Well, I mean, it was probably my final herb harvest of the year. Though truth be told, I have a ginormous amount of English thyme that I could still harvest if I want to.
The last of the mint, some thyme, a small amount of rosemary, and the very last bits of lavender.
Aren’t those herbs gorgeous? I am still mourning the loss of my two enormous rosemary plants that were the size of shrubberies, and which had overwintered here for a decade or more. But the hard freeze last winter took them out. It did not, however, affect the English thyme, which has grown to take over a two-foot square space.
The mint is grown in a large pot, to keep it from taking over the entire garden. The lavender was the most surprising of the volunteers, since it threw up a few blooms quite late in the season.
I’ve been drying the mint leaves to store for mint tea. The thyme you see, plus quite a lot more, was used to make some thyme syrup to treat coughs and sore throats. My other lavender (harvested earlier in the season) has dried and is being stored for use in tea as well.
A friend from Greece gifted me with some lovely dried chamomile, so I mix a small amount of lavender in with the chamomile when I make myself an evening cup of herbal tea to enhance the relaxation and peaceful effects. It’s truly delightful.
Of course, I also use the dried herbs in spell work. And this summer I had a volunteer mugwort plant, so I used some of its leaves along with some of my lavender and thyme to make a smoke cleansing stick, and it is wonderful (and lasting quite a long while).
If you would have told me five years ago that any of this was something I’d be doing, I would have thought you confused, at best. But it turns out that a large part of being witchy is working with the earth, with the planets, with the moon, with the elements, and with the seasons.
Which herbs do you grow or work with?