I have been hang drying sage in the kitchen and it was finally time to put it away today!
For anyone interested in herbalism even if it’s just growing kitchen herbs, I highly recommend the book, “The Herbal Medicine-Maker’s Handbook: A Home Manual” by herbalist, James Green. It’s a very pleasant, conversational, and enjoyable read, yet contains the information you would expect in a textbook. It was one I chose when I decided to dive deeper into tincturing and salves for medicinal herbs.
I usually only use sage at Thanksgiving when I’m making turkey and gravy and dressing… Which made me to think of this joke that is really bad but made me giggle:
Why did the turkey become an herbalist?
Because he loved to go garble garble garble!
I crack myself up sometimes…
Anyway, I stored about 6 oz. of sage from the garden and there’s still more I may dry and give to people I know who cook with it often. And my son helped me with the garbling!
Garbling is the process by which all excess stems, twigs, impurities, or decayed portions of the herb are removed and discarded.
It can be a tedious and time consuming task for someone who does not have an eye for details, but for people like my son and I, it is a consuming and enjoyable, self-satisfying activity. Also, it’s as if tiny toddler fingers were made especially for garbling. My son did eventually tire of it as the twigs became less obvious and the work became more tedious, but he greatly increased the effeciency of the work by helping to remove the majority of the impurities.
Now we won’t choke on sage twigs as we eat our Thanksgiving turkey🦃… Garble garble garble!
Wholly Holy Living 