RECIPE: Lavender Simple Syrup
Lavender is a favorite herb among gardeners and is well loved by our pollinator friends, like the honeybee!
Lavender has been used in French cuisine for hundreds of years and has recently grown in popularity throughout North America. If you are looking for a unique culinary use for your lavender, we have two delicious drink recipes, below, that use Lavender Simple Syrup as a base.
Lavender Simple Syrup adds delicate, floral notes to your favorite recipes. Add it to your coffee or tea for a relaxing morning, or add it to some lemonade for the perfect cool down drink in the warm weather – see how to make both fun drinks below!
Lavender Simple Syrup
You'll Need
- 3 Tbsp. dried lavender
- ½ cup sugar (or ⅓ cup of agave nectar or honey)
- ½ cup water, plus 3 Tbsp.
Let's Get Cooking:
- Add the ½ cup of water and the lavender to a saucepan. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for about 3 minutes.
- Remove from heat and steep for 20 minutes.
- Strain out flowers and discard.
- In a clean saucepan, add ½ cup of sugar and 3 tablespoons water. Bring to a boil, stirring to dissolve sugar.
- Simmer for 3-4 minutes, then stir in lavender liquid. Whisk until fully combined, remove from heat and allow to cool. Your lavender simple syrup can be refrigerated up to one week.
Yields approximately ½ cup of syrup, depending on what type of sweetener is used and how much water boils off.
OPTIONAL: You can turn your syrup a pretty purple hue by adding in a few blueberries or blackberries when you boil the lavender, or use a natural food colorant.
Lavender Drinks
Drink 1: Lavender Latte
Add a splash of the Lavender Simple Syrup to your favorite coffee or tea, and top it off with frothed milk.
Sprinkle lavender flower buds over top of foam.
Drink 2: Lavender Lemonade
In a large pitcher, combine 1 cup of freshly squeezed lemon juice, 3 cups cold filtered water, and a ½ cup (full recipe) of Lavender Simple Syrup. Stir to combine.
Chill for at least 2 hours and serve over ice with a slice of lemon and a sprig of fresh lavender.
When pruned and harvested regularly, lavender will flourish in the EarthBox® Junior™ gardening system:
Tell us: Have you ever tried cooking or baking with lavender?
Share your favorite lavender recipes with us in the comments, below!
If I plant a blueberry bush in the Root and Veg Earthbox, what is the method and schedule to replenish fertilizer? What about replacing the plastic cap as it inevitably wears out? How would one do this without disturbing the plant too much or making a huge hole in the next plastic cap to fit down over the bush?
I’d love to also know the same for planting blackberry bushes in the EarthBox Original?
You'd follow our instructions for the initial set up, except do not add dolomite to the blueberry bush. When you have to replace the cover, the only way for these plants is to create a big hole in the cover and then tape it back up after you have it in place. We'd recommend adding another pound of our 7-7-7 fertilizer (or another equivalent, slow-release fertilizer) every 3-4 months. That generally lasts 1 growing season, which for the majority of crops grown in the EarthBox is no more than 120 days. Blueberries and blackberries are one of the few perennials that can be successfully grown in the EarthBox.
Which size is best for blueberries the orginal size? Or the deep root n veggie size?
Can nursery recommended acidic soil/ Azelia soil be used in earthboxes for blueberries?
You can grow blueberries in either of those EarthBox sizes, though we recommend the Root & Veg since its depth is more conducive to the plant. You can forgo using dolomite with blueberries, but ensure the pH is somewhere between 4.5-5.5. We still recommend following our growing media recommendations listed here: https://earthbox.com/learning-center/recommended-growing-media
I have my SEASCAPE Day-neutral strawberry seeds in hand. These will be planted indoors, in a grow tent, under LED quantum panels in the EarthBox. I have never planted strawberries of any kind, so Im eager to get this party started. Will provide updates. Too bad we can't attach pics.
~Kbore
NEWS FLASH from Kbore about Seascape seeds: Hybrid strawberry seeds are NOT true to the variety, if they sprout at all. I may have seascape seeds in hand (rip-off) but they will not produce the same plant as the seed donor. To grow the true variety, you must have live/ dormant plant starts from that variety.
On the subject of plant starts, it's too hot to ship live plants in the middle of July (in Zone 6A where I live), so don't expect to buy strawberry seedlings mail-order: It's not going to happen.
Looks like mid-September-ish for me. As the late Tom Petty wrote: " Waiting is the hardest part".
~Kbore