Gardening Secrets and Tips from my Urban Permaculture Garden // Grow Sustainable Gardens

Nature provides so much abundance when we learn to see and utilise it. Sometimes cutting your plants can spark new growth and they will continue to flourish in new directions. Preserving your harvests also allows you to slow down and reconnect with where your food comes from. It just feels so right to go out into the garden and pick food that you know exactly what has gone into creating it. The best time of the day to harvest your herbs is first thing in the morning. This is when the plants are hydrated and full of life. As the day goes on they'll lose moisture and not be as fresh and vibrant. Early morning the bees are not yet active and today I've left it a little bit late and they're here in a hive of activity. So I'm cautious not to stress them out and avoid getting stung. Having your hands involved in the cycle of planting seeds, caring for plants, can teach us so many things. The herbs in my garden are thriving right now and I want to capture and store them so that I can have herbs to use throughout the winter months when they're not available. You've given these plants the love and care that they need to thrive so it's important to harness that energy and make the most of it. Herbs are the easiest thing to start growing because they are hardy and less susceptible to pests. They also do not require a lot of room to grow so you can grow herbs even if you don't have a garden. It is absolutely achievable and you never know where the journey will take you. Basil is a warm climate herb and will start to die off as the temperatures decrease. So harvesting and storing basil will mean we'll be able to have it available during winter. Basil also responds so well to being cut, especially towards the end of the season as it starts going to flower. By cutting the tops off it will grow out and be bushier and will help prolong the life of the plant. Spending time in the garden harvesting and caring for your plants allows so much more time to observe and learn from your garden, to slow down and reconnect. Some of my most creative ideas come when I can quiet the rest of the world. Harvesting also gives such a sense of pride that you've grown all this delicious food is so special. So I'm creating my own mixed dried herbs to create nourishing and flavor-filled meals. These dried herbs will be great for winter soups, adding flavor to slow cooked meals and I know that they're all for my own garden. To prepare my mixed herbs I first rinse them off in the sink and then I'm going to pop them in the dehydrator until they're completely dry. Preparing these herbs makes my house smell amazing. I pull the leaves off the main stem and put them in a bowl. This step can be a little bit time consuming especially because I'm doing such a big batch of rosemary but I just pop on some music, a podcast or watch some gardening shows on YouTube. All the leftover bits and stems go straight back into the compost to complete the cycle and make sure that nothing goes to waste. I lay all the herbs out flat onto some brown baking paper which will stop them falling through the cracks of my dehydrated trays. I will pop a link to the dehydrator I'm using in the description. I absolutely love this dehydrator. It has separate trays so if things dry at different rates then I can take each tray out as they're ready which makes it so quick and easy to do. It's also a relatively quiet dehydrator so I can have it going in my kitchen and it doesn't bother me. Once they're dried they'll be really crispy and and then I'm just going to pull the ones out that are ready and if some need a little bit longer then I'll leave them to fully dehydrate because you want all the moisture out so that they don't go moldy or spoiled in the jars when you're finished. Once they've completely dried I'm going to crush them up a little bit in my mortar and pestle. For this one I'm doing a small jar of mixed herbs with the basil, parsley and rosemary and then I'm just putting the rest of the rosemary in a really large jar that I can use on lots of different things. You can also make homemade tea beans from the garden. I am now harvesting some of my guava leaves. I've never tried that before but I'm going to give it a go. I'm always trying new things, learning, researching and trying to make the most of the things that I grow. Lavender is also another edible flower that you can use for tea blends as well as is a great pollinator for the bees so I have it planted in between my fruit trees to help aid in pollination and get lots more fruit. Fennel leaf is also another one that you can use in teas. Lemon verdina is one of my favourite herbs to use for tea. It is so fresh and zesty flavour and smell. There are so many other herbs that you can grow at home. Herbs such as mint, lemon balm, chamomile, lemongrass, thyme and also fruits such as strawberries, apple, lemon and citrus. The other thing that you can add into a tea blend is some edible flowers such as hibiscus, violas, sunflowers and so many more things. You can get so creative with it. So what I like to do is while the herbs are fresh and in season I will harvest them, dry them and store them in jars in my pantry and that way come winter I can make lots of different tea blends using the herbs that I have already preserved. To dry the herbs ready for the tea is the same as what I did for the mixed herbs. Just give them a rinse and then pop them on the same baking paper trays that I used previously and I put the setting on the lowest it'll go. Because the herbs are really delicate I don't want to damage them or cook any of those nutrients out by overheating them. So I pop it on the lowest setting that I have. I haven't used a lot of herbs for this tea blend so I'm just going to make the one tea blend rather than having them all in individual containers. So this one is going to be a little bit of a lemony zesty tea with the lemon verbena. I'm going to mix some dried flowers and also some dehydrated lemon. These tea blends and mixed herbs will also make great gift ideas. Sharing from the garden can also spark others to try and grow their own food too. You have no idea how many people can be inspired to make changes from your single action of sharing. This should be the way of the future because what we're doing right now in the world is not sustainable. Thank you for watching. I hope you enjoyed today's video and you are inspired to grow your own herbs and make your own dried mixed herbs or herbal tea blends from your garden. It's really rewarding and so easy to do. I will see you next week for another video.