Preserving the Harvest: Making Herb Salts, Vinegars, and Syrups Before Frost

As the last golden days of fall arrive and the garden begins to slow, now’s the time to capture those fresh herbal flavors before frost claims your plants. Preserving herbs into salts, vinegars, and syrups lets you savor their fragrance and taste all winter long — or share them as thoughtful, homemade gifts.

🌿 Herbal Vinegars: Bright and Beautiful

Herbal vinegars are the perfect way to capture the essence of your garden in a bottle. They’re lovely for salad dressings, marinades, or drizzling over roasted veggies.

Try these combinations:

• Rosemary & Garlic Chive Vinegar – Earthy, aromatic, and perfect for roasted potatoes or chicken.
• Tarragon & Shallot Vinegar – Ideal for vinaigrettes and fish dishes.
• Basil & Oregano Vinegar – A perfect flavor to splash over tomatoes or toss with olive oil and pasta.

How to Make It:

1. Fill a clean glass jar half to two-thirds full with fresh (washed and dried) herbs.
2. Warm your vinegar slightly (white wine, distilled white, or rice vinegar with 5% acidity).
3. Pour over herbs, leaving about an inch of headspace. 
4. Bruise the herbs with the handle of a wood spoon.
5. Cover tightly and let infuse for 2–3 weeks in a cool, dark place.
6. Strain and bottle in decorative jars — they make charming kitchen gifts!

Add your creation to Backyard Patch Italian Dressing Mix or Lemon Chive Dressing Mix and enjoy at your holiday table.

🍬 Simple Herbal Syrups: Sweet and Soothing

Herbal syrups add flavor and flair to tea, sparkling water, mocktails, and desserts.

Flavor Ideas:

• Thyme & Lemon Syrup – Uplifting and bright; delicious in tea or with plain soda.
• Anise Hyssop Syrup – Lightly licorice and floral; pairs beautifully with gin-style mocktails.
• Lemon Verbena Syrup – Perfect for cocktails or drizzled over fruit salad.

How to Make It:

1. Combine 1 cup water and 1 cup sugar in a saucepan.
   
2. Bring to a simmer, stirring until sugar dissolves.
3. Add a generous handful of herbs (about ½ to 1 cup) and stir for 1 minute.
4. Remove from heat and cover.
5. Let steep 30 minutes or until it reaches room temperature, strain, and refrigerate up to 2 weeks.

Use these along with the drink suggestions in our Backyard Patch Beginner Mocktails book.

🧂 DIY Herb Salts and Sugars: Quick Gifts from the Garden

These are ridiculously easy to make and keep the essence of herbs long after the garden fades.

Herb Salt Ideas:

• Rosemary & Sage Salt – Great for roasted vegetables and meats.
• Basil & Marjoram Salt – Adds a burst of summer to pasta dishes.

Herb Sugar Ideas:

• Scented Geranium Sugar – Perfect for baking or tea.
• Mint Sugar – Adds a cool twist to hot cocoa or cookies.

How to Make It:

1. Layer salt or sugar with fresh herbs leaves in a shallow jar (or pulse in a blender).
2. Use a ratio of 4 parts base to 1 part herbs.
3. Allow to meld for two weeks, then remove leaves whole (if using a blender, spread out on wax papaer to dry for 48 hours before storing.)
4. Store in airtight jars.

Keep near the stove with a jar of Backyard Patch Herbs Seasonings as ready-to-use cooking aids.

🎁 Gift Idea: “Preserve the Harvest” Basket

Bundle your homemade herb vinegar, a jar of herb salt or sugar, and a bottle of syrup with one of our Backyard Patch Herb Mixes for a thoughtful, garden-inspired gift. Add a sprig of dried herbs and a recipe tag for a personal touch.

🪶 Suggestion:
A woven basket with a bottle of herbal vinegar, a jar of salt, a syrup bottle, and a tea blend or seasoning packet — all nestled in kraft paper and tied with a raffia bow.

🌬️ Don’t Let Frost Steal Your Flavor

Taking a few hours to preserve your herbs now means you’ll have a taste of summer all winter long. Whether you enjoy them in your kitchen or give them as gifts, these simple projects keep your herbal harvest alive — in the most delicious ways possible.

Gift Shopping? We have some suggestions - 10 gifts for the Special People in your Life

This selection of gifts includes Items from Backyard Patch Herbs and others from friends of mine on Etsy. I have grouped them by potential recipients. And if you want an extra Small Business Saturday coupon just join our Good Thyme Club and we will send out some special coupons to use Thanksgiving Weekend thru Cyber Monday!

For Him

Finding gifts for the men in life can sometimes be challenging.  But we found some great ideas:

DIY Grilling Kit - We make this great adventure gift so the recipient can blend their own grilling spices, from rubs to marinades they receive ingredients, containers and simple instructions so they can then regift in style.

If your man friends are budding mixologists, try out our Cocktail Kits:

From an easy just-add-booze Old Fashioned, to flavoring bourbon or making Faux Gin, these kits will let them stir up some great drinks for the holiday.

For Grandma/Grandpa

A fun welcome to visiting grandma and grandpa is this hand created Door Mat

If grandma or grandpa is a gardener, try out the Garden Stone personalized with names of family members.

Hostess Gifts

Give the gift of fun tastes with these Olive Oil Dipping Blends in a delightful gift box.  We have other versions as well, like Wassail and herb tea.

Teacher/Coach Gifts

This cute little Teacher Theme Ornament that can be personalized with the teachers name is a great idea

Celebration of teachers can include giving them something to do in their free time. Like these sweet Wassail blends that can be blended with Apple Cider for seasonal sipping.

 

For Her

Girlfriends, work associates, and other women in your life need a bit of fun too.  

Try out these Floral Book Markers for your bookish friends.

A great gift of flowers that will never fade or wilt, just like your friendship. Check out the variety of Crocheted Flowers.

And sharing a cup of tea even from afar is simple with this special Tea Cup Gift.  You get a vintage tea cup, tea bag and honey to sweeten.  Packaged wonderfully and shipped anywhere in the US.

Enjoy your holiday and time with friends and family!

Remember join our Good Thyme Club to get special discounts for Small Business Saturday!

Bath Ball Gift Jar

Need something class and special at the last minute.  Try this bath ball mix in a decorative jar. I have shared bath ball recipes in the past, but this recipe is minty and floral, curative, and makes a wonderful gift. Place a collection of bath balls, tied up in seasonal fabric in a quart canning jar, and present them to a teacher, pet sitter, or another person you want to reward with a little me time.

Bath Ball Blend

1 cup mint, dried
1 cup rosemary, dried
1 cup lavender, dried
1 cup rose petals, dried
1 cup comfrey leaves, dried and crumbled
1 cup lemon balm
4-inch squares of fabric
ribbon

Combine dried herbs. Scoop 1 heaping teaspoon of mixture into the center of the fabric and tie the ends up with ribbon. Place balls in a glass and tie on instructions

To use: Use one ball per relaxing bath. You can tie the ball under the tap and let the water run through it, or steep the ball in 1 cup of boiling water for 15 minutes and add the liquid to the bathwater.

Holiday Gift Items and a Craft show announcement.

 My first Craft Show in over a year is this weekend.  Close to home, so if I forget anything I can at least send hubby home for it.

For those local to me (Chicagoland) - Willowbrook High School WPO 5th Annual Craft show 9 AM to 3 PM Saturday 11/13/21

As a result I am making gifty items and getting a few things made up in advance for online sales.  There are more that 15 soups in our list of items now and we added two this year that will be available only around the holiday, then be retired.  These two new soup mixes are:

Hearty Italian Soup

This is a bouillon included (vegetable) add water only soup that has several kinds of beans.

Five-bean Soup

This interestingly flavored soup is rich in herbs.

And we have made these great gift items.

A Charcuterie Starter Kit that has herb cheese spreads and dips included as well as a recipe for serving 6 to 12 people with a Charcuterie tray.

DIY Grilling Kit with materials and instructions for making your own marinades, meat rubs and other grilling spices.

Popcorn Lovers gift with corn you can pop on the cob and two of our salt-free popcorn seasonings to use with it.

Olive Oil Dipping Sauce with a bottle of virgin olive oil.

We have a fun new item, Cinnamon-scented Fire Starters.  These special scented pine cones can be used as kindling in your fire place or just tossed onto a fire to give off the wonderful seasonal scent. Or you can hang them with the band included in your car, faux tree or on a wreath.

We also have our Wine Dips and Spreads which will be packaged with wine glasses and holiday plates and spreaders.

And something brand new (like this week) -- By client request we modified our spiced wine blend to create something you can use in cider or apple juice, so we now have a new product called Wassail Drink Mix and have changed the packaging on our spiced wine to match calling it Wine Wassail.  Both allow you to create flavored cider or wine with holiday spices and smells.

Holiday gift making posts are in the works, so stop by in the next couple weeks and I will share herby ideas for gift giving.  Also this year we are doing the advent calendar as a daily email.  Sign up now to receive these, as we will not just blast the entire mailing list with daily emails, only those who sign up.

You can do so here ===== Advent Calendar Daily Idea sign-up

Herbal Gifts DIY

Coming up on Nov 6 we are presenting our Making Herbal Gifts program at District 214 in the Arlington Heights, IL  Area, so I thought I could share this blog post I first wrote as a Guest post on the Supporting Artists blog in December 2012.  The best thing about this is it is timeless and these items are great to make and perfect as gifts.

Using and gifting with herbs is such a special holiday treat. I thought I would share a few simple ideas that you can use to herb up your Holidays.

As an herb gardener, I enjoy the scents and smells of herbs, but this time of year the smell of spices is just as appealing. I craft these simmering spices to give my home the smell of gingerbread even when I do not have time for baking.

Simmer Spices

§  6 whole cinnamon sticks, broken

§  1 Tbls. whole allspice

§  1 Tbls. orange rind

§  1 Tbls. whole cloves

§  A handful of pine needles or fir needles, or you can substitute 2 Tbls. of Rosemary

Place all the items with water to cover in a simmer pot or place in a saucepan on the back burner with enough water to cover and keep on simmer. Refill the water whenever it gets low and enjoy the smell of Christmas!!

Seasoned Nuts

This is a recipe I share with my friends each year. I make it to serve at open houses. As a favor or gift I give my Backyard Patch Cinnful Dessert Blend with the recipe attached to those visiting. It is simple and easy to make and you can change up the nuts to suit your palate. If you do not have any Cinnful Dessert Blend, try pumpkin pie spice or just plain cinnamon.

Stirring the seasoned nuts, just before the oven

Cinnful Nuts (Cinnamon Roasted Nuts)

§  1/2 cup pecans

§  1/2 cup walnut halves

§  1 cup peanuts (see note below)

§  1 egg lightly beaten

§  1 tsp. water

§  3/4 cup sugar

§  1 Tbls. Backyard Patch Cinnful Dessert Blend

§  3/4 tsp. salt

Steps:

Combine the nuts. Mix together the egg and water and toss with the nut mixture. Combine the sugar, spices and salt and toss that with the nuts until they are well coated.

Spread nuts in a single layer on a lightly greased cookie sheet. Bake at 300 degrees for 20 to 25 minutes. Break up any large clusters and allow to cool.

(* NOTE: You can remove peanuts and increase the other nuts by ½ cup to make a different mixture. Or substitute hazelnuts for the peanuts.)

Inspiration Stimulation

When your creativity starts flagging because of all the pressure and use this delightful recipe for tea that combines sweet and savory herbs to construct a creative frame of mind. As a gift I tie 2 teaspoons of the herbs into cheese cloth squares or coffee filters and stack them in a decorative jar with a label including instructions.

§  1 Tbls. Hibiscus

§  1 Tbls. Lemon grass

§  ½ Tbls.Basil (Holy Basil if you have it is even better)

§  1 tsp. Rosemary

§  1 tsp. Cardamom seed (if you have pods crush and extract only the seed)

 

Combine in a container with a tight-fitting lid and use 2 tsp. per cup of hot water. Allow to steep 5 to 7 minutes.

Energizing Bath Bag Blend

Need more energy this holiday season? This combination of energizing herbs could do the trick. Create this blend of herbs and use it for yourself or make up a batch with your family and give them as gifts. The recipe makes 8 cloth bags of bath blend.

§  ½ cup lavender flowers

§  ½ cup peppermint

§  ½ cup spearmint

§  ½ cup lemon grass

§  8 drops lavender essential oil

§  10 drops lemon grass essential oil

§  5 drops peppermint essential oil

§  5 drops spearmint essential oil

Combine all herbs in a plastic bowl. Add oils by the drop and stir with a plastic spoon or spatula (not with your hands.) Allow to meld for an hour and then place about ¼ cup in a cotton muslin bag or heat sealed tea bag.

TO USE: Allow bath bag to steep in hot bath water for 3 to 5 minutes before bathing.

I hope you enjoy these recipes and if you like herbs, please visit my Shop where I highlight not only my cooking and tea herbs, but also baking mixes, soups mixes, and seasonal spices: www.backyardpatch.com or you can visit me at www.backyardpatch.etsy.com

 

 

DIY Spring Scented Coasters - Homemade Gift Series

DIY Spring Scented Coasters

These simple scented hot pad coasters are the perfect gift for any coffee or tea lover in your life, including yourself!

NOTE: The rice needs to sit for about 24 hours to absorb the scents properly before you put the hot pad together, so plan ahead when doing this project!

Here’s what you need for this project:

·         5″ x 12″ piece of pretty fabric for the outside of the coaster (I used 100% cotton in a fun pattern)

·         two 4.5″ squares of plain muslin

·         plain, uncooked rice

·         100% essential oil in your favorite scent

·         Zip seal bag

·         Needle and thread or sewing machine

Steps:

1.      Prepare the rice. Put about one cup of rice into a zip seal bag and add 6-7 drops of your favorite essential oil. Seal up the bag, shake the rice around so the oil is mixed in, and set the bag aside in a cool, dry place for 24 hours so the rice can soak up the scent.

2.      Once your rice is nice and scented, it’s time to make the coaster. First you’re going to make an envelope style cover for the outside.

3.      Fold over half an inch of fabric at one short end of the rectangle of outer fabric, and hem the end by sewing along the fold with about a 1/4″ seam allowance. Repeat on the other short end.

4.      Fold the long strip of fabric, right side in, so that both ends overlap each other about an inch or so. You want the final dimensions of the cover to be 4.5″ long, so adjust accordingly.

                               

5.      Sew along the open edges, leaving a 1/2″ seam allowance. Clip the corners and turn the envelope cover right side out.

6.      Then pin the two muslin squares on top of each other and sew around all four edges with a 1/4″ seam allowance, leaving a small hole on one edge to add the rice.

7.      Use a funnel to pour the scented rice into the muslin pouch. The fuller the pouch, the more stable the coaster will be, so fill it as full as you can! Then sew the small opening closed.

8.      Put the small muslin pouch inside your envelope cover, and you have your very own scented hot pad coaster! Warm up a mug of tea or coffee and test it out!

The reason I made this coaster in two pieces rather than just making a pouch of the pretty outer fabric is because it’s easily replaceable this way. If the rice loses its scent, just make a new inner muslin pouch with a new batch of rice, and you don’t have to get rid of the pretty cover! Or just use a seam ripper to pull open a corner of the muslin pouch and switch the rice out with freshly scented rice.

You could also switch up scents if you want to! If you have three or four favorite scents (maybe one for each season?!), make a muslin bag full of rice for each scent, and just switch them out into your favorite cover and you have a “new” hot pad each time! You should store your scented hot pad coaster in a plastic baggie when you’re not using it to keep the scent fresh and strong!