A Chat with Denise Dunne at The Herb Garden

I was chatting to Denise Dunne who runs the Herb Garden in Naul, County Dublin this week. Denise runs training courses, sells herbs and seeds online that have culinary, medicinal and fragrance as well as decorative uses in the garden. The Herb Garden is a Certified Organic Herb Nursery, established by Denise in 1995 and also produces certified organic salad, flower and native Irish wildflower seed to compliment the herbs.

I asked Denise what initially got her interested in Herbs “One of my earliest herb memories is standing on a chair in the kitchen, beside my Mam, and picking the thyme leaves off the stem for stuffing, rissoles, or our family special, ‘pigeon pie’. Picking the tiny thyme leaves was a tedious job that required patience, but not a huge amount of skill, so it was the perfect way to introduce a child into the world of plants and cooking. I felt the attention to detail was important and I was very careful to pick out every last bit of stem that fell into the bowl.”

Denise knows how important good food is to a family.  “We were practically self-sufficient long before it became fashionable”.  She tells me “Mam and Dad planned and developed a lovely garden themselves in our new home and transformed a barren plot into a miniature paradise, with an orchard, soft fruits and beehives.”

It wasn’t always easy for a teenage Denise though “When I was growing up all the neighbours called us ‘The Good Life’. I did find it quite embarrassing, especially when the hens escaped onto the street.  It is only with hindsight that I realize what a wonderful gift my parents gave to us all. They both put so much effort into providing the best food possible for their family. It is only natural that cooking and eating together was always a special occasion and still is an integral part of any family celebration.” Denise concludes. 

As it’s coming to the end of the season I ask Denise if she can give us any tips and advice about how we can preserve herbs for the winter before the frosts come. 

PRESERVING HERBS

“Herbs for preserving should be harvested on a dry, sunny morning, after the dew has evaporated. To obtain maximum flavour and nutritional content, material for preserving needs to be at its very best. This will depend on the part of the plant that is required.

• Leaves should be harvested just before the plant flowers.
• Flowers are at their best when they have just opened.
• Fruit should be just ripe.
• Seed is ripe when it changes from green to brown. For seeds in pods, shake the stem. You will hear the seeds rattle when they are ripe.
• Roots are at their best when the top growth of the plant has completely died back, in autumn or winter.

Drying

Cut the stems just above ground level. Trim and discard any discoloured or damaged leaves. Tie into small bunches and hang in a dark, dry, airy place, or put them in a paper bag punched with holes, to eliminate light and dust. When the plant is completely dry, it will become brittle. Remove the leaves from the stems and store in airtight jars, in a dark place. To retain maximum flavour, it is best to store the leaves whole and crush, if necessary, just before using.

Freezing

Freezing is the best method for preserving the colour, flavour and nutritional content of herbs with soft, lush, green leaves, (eg. chives, dill, basil, mint, tarragon). Wash the herbs, if necessary, and shake dry. Freeze them in plastic bags, in bunches, on the stem. There is no need to thaw before using, just add at the end of cooking.

Alternatively, chop the herbs finely, put them in ice-cube trays and top up with water. Flowers, especially borage, can be frozen in ice-cubes for adding to drinks.

Preserving in Oil/Vinegar

Herbs preserved in oil or vinegar are very useful for adding flavour to many dishes.

Herb Oils

Fill a wide-necked, sterilised jar with fresh herb, broken into pieces with your fingers. When the jar is as full as possible, cover with good quality olive, sunflower, safflower or almond oil, preferably organic. Put on a tight fitting lid. Stand the jar in a warm or sunny place, covering it with brown paper if it's in a sunny position. Shake at least once a day for 14 days. Strain and store out of direct light.Suitable herbs - basil, garlic, fennel, lavender, rosemary, savory, tarragon, thyme. Spices, chillies and orange or lemon peel can be added.

Herb Vinegars

Bruise the herb and fill a wide-necked jar. Top up with warm (not hot) wine or cider vinegar. Continue as for herb oils.

Suitable herbs - bay, chervil, dill, elderflower, garlic, fennel, lavender, mint, rosemary, tarragon, thyme. Spices, chillies and citrus rind can also be added.

Fruit vinegars are made by the same method. Roughly chop the fruit in a food processor first.

Suitable fruits - blackberries, blackcurrants, blueberries, gooseberries, raspberries, strawberries.”

You can find more tips and advice about herbs and seeds and a newsletter on Denise’s website theherbgarden.ie      

Frost Damage

To keep with the Halloween theme, here’s Arlena’s image of her succulent stuffed pumpkin.

There are a couple of pointers to remind me of the oncoming cooler weather. Two being the shorter days and the ever decreasing times that I can take my dogs for a walk in the daylight around the park. Then there’s the butter dish on the kitchen table. Gone are the days when I can scrape out big dollops of lovely creamy butter onto my knife. It’s now a case of placing lumps on the toast and letting it soften. We are slowly being acclimatised to the colder weather so when the first frost comes it’s not too much of a shock to the system. Plants also acclimatise themselves, not by putting the butter in the microwave, but by changing their metabolism, anatomy and physiology to prevent frost or chill damage.

How do plants cope?

One response plants have to dropping temperatures is the thickening of liquid within plant cell membranes, from a liquid to a gel-like state with amino acids. This slows everything down, conserves energy and lowers the freezing point, a bit like antifreeze. At the same time, the cell membranes themselves become more permeable, allowing water to leak between the cells as a kind of buffer. This is the process of cold acclimation.

Acclimatisation is also known as ‘superfreeze’ where the cell contents remain liquid even though below freezing point. To do this plants have to experience several days of cold weather before the freeze and this explains why even hardy plants can be damaged by a sudden autumn frost.

2 Types of Frost

The two main types of frost are advective or radiative, depending on the atmospheric conditions. An advective frost occurs when cold air sweeps in, usually with strong winds. A radiative frost occurs on clear nights where there is little or no wind.

  

Frost can Benefit Plants

Frost can actually benefit some plants. Deciduous fruit trees benefit from winter chilling, and cold snaps turn starches to sugar in crops such as parsnips, improving their flavour.

Frosts can also disrupt pest and disease cycles, and improve soil structure – when moisture within soil freezes, it expands, and splits open soil particles.

Prevention of damage

There are a number of ways to keep your plants safe during cold weather;

Choose plants that are reliably hardy and suited to your growing conditions. 

Select planting positions carefully to avoid ‘frost pockets’ this usually happens at the low point of the garden.

Slightly tender plants should be grown in a warm sunny spot, against a south-facing wall for example, which will provide some extra warmth and winter protection.

Cover plants with a double layer of horticultural fleece or other suitable protection when frost is forecast. This cover is thin enough to let sunlight in, warming the soil and to keep in the warmth at night as the temperature drops.

Mulch the root area of evergreens now, conifers, tender shrubs and tender perennials with a thick layer of organic matter to prevent the ground becoming frozen. This is better done in warmer weather as adding mulch later on could trap the cold air in the ground.

Move container-grown plants to a sheltered part of the garden in cold weather and provide some extra protection by wrapping the pot in bubble wrap.

Leave the previous seasons growth on more tender plants until spring, for example penstemon, as this provides valuable frost protection during the winter.

Tender plants can be lifted or moved to a more sheltered position or greenhouse. If this is not practical then protect them by wrapping them in sacking. 

Lift tender perennials such as dahlias, cannas, pelargoniums and fuchsias before the first frosts.

Hardiness can be improved by feeding plants high concentrations of soluble nutrients including potassium and sugars in the growing season. Some plants also have physical protection such as thick bark, furry leaves or a canopy that protects the inner shoots. Avoid applying nitrogen-rich fertilisers late in the season though as they stimulate soft, sappy growth which is especially vulnerable to frost damage.

Plants exposed to early morning sun may thaw too rapidly after a frost, causing damage to flowers and young growth. Camellia and magnolia flowers in particular can be ruined by a single frost.

Ensure tender plants are overwintered safely in the greenhouse by providing adequate heating or insulation

It's the late frosts that we should be the most wary of. Plants emerge gradually from dormancy in spring, but they can still respond quickly to sudden spikes in temperature which triggers new fresh growth which is very vulnerable to cold snaps. It’ll be a while before we need to give that any thought though!

Why Did My Plant Die?

Pumpkin Pictures

I can tell by the empty crates in the shops that a lot of us have bought pumpkins this year. I might be wrong but I’ll bet that most of us don’t take them into the kitchen and make good old pumpkin pies. I think most of them will be used to make a spooky faced doorway Halloween candle holder to scare the trick or treaters knocking at the door.

There are some really inventive carving ideas out there and you can even get special pumpkin carving tools if you are taking things very seriously.  Have you been creative this year? If so could you send me your images of the scary work of art, I can post the best ones on the Gardening Matters blog and maybe even put a really scary one here next week. Either send the images to me at info@gardening.ie  or directly to the Inishowen Indo via email, Tweets or Facebook. We look forward to being spooked!!

Back in the 1980’s, Geoffrey Charlesworth wrote a book called “The Opinionated Gardener,” In the book is a poem in answer to why a plant has died. I read it and had a bit of a chuckle to myself initially but then realized that intervening in the course of nature can be a tricky business. A self-set plant in the garden will grow quite happily, but when we get involved the list of things that could go wrong are long. I think Geoffrey has covered most of the answers as to why a plant dies when we try to grow it in his poem. Hopefully it won’t crush your self-confidence; I for one can tick off every one of the reasons as I have done them myself at one time, and still like to garden!

Why Did My Plant Die?

    Geoffrey B. Charlesworth

    You walked too close. You trod on it.

    You dropped a piece of sod on it.

    You hoed it down. You weeded it.

    You planted it the wrong way up.

    You grew it in a yogurt cup

    But you forgot to make a hole;

    The soggy compost took its toll.

    September storm. November drought.

    It heaved in March, the roots popped out.

    You watered it with herbicide.

    You scattered bonemeal far and wide.

    Attracting local omnivores,

    Who ate your plant and stayed for more.

    You left it baking in the sun

    While you departed at a run

    To find a spade, perhaps a trowel,

    Meanwhile the plant threw in the towel.

    You planted it with crown too high;

    The soil washed off, that explains why.

    Too high pH. It hated lime.

    Alas it needs a gentler clime.

    You left the root ball wrapped in plastic.

    You broke the roots. They’re not elastic.

    You walked too close. You trod on it.

    You dropped a piece of sod on it.

    You splashed the plant with mower oil.

    You should do something to your soil.

    Too rich. Too poor. Such wretched tilth.

    Your soil is clay. Your soil is filth.

    Your plant was eaten by a slug.

    The growing point contained a bug.

    These aphids are controlled by ants,

    Who milk the juice, it kills the plants.

    In early spring your garden’s mud.

    You walked around! That’s not much good.

    With heat and light you hurried it.

    You worried it. You buried it.

    The poor plant missed the mountain air:

    No heat, no summer muggs up there.

    You overfed it 10-10-10.

    Forgot to water it again.

    You hit it sharply with the hose.

    You used a can without a rose.

    Perhaps you sprinkled from above.

    You should have talked to it with love.

    The nursery mailed it without roots.

    You killed it with those gardening boots.

    You walked too close. You trod on it.

    You dropped a piece of sod on it.