September Bounty !
For those of you who have been reading the newsletter for a few years, you know that harvest season is my favorite time of the year, and I tend to get a little carried away when I talk about it. This year is no exception, and I'm happily enjoying sunflowers, collecting elderberries to make cold and flu tinctures, and visiting a local organic farmer for raspberries, sweet potatoes, tomatoes, peaches, eggplant, carrots, plums and more. I just bought my first red raspberries a few days ago, and it was well worth my son's reaction to find them packed in his school lunch. I'm planning to get more raspberries to dry for blending with herb teas, and to make into some fruit leather.

This year, I've been focused on finding more ways to use herbs from my garden, both culinary and medicinal. I'm a recent convert to the use of herbal tinctures, and have been "wowed" by results using Holy Basil and elderberry. I'm currently making tinctures of elderberry, lemon balm, and echinacea. I've also been drying lemon balm, peppermint, and coriander seed for use in herbal teas, as well as thyme, sage, savory, oregano and more for cooking. I've been making infused oils, vinegars, herbal syrups, seasoning blends, and drying berries and roots from my trips to the woods and fields. I'm also having quite a bit of fun learning to create my own herbal tea blends. One of my recent successes is a blend of raspberries, coriander, and mint. My friend, Michele Brown of Possum Creek Herb Farm, shared one of her favorite herbal blends and I'm looking forward to trying it. It's a simple combination of lemongrass, lemon verbena, spearmint and some ginger for zing.

Order volume is beginning to pick up here at The Original Soap Dish® as customers begin to prepare for the upcoming busy season. Be assured that we will do our best to keep items in stock, and turn around times as close to normal as possible. In the event of an out of stock item, or slower than 24-48 hour turn around, we will make every attempt to communicate the fact to our customers. Also, in June we had announced summer hours which included being closed on Wednesday. The Wednesday closure has worked out so well for us here in the shop that we have decided to make it permanent. When placing your orders, please keep in mind that we will not be shipping on Wednesdays.