Covid has taken a lot out of me. I am sure you can relate. I did not realize how much I need to interact
with others to boost my own creativity.
I miss just talking randomly about herbs. Comments on my blog aren’t doing it,
discussions on Facebook aren’t doing it.
I just need to have spontaneous questions. Everything seems to take me
longer to do: Making herb blends, printing labels, packing items. I can spend hours and lose track of time.
I have tried in this down time of quarantine to learn how to
edit videos, so far I have not finished one of them.
I did clean and organize the cabinets in the herb room, scanned a pile of recipes (still
not much of a dent in the collection.) I organized my craft room and cleaned
out my part of the garage. Seriously, I never do these things, much to my
husband’s chagrin.
Working during Quarantine
I am working from home, all of my jobs are now in one
building. This could be part of my
problem I never escape. My living room
is now my office, my dining room was for teaching via zoom, my basement is for
blending herbs. The only escape I have
is the garden. Which is probably why I have been spending so much time
there. Neglecting things I should be
doing, like writing my monthly newsletter.
The weeds have never been more tamed. But I have not grown one herb or flower that
was new, except those two biennials I planted last year.
The Silver Dollar Plant flowered wonderfully and made these
great branches when I harvested the seed.
The hollyhocks turned out to be black (I had no idea from
the gift seeds I got.) When the sun shown on the plants they actually looked
deep purple. I liked the color
difference from morning to evening.
But beyond this I have not been very creative in the
garden.
We do have cats again.
It was hard being on lockdown with no pets so we contacted a fostering
agency called Mutts and Meows and got a pair of young cats. Aren’t they adorable?
I have not written an email to my membership in months,
mostly because even finding the energy to post to the blog has been hard, a
newsletter is time consuming and I have had ½ a dozen false starts.
There are few events to promote, no talks to support with
info and no new herbs to share. And
since we are not traveling, I do not have any cool places for you to visit
right now. That makes finding newsletter
topics difficult. So finally when the
weather turned cooler this week I sat down with my journal and a pen and a view
of these….
Zinnia, Cosmos, calendula and on the arbor is hops, just
about to ripen. All I need is a couple days of sun and I will have a huge hops harvest. Might need to learn to brew beer!
In my journal I wrote down product ideas, garden ideas,
newsletter topics, recipe ideas and finally after all that writing I decided a
few things.
I created a DIY product - DIY Refrigerator Pickles. Doing things at home being popular these days made it fun to make kits for making refrigerator pickles. They have everything needed except vinegar, water and the veggies. And as long as the veggies are fresh, they can come from a garden or from the store or farmers market. In 24 hours one can have pickles without having to know how to can.
If one wanted to know how to can, my Canning Basics class is coming up in October with District 214. It will be virtual, so you don't need to leave home. I am also showing how to make vinegar, sugar, honey and other items infused with herbs in a special three-part class called INFUSION which is happening starting September 16th at 7 PM via Zoom.
Time for Change
I have decided after making all my notes and watching YouTube videos on growing my business that things need to change. Don’t get me wrong. I
have nothing to complain about. I still
have my part time day job, I am still teaching in a limited capacity and
Backyard Patch Herbs did very well during lock down, so I unlike many I could
still pay the rent and pay bills. My
soup mixes and baking products were a big hit as were my gift baskets. But I realized I need to simplify. The wide
variety of products available all the time is terribly time consuming to make,
even if I don’t make things ahead and only do on-demand crafting, it is still a
lot of work.
· So I have decided to rework my product line and
my email strategy, as well as what I do on Social Media. Here is the short list:
- My newsletter will be once every three weeks. Not quite twice a month, but not once a month either. I will add more fun to the newsletter and cover
more things, but in different ways, this way I can create useful content more often than before in less time.
- I
will share garden images;
- easy and challenging recipes for the beginner and the
adventuresome cooks;
- share more information of what I enjoy from my herb and
gardening friends with links to websites you may have overlooked;
- book reviews
on garden and herb topics;
- sharing the herb and gardening wisdom of my
herby friends.
- If you want to join the newsletter visit this link.
- I have enjoyed choosing recipes on a theme to
post each month on the blog (this month the theme is quiche), so I will be doing more of that, expanding to
include recipes with photos on Instagram. In other words, you get to see some of my hubby’s tasty creations.
- I will also be changing my product line. I plan to add some special items that will be DIY type creations that are available seasonally and will allow folks to enjoy
herbs in new and different ways.
- I will reduce my herb blends to those that are most popular and with the exception of my Italian Dressing and Marinade I will be retiring all blends that have salt. Stock up now they will be gone on December 31, 2020. If you want to vote on your favorite herb mixes, as there are 45 - I will be holding a vote of some sort in the newsletter and on Facebook in the coming weeks.
- Although I love to experiment with Herb teas, I am going to reduce the offerings to 10 - 12 teas, those being my most popular. Other teas will come and go seasonally in much the way I have begun offering Holiday only teas for Halloween and the
Winter Holidays. Those of you who love a tea will always be able to order it, just remember the name and email and can send it.
- I am going to offer subscription services, like
a CSA style box as well as tea of the month and herb blends of the month. This is where I will share my new experiments rather than adding them instantly to my product line as I have in the past.
- I will continue to offer remote programs on Zoom as well as in-person programs, but will work to add programs to a Youtube channel (I think I will trade herbs for editing assistance.) And eventually create an herb cooking class on a platform like Teachable where folks can learn at their own speed.
If there is anything you think I should or should not do in the coming times?
Any products you might
like to see?
All suggestions will be considered.
