Celebrate the Heart of Summer in the Garden....................................... Rutgers Gardens that is

Colorful flowers, butterfly's, shade trees, wine tasting, yoga demonstrations, food, shopping and tours. What a marvelous way to celebrate the heart of the summer season.

We hope you'll join us this Saturday, July 28th at the Rutgers Gardens Annual Open House and Wine Tasting.

Admission is $5 per person. Children under 17 are free, as are Rutgers Garden members. To partake in the wine tasting is an additional $10. 

Personally, I can't wait for the Yoga Demonstration from Inner Light Yoga Center, and the Aromatherapy for Your Senses seminar by Gwenn Fried. The tours are always so informative and there are plenty of experts around to help solve some of your pesky garden problems. 

Cindy and I will be spending time at our booth as well! We'll have lots of Gardeners Salve and Dó Gréine Sunburn Spray on hand, and maybe even a few new surprises.

Mention this Rutgers Garden Blog post and we'll take 10% off your order of $5 or more.

Play with Your Food - Herbal Sugars

I have an infusion fascination. I admit it. I love taking all those lovely herbs and flowers from my garden and infusing them into a multitude of other things to make intriguing new flavors.

If you saw my apothecarium right now, you'd see 8 or 9 different flavored sugars setting up. There's also about 12 honeys, 10 vinegars, a few salts and many herbal alcohol based extracts waiting for the herbal and fruity goodness to be fully released.

I've talked about herbal sugars before. The simplicity of it makes me wonder why everyone doesn't have some of these herbal sweets in their cabinets at home.

As a quick refresher:
You'll need:

• 1 large, extremely well cleaned dry glass jar with a lid. Quart size
• About 1 cup (loosely packed) of your herb of choice - see some suggestions below.
• Sugar to fill your jar.

1. I prefer to use dried herbs. They infuse their flavor and fragrance without making the sugar clumpy. You can use fresh, but make sure they are rinsed off and then thoroughly dried.
2. Lightly crush the herbs to help release some of the oils.
3. Put about 1/2 inch worth of sugar in the jar.
4. Place a layer of herbs on top of the sugar.
5. Continue layering until you reach within 1/2 inch of the top of the jar.
6. Seal the jar tightly.
7. Let this sit on a shelf for at least two weeks, but the longer you let it sit, the stronger the flavor.

I have a jar of vanilla sugar that's been sitting on the shelf for a few years. Whenever I want to add a vanilla flavor to something, I sift out the measure of sugar that I need. Then I add more sugar to the jar and shake it up well. It smells fabulous when I open the jar!

The best herbs to use for infused sugars are once with a strong fragrance. Here are some of my favorites and how I use them.

Lemon Herb - dried lemon peels, lemon verbena, and lemon balm
Vanilla - just vanilla beans
Cinnamon - several crushed cinnamon sticks
Rose Geranium - Lots of lovely rose geranium leaves
Bee Balm (Monarda didyma, Bergamot, Oswego Tea) - flower heads as well as leaves
Chai Blend - Cinnamon sticks, cloves, a nutmeg, small piece of vanilla bean, a few pepper corns, some holy basil leaves and cardamom pods
Mint - mint leaves
Lime - dried lime peels and lime scented geranium
 
The uses for these delectable sugars are limitless. I like to use all of them when I'm baking. The vanilla or chai make great angel food cake. Blend the Rose Geranium with Strawberry lemonade for a truly refreshing summer treat. There are some wonderful Sorbet recipes at The Herb Companion site - use any of these sugars to bring a different twist to these frozen concoctions. Sprinkle a little Bee Balm sugar on a fruit salad and toss lightly to add some sweet pizazz. I LOVE using the Cinnamon sugar on French Toast, or when I make glazed carrots. I've used the Lime sugar when making a blueberry crumble.


If you have flavored sugars set up, whenever you're creating in the kitchen you can use them instead of regular sugar to add that little something extra to you dish. Have fun with a recipe and play with your food!


Of course, we use them all them time in our sugar scrubs, too.

Rain or Shine - there will be Wine!

Let the Memorial Day festivities begin as we unofficially start summer! 

Join us this weekend at

The Garden State Wine Growers

Wine & Blues Festival

Natirar Park, Peapack-Gladstone, Somerset NJ

Saturday & Sunday, May 26  & 27, 11:30 to 5

Rain date Monday May 28

$25 admission includes wine glass and all the wine sampling you'd like.  Under 21 is free.

Free if you are not sampling wines. Cash only if purchasing tickets at the admission tent.

Come on out and enjoy fabulous music in the amazing Natirar Park. 

Kick back with some wine from one of the 25 New Jersey vineyards present, grab something to eat, do a little shopping at the fine vendors 

(like Celtic Chairde Creations!).

 It's a great way to kick off summer with out stressing.

Mention this blog post while shopping at our booth, and receive a free lip balm!

Lilacs and More for Mom

My lilacs are still bursting forth with fragrance and cheerfulness! My roses are starting to bloom. Spring is springing up everywhere. With Mothers Day coming up quickly, we thought we'd celebrate with some wonderful specials - for you and your mom!


We're big fans of lilacs. And we've created a wonderful linen and air spray that truly captures that light, uplifting scent of spring without smelling soapy. Our Lilac Fairy Ceo Broingloid (Dream Mist) is on sale now through Mothers Day - $2.00 off the regular price!

But there's more...


Order one of our Gift Sets and you'll receive free shipping PLUS a free 4oz Lilac Fair Dream mist! Choose our Méla Tea Set which includes one each of our fabulous all natural, herbal tea bag packs. You can use each tea bag 2 or 3 times - so this is a real value as well as a wonderful mini-spa treat. Or choose our Gardeners Gift Pack with all the things you need for outdoor care.

You can also build your own gift set and receive free shipping and a free gift. Go to our website and select the items you'd like to include in your gift. During check out, enter Chairde Special in the comments area. We'll create a gift basket of those items and get them out to you in time for Mothers Day!

The specials will be available until May 9th (to assure delivery in time for Mothers Day).

If you have any questions, you can always email us and we'll be happy to help.

I've got good news, and...

We're coming up on our first event of the season, which is very exciting and I'll share more news on that within the next few days. But in the mean time, I wanted to let everyone know that we've got some good news ... and some bad news.

The bad news is that we have to adjust some of our prices, particularly on our body butters. Supply costs have risen tremendously over the past few years. We've maintained our prices as best we can, but it just isn't feasible any more.

The good news is that we've added a 4 ounce size to our body butters! This special size is only available on our website. It's perfect for those who love to indulge their whole body in these moisturizing and wonderfully decadent butters.

We're going to continue to add some new items over the next month or so. And we will continue to give you exciting, skin loving, magically inspired and wonderful products with reasonable prices.