a lot of people ask me what do I enjoy most about homesteading well it's not
just about homesteading it's about a peaceful lifestyle but what I enjoy most
is gathering my herbs all winter long I think about it to think about what herbs
am I going to grow this year
and all winter long I think about how beautiful it's gonna look my home looks
really different in the wintertime it's so plain and so drab but as soon as the
spring comes and the summer it's like a whole new world here for me with the
green house I'm gonna try to see if I can prolong my summer I'm not very keen
on a lot of snow I don't mind it some years it seems like the winter just
goes on forever and ever and ever and then we have some mild years then we
have some valid years once in a while right here in Pennsylvania we have all
the seasons my favorite is spring and fall I love
spring and fall I wish we could have the temperatures in the 70s all year-round
but you know what the changing of the leaves are really pretty and it is nice
to see the changes of the seasons especially when you harvest in your
homestead like I do it just makes things different when you have to get ready for
the wintertime I go away so little in my life I mean home almost all the time and
that's why I've tried to create it such a peaceful place here where I can be
kept busy I'm not the kind of girl who likes to sit inside the house I have to
be outside and I have to be working I have to always be doing something so
this was a perfect outlet for me having a youtube channel because it enables me
to enjoy the things that I like most I can share it with all of you
so I'm gonna tilt my camera and I'll show you what I'm working on
so what do I use lemon verbena for well you can make yourself a tea with it you
can make yourself a syrup and can it anything that you need a lemon flavor
it's very strong also you can put it in soaps and put it in all kinds of lotions
now this gets air dried it's so delicate for me I don't want to
put it in the dehydrator so we're just gonna let this air dry
we have my lemon verbena we're gonna cut it way back the more you cut it the bush
here it will get and the more you'll get from it
Oh time to get this cut back and I'm going to share with you what you can use
the lemon verbena for this is my ultimate favorite herb
now we have to go and I'll show you where else I have some of it growing I
always plant my lemon verbena right near our house I don't have it out in the
garden it seems to grow really well in containers now in my zone if you have
freezing winters you can't grow it over the winter but a lot of you who live in
Florida and states that don't have the freezing temperatures you can actually
grow this all year round and how blessed are you so we're gonna go ahead and
we're gonna just cut this way back what you're looking at here is feverfew we're
also going to harvest some of this you got to be careful with fever view fever
view is a strong it's like an aspirin you can use this if you have headaches
or any kinds of aches and pains a lot of time just one leaf if you chew on it
will get rid of your headaches but you can brew this into a tea
you don't want a mistake fever view for a camomile
the flower looks similar but a chamomile has a beautiful apple scent and fever of
you is very bitter so it doesn't take you long to figure out the two
differences the next thing we're going to work on is the fever of you now fever
few you can make a teacher with it or you can make a tea with it but like I
said it's a very potent so what we do is you can use the flowers and the leaves
so I'm also going to use this in potpourri Zoar in wreaths garden reeds
it's so many neat things you can do this with because the flowers do dry very
very pretty so we're just going to lay it out flat like this and this is gonna
go in my greenhouse just like the other herbs that I'm using okay so okay so
that's feet of you and that's all it is to it now I'm going to show you my
garlic
having the greenhouse is very nice for being able to cure some things this is
the garlic and what I'm gonna do is I'm just gonna cut it this far we're gonna
leave a neck on it that way the bulb dries thoroughly and then after I cut it
we're gonna let it dry for another month or two
now a lot of people like to braid their garlic but this is little bulbs that I
harvested and I'm not gonna braid these I'm gonna use these right away as soon
as they're dried but we leave a large neckl in it so that way they can dry
this is how I do things everybody has a different method but
this seems to work out really good for me all right
so now that's going back in the greenhouse
so now we have all of these seed heads all kinds of seeds so I'm gonna take the
task of separating all these seeds I won't film all of it but I'll show you
what it looks like when we're finished and this is going to be my pizza spices
and seasonings for when I do a lot of canning of my pizza sauce we can a lot
of tomatoes here this is a big thing in our home is tomato products anywhere
from to me - ketchup - spaghetti sauce - pizza sauce which is a little thicker we
have a lot of tomatoes I also can a lot of v8 to use in soups so this is what we
have so far I'm gonna go and harvest my time and then harvest herbs basil is
very strong I don't want to put anything else in this dehydrator that's not going
to go with it so in other words I'm not going to dehydrate my lemon verbena that
I keep separate but you can put your time in here you can put your oregano
anything that's for pizza because the flavors really will mix well you don't
want to have it too high heat so I turn for my herbs down to about 125 and in a
matter about an hour to an hour and a half
they'll be dehydrated that's the fun thing about herbs you don't have to wait
forever to have it finished alright everybody here is all the time that I
have all the time in the world to have time so I'm gonna go ahead and we're
gonna harvest all of this this grows back for me every single summer and I
just keep in this little container works out great so I'm gonna dehydrate this
and I'm gonna dehydrate it with my basil so now we have plenty of time
you