There are many ways to package and send love on Valentine’s Day. The scent of herbs evokes and stirs the memory. Let herbs deliver scented messages of affection and caring.
Bath and Body Herbs
An aromatic herbal bath and foot soak are simple and pleasurable forms of relaxation. Use dried herbs like mint, lemon grass, rosemary, lemon balm, chamomile or lavender. Package the herbs in small muslin bags used for bouquet garni or paper tea bags. Include instruction for use: “Place the bag in the tub or hang it from the faucet as you draw your bath.”
A footbath refreshes the entire body. Marjoram soothes tired foot muscles. Lovage is a natural deodorant. Thyme cleanses and refreshes. Peppermint cools hot tired tootsies. For each bath use 1/2 cup of fresh or 2 tablespoons of dried herbs. Package the herbs in colorful toile or muslin bundles.
Herbal Breads and Confections
The scent of fresh baked bread is perfume for the soul. Convert favorite bread recipes with herbal flavors by adding chives, lemon verbena, basil, thyme, or rosemary. Pour batter into heart-shaped pans.
Chocolates are favorite Valentine gifts. Enhance the taste of homemade brownies by adding freshly crushed mint (1/2 cup) to brownie batter. Or serve mint-flavored whipping cream on desserts. Bruise 4-5 mint sprigs and soak in one pint of whipping cream for an hour or overnight. Remove mint before whipping.
Scented Seed
Some garden seeds give clues to their identity by their scent when you harvest the seed. For example, vitex, lavender, coriander, garlic chives, and catnip seeds have distinctive scents. Give a hand-decorated coin envelopes filled with herb or fragrant flower seeds from your garden.
Herbal Tea Bags
Let an assortment of handmade herbal tea bags tell your Valentine: “You are my cup of tea.” Fill tea bags with dry leaves of peppermint, chamomile, lemon verbena, coriander, rosemary, marjoram or thyme.
Pleasant Dreams
Herbal comfort or dream pillows are intended to provide a restful sleep. The aroma of certain herbs seems to encourage relaxation. The pillow is a small 3” by 5” cloth bag, a drawstring bag will do, filled with ¼ to ½cup of dried herbs and tucked inside one’s pillowcase. The best herbs for dream pillows are homegrown and pesticide free. Hops, rosemary, lavender, mugwort, chamomile, peppermint, spearmint are commonly used to promote slumber. Three combinations are particularly useful:
Rest Easy
- ¼ cup lavender flower
- ¼ cup mugwort
- ¼ cup sweet hops
Stress Release
- ½ cup sweet hops
- ½ cup mugwort
- ½cup sweet marjoram
Peaceful Slumber
- ¼ cup rose petals
- ¼ cup rosemary
- ¼ cup lavender flowers
- ¼ cup sweet hops
For each recipe mix the dried herbs together and place in a closed container overnight so the fragrances blend. Each recipe makes four to eight pillows.
Sharing by Dividing
Share your garden herb plants with a Valentine by dividing existing plants and repotting. Chives, bee balm, burnet, horehound, oregano, sweet woodruff, mints and catnip are good candidates for division.
Rooting for Your Valentine
Many herbs are easily propagated by stem cuttings. English thyme, basil, rosemary, lavender, oregano, and pineapple sage root easily in water or soil-less potting medium. All varieties of mint root effortlessly too.
Lavish your loves with herbal gifts from the garden throughout the year. Now is the time to plan next year’s herbal Valentine garden.
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