Chive Vinaigrette aka Dinner Party Present

I recently went on a vacation with my boyfriend to visit his family and go deep sea fishing. This was when my garden was just taking shape, and I didn’t have a lot of produce to make something delicious to bring as a gift. What I did have was a lot of chive flowers.

I picked a mason jar full of chive flowers and poured raw apple cider vinegar to fill up the container. I let this sit in the fridge until our trip, about 10 days. The vinegar infused with the taste of chives and took on the purple hue from the flowers. It is absolutely stunning!

I strained out the infused vinegar and poured it into a fancy container and put a few chive flowers back in the container, to show what it is made from.

Infusing vinegars is so simple, and makes the best salad dressings; I also love using them to top soups and stews. You can infuse almost anything in vinegar, strawberries, raspberries, basil, mint, chili peppers, you name it. Experiment and spread the love by giving these almost free presents away.

Gardening Session: Edible Flowers

Edible Flowers

Keep it simple and pot up some flowers that will work overtime for you! Just a few flowers will feed bees, bring beauty and lower stress levels, plus you can even eat them!

I love pansys, violas, marigolds, calendula, nasturtiums, dill, and sunflowers. However there are many more edible flowers.

I love to use them in salads, smoothies,soaked in vinegar to make a vinaigrette, and even as a flower syrup for pancakes. They have such an amazing flavour, and since they are full of colours they are also full of antioxidants.

Growing your own flowers to eat is really the only way you can enjoy their rare flavour and nutritional powers, since it is rare to see them at the store, sometimes at farmer’s markets. This is because they do not store and travel well.

I bought pots at the dollarstore, my dirt is OMRI certified, I simply asked for organic dirt at my local garden shop, where I also picked up the plant starts. I also always use a product called Gia Green Glacier Rock Dust, it contains all the trace elements, which are missing from many soils today. and we want to eat those!

Super simple mix the dirt with the rock dust and plant your plant, making sure to cover all the roots, but don’t plant it too deep so the plant is being covered by alot of dirt, or it will die. I like to plant my flowers closer together, about 4 plants per pot, so I can harvest them more frequently.

Harvest the pansys, marigolds, calendula, nasturtiums, and violas as often as you want, the more you pick the flowers the more they will grow. Isn’t that the best news?

Keep it simple this summer by growing your own flowers to improve your mood, your gut, and mother nature.

Wanna learn how to make your own raised bed gardens??