stuffed into shoes, but soon enough they’ll be free again.

What are you missing about summer?

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