April Can Jam

‘Round here, spring takes a long time to arrive.  You can coax some things out of the ground if you have cold frames or hoop-houses or if you’re really lucky, a green house but the average frost-free date for our growing region is still far, far away.  So while I start seedlings indoors under lights and dream of the day I can set them into the garden, not much is really growing.  Even the perennial fruits and vegetables need more time before I can sample them.

So, I was pleasantly surprised to visit Food in Jars this morning and discover that next month’s Can Jam ingredient will be . . . (Insert drumroll here.)  Herbs!  Even I have those!! 

All winter I dig thyme out from under the snow and this year I managed to keep a rosemary alive in the porch so that I could prune sprigs from it when I needed them.  In addition to those I have other herbs returning from the dead after a long winter sleep.  I ran around with the camera to see what was awake. I found my chives:

The chives will revive quickly, but maybe they should have been canned with the alliums?

Some lavender:

I have lots of lavender and some ideas . . .

A couple spindly sage plants:

I've actually raked around the sage already, but it looks too sad to can right now.

Oregano:

I have so much oregano that I pull it out by the roots and compost it, so this might be a wise choice.

Winter savory:

I don't even use this much in my cooking, so I can't imagine I'll can it, but ya never know.

Tarragon:

Tarragon is my least favorite herb (Well, except for cilantro, but that is a story for another day.) but Mr. Hippie loves it on potatoes.

Lots of thyme:

Thyme

Catmint:

I'm not sure what on earth I would do with canned catmint. Bait cats?

And of course, the rosemary:

This is the longest I've managed to keep a rosemary alive! They always seem to die off on me right before spring.

I have some lemon balm and mint too, but they were too small and hard to find to photograph.   Everything is small now, but there are several weeks before the posts need to be up so I am hopeful that there will be plenty of herbs to choose from.

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