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Harvesting vines, flowers & herbs for drying, and hot peppers!

I am happy to see that the vine that attacked my huge old lilac tree this summer is a bittersweet vine. I was having major guilt over not making the time to get rid of the vine and thrilled to see it that it was in fact, this beautiful ornamental.

For years, I have been gathering bittersweet - the little yellow berries whose shell bursts open when cold to reveal the red-orange fruit inside - from the tree tops to use in my autumn wreaths, window boxes, and garland around my door. When the time comes to replace it all with evergreens for winter, I would toss the old berries here and there hoping they would one day "take". It's a shame they "took" over this ancient lilac instead of a forgotten forsythia bush, swamp maple, or phone pole. Anyways, this year, I have a wonderful bounty of berries to decorate with.

 The grapevines did surprisingly well also. I thought this summer's drought would have stunted them. Grapevine is so easy to work with when still green and pliable. I love forming oversized wreaths as well as tiny ones that will be used instead of plastic bows on holiday packages. Honeysuckle vine also makes a beautiful more delicate wreath. 

Sometimes I will take bunches of long ornamental grass, braid it, and intertwine it into the wreaths. Though with the ornamental grass, I have more fun pulling twine tight around the "belly" of the grass and again at the top to form my own unique scarecrow. Trust me, a line of them with their red plumes on top, do look very scary. It always makes my family a little nervous when they see me doing this.

I love this harvesting season - stringing and hanging hot peppers to dry, gathering flowers for drying, and hanging my hot pepper lights. The colors alone - reds, yellows, and oranges are such a sign of warmth along with using the wood stove to quickly dry the harvest.

For drying flowers, you get the best results when you cut them at their peak - when they are fullest and prettiest. The quicker they dry, the better they hold their color. The same holds true for your herbs and peppers. Always hang the flowers and herbs upside down to help the stems dry straight. I use a mini clothesline over my woodstove. I also have an electric dehydrator which is very quick and effective. This works especially well with herbs and more delicate flowers.

 Once the drying process is completed, I store my herbs and hot peppers in glass airtight jars, set my delicate flowers between sheets of wax paper inside a heavy book for pressing, combine my bunches of long stemmed flowers in decorative baskets until I need them for assembling wreaths and whatnot.

10/1/99