I admit it, I'm pretty lazy!
Today I finally got around to sending this message I'd promised to my herb garden volunteers on Tuesday, and the thought occurred to post it here ... two birds with one stone?
So here it is:
Hi everyone,
I looked everywhere for a recipe in a handy file to cut and paste! This is as close as I came to the recipe I used for the Rose Petal Jam you sampled on Monday, from Phyllis V. Shaudys'
Herbal Treasures (Storey Books). Phyllis Shaudys attributes the recipe to Euell Gibbons in his classic
Stalking the Healthful Herbs.
Remember, the best smelling roses are also the best flavored roses!
Rose Petal JamCopied from "eat them roses"
by LOUISE RIOTTEMother Earth News
March/April 1971
"Roses offer another bonus because besides being beautiful: You can eat them and there are few things more delightfully different—or easier to make—than Rose Petal Jam. Since you do not cook the petals you faithfully capture all the flavor, fragrance and color of the fresh roses . . . and serving this jam has added immeasurably to my reputation as a cook!
"Here's how: Simply take your freshly opened roses—any color—grasp as many petals as you can, hold them between your finger and thumb and snip the white bases (which are bitter) from all of them at once with a pair of scissors.
Blend one cup of petals in a blender with 3/4 cup water and the juice of one lemon. Blend until smooth, gradually adding 2-1/2 cups of sugar and keeping the blender running until all sugar is dissolved. Reserve.
Now stir one package of powdered pectin (Sure-Jel) into 3/4 cup water. Bring to a boil and boil hard for one minute, stirring constantly.
Pour the pectin into the rose-sugar mixture and continue slowly running the blender until all ingredients are thoroughly mixed. Pour into jars, cool, seal and refrigerate. This may also be frozen and is wonderful on muffins or hot biscuits some cold winter day when the sky is overcast and you are longing for a bit of bright June sunshine."
I like her writing, don't you?
Anyway, finding the Scented Geranium jelly recipe was easier. I hand this one out when I teach a class:
Easy Herb Jellies(Not Recommended as an activity for children.)
Scented Geranium Jelly1 18-ounce jar apple jelly
about 2 cups fresh scented geranium leaves
Method:
1. Remove lid from jelly jar. Microwave jelly one minute at a time, on High, just to melt , not boil (3-4 minutes total). NOTE: Please be careful, the jelly is hot (!) and the label of the bottle can become loosened, leading to slippage.)
2. Put leaves in 4-cup Pyrex measuring cup, reserving the four most decorative leaves for later. Place those four leaves in four small jelly glasses.
3. Pour hot jelly over leaves in measuring cup. Let stand a few minutes to cool, and to infuse the fragrant essential oil into the jelly.
4. When jelly appears to be starting to reset, remove the wilted leaves with a fork. Pour jelly over leaf in each jar, adjusting its position with a toothpick. Cap the jars and refrigerate.
(Note: I recently began to skip heating the jelly in the jar and just melting it right in the measuring cup. Easier. And you can also strain the leaves in step 4 using a messier but quick method of pouring through a metal strainer.)
Lavender MarmaladeMade in a similar fashion, using marmalade and culinary quality lavender buds.
Instead of the double infusion, simply add the melted marmalade to 2-4 teaspoons of lavender buds, and pour into the jars without removing the herbage.
Rose Petal JellyAlso made in a similar fashion to the scented geranium recipe.
For the best color and taste, use your darkest, most fragrant rose petals.
And for food safety, only use roses you are sure were grown without pesticides.
For rose petal jelly, gather a colander full of rose petals in the morning as soon as the dew is dried.
Pour the hot jelly over 2 cups of petals in the measuring cup, then add more petals. They melt down instantly. When the jelly starts to reset, strain out the petals through a metal sieve. Pour the jelly into jelly jars, cap and refrigerate.
Note: Try your own combinations! I’ve made Lavender jelly with good results, adding a purple blush with the addition of a spoonful of grape jelly. Strain the buds out of that one. Mint makes a nice jelly. But my experiments with Pineapple Sage in grape jelly was not a hit. Be prepared for some comments from the family.
I should add this caveat that I talked about during our conversation: it's great to experiment, but be sure to confirm with a reliable resource that the herb or edible flower you are using in your recipe is, indeed, edible.
Rudy found one of the few shady places to rest for a few minutes. This is one hard working farm dog. No matter what his master is up to, he feels the need to be in the middle of it. Bob must have been working inside the barn. Had a piece of equipment been started, Rudy would be on his feet giving the machine "what for" in an instant. That is his job. In case you can't tell from the picture, this is one of the sweetest dogs in the world. My brother is afraid of him. Hahahaha.
Out front the purple vitex is beginning to bloom. Each of those bell-shaped maroon cups will eventually be a vitex berry. Last year, this bush was simply stunning, but this year it is blooming a little bit at a time and the color never really showed up. It is such a great violet. I've seen pictures of Jacaranda (sp?) trees in Australia, and they have that same vivid blue/purple color.
This is the white vitex bush out back. It has a bit of a pink tinge and is much more prolific than the purple. Also, the berries are more fragrant. So there are more berries, and they smell stronger. That old bumble bee sure seems to like it. I've noticed this season that instead of little honey bees, we are inundated with bumble bees. 
Down on the hillside, I found a nice patch of wild yarrow. I would love to see it expand enough so that next year I could distill it.
Black eyed Susans and yellow coneflowers.... They are having a riot on the hill. Many different varieties and many different shades and sizes. Don't they look happy?
The oregano is going crazy. So far, I've chopped it back 3 times and it just wants to bloom. The butterflies seem to want it to bloom too, so I suppose it's time to allow it. We don't use a whole lot of oregano anyway, and it is so pretty... Maybe just a few sprigs to dry, and then I'll let it alone.
Calendula - Herb of the Year. There are a couple of volunteer patches out front. In the one garden they are singles of yellow and orange. In the other garden, they are double yellows. They are cut back frequently and dead-headed to encourage more flowers.
This is one of the new varieties of echinacea that I got from Possum Creek Herb Farm this spring. The petals are darker than they appear in this picture, almost as dark as the cone looks here. They make a nice contrast to the angustifolia in the back of the garden. Purpurea grows down at my sister's, and we should probably get some Pallida. We saw some green tinted echinacea growing in a garden the other day. It looked pretty cool!
And finally, the elderberries are beginning to form on the bushes out back. The umbels are HUGE! Some are nearly 18 inches in diameter. The bushes are loaded. This is good news because last year wasn't a good year for elderberries. Even if the birds fight me for them - which is a certainty - there will be enough for everyone.
So that's it for now. Off I go for a long-awaited attitude adjustment. Certainly those who live with or near me will be relieved.
The lilies and daylilies are scrumptious this year.
Some red monarda growing next to bronze fennel.
Rose campion. 
Next comes the rosemary. This plant is enormous for rosemary in MY growing experience. It grows next to a fir tree, and is cracking me up as it appears to be trying to compete for size. That could be my imagination. I've been known to assign motives to inanimate objects before, but it just seems to have an attitude. I distilled rosemary last year, and besides the bit of eo, the hydrosol has maintained every bit of its scent over the year. It might be a good choice. Rosemary soap is great, and the hydrosol could be used as the water.
Balloon flowers aren't a good choice. To my knowledge, there's no reason to distill them. Still, this soft pink flower always catches my breath. I love the deep rays that stretch out from the center, the perfect symetry, and the way the buds turn into perfect hot-air balloons. When the guys in the family were piloting balloons, we found these flowers. The deep blue is stunning too. I just chose the pink because it is so delicate.
The front garden. Nothing of interest here YET. The vitex was very interesting 2 years ago, and it made a lovely hydrosol. This year I would also like to try distilling echinacea to see what comes of it. It's the experimentation that appeals to me more than anything.
Ah...meadow tea. I think this is spearmint. It reminds me so much of my childhood, when we'd set out for the day to play down by the creek. The boys would fish from a small plastic boat while I just tryed to stay as far as possible from A) fish hooks and B) stinging nettle. The scent of this mint is blended with the scent of fish living in a creek, to form one fresh, wild scent. A few years back I met a land management guy who, as we walked around a spring-fed pond, talked about being able to smell fish in a pond before even knowing there was a pond over the next hill or beyond the tree line. I knew exactly what he meant. It isn't a fishy smell. It's a smell of pollywogs and mud and grasses, mints and burn hazel and water. But this mint brings that smell to mind every time. I was glad to have someone point out to me that there even is such a thing as that. This would make a delicious distillate. It could be used in all kinds of ways, not the least of which would be culinary.
Now this is the mountain mint that came home with me from Baton Rouge in ...was it last year? It has gotten huge and lush. The tops of the stems have all turned this luscious shade of pale green, while the lower leaves are brilliant jade green. This distills beautifully. We did it for an herb guild last fall, and it was so strong as to make us almost woozy. The resulting hydrosol makes a spectacular body spray on hot days - especially if kept cold in the fridge. It also makes a wonderful minty soap. 
This would be the apple mint. There is so much out there right now I could fill the still 10 times and there would be enough left over to dry and have a few pounds. The plants are incredibly healthy, reaching halfway up the pines they grow amongst. The trees are about 7' tall. I distilled this mint last year, and it is a delicious, juicy mint. It is nice as it fills the room with refreshing mint while steaming away, producing essential oil and lots of hydrosol.
Between my garden and my sister's garden, we'd probably have enough calendula to try. I've never done that one. It would probably be pretty sticky in the biomass flask, but that's simple enough to clean with a little alcohol. Perhaps we'll do this one later. If it works, I won't want to give it away, and it probably wouldn't be good to experiment in front of a group - if the experiment fails.
I just like the blue of the chicory next to the blue spruces. It looks so pretty out in the field. Besides the chicory, there is a lot of Queen Anne's lace. The three together are stupendous. I'm pretty sure my bil doesn't feel the same, as the weeds aren't a good thing for him.
Last shot for today is the elderflower slowly turning into elderberry. There are so many berries on the bushes this year that I just might try distilling them. That might be really cool. Or not. We'll see.
So aside from that, I have peppermint, chocolate mint, and holy basil that could be distilled. It might just turn out to be whatever we're in the mood for on Friday when we pick it. There are just too many choices.
