Mansions Along the Delaware - Andalusia

The Rosemary House recently hosted a Traveling Herb Seminar that featured Mansions along the Delaware River. This tour showed us what over 300 years of entertaining along the Delaware River looked like back in the day. The Delaware River forms the eastern border of Pennsylvania and separates our state from New Jersey. Now a very peaceful view, in the early days of our developing country, the river was a multi-lane highway of commerce and traffic. Our first stop was Andalusia. This Greek Revival style home has been entertaining visitors since 1836.

This lovely country estate is located 13 miles upstream from central Philadelphia in Bucks County. Privately held by the Biddle Family, we were fortunate to be able to take a peek inside and a very quick walk around the grounds. An attempt at commercial grape growing was made in the mid 1800's. Two enormous masonry walls have been partially restored to show their original purpose. These walls currently enclose and enhance the formal garden.

A Taste of Tea

Each year Penn-Cumberland Garden Club holds their annual Bertha P. Reppert Herb Tea Party. This is the 52nd year for this creative event. Typically, this is a themed event with a special speaker and coordinated menu and foods that feature many herbs. This year the Tea and Hat Lady, Marcella Farina was the speaker. As a Specialty Tea Institute (STI) Certified Tea Specialist, Marcella generously shared her knowledge on tea. She brought many tea items to display, and this Korean Tea Cozy Basket caught my fancy.

Korean Tea Cozy

This compact Traveling Tea set affords you the opportunity to sit down and brew some tea for yourself and several friends wherever you are in your journey.

Marcella's presentation was both interesting and informative. Shown here are a few tea gadgets from her personal collection. Tea cozies, a tea themed mat, gong fu teapot, tea tasting cup, and a draining tray are just a few of the tea related items she shared. For more on tea, follow and like The Tea and Hat Lady on Facebook.

Since this event was held in early spring, the outdoor planters were not very far along, so the committee decorated them with miniature tea settings.

Pretty as a Princess Tea Party

Yesterday, a very hot July day, we welcomed the Mermaid Princess and Rapunzel to the herb gardens of Sweet Remembrances and The Rosemary House for a delightful afternoon tea and an entertaining visit from both princesses. Little girls dressed in purples and pinks and ocean blues gathered under the pavilion to enjoy a summertime activity. The tables were set with a seaside theme, and colorful cups quietly announced the purpose of the day.

Tangled Fresh Fruit with Scuttle's Almond Cream

Mothers and daughters, grandmothers and aunts, great nieces, too, were offered hot tea or pink lemonade before the first course was served. Once everyone had a beverage, plates of Tangled Fresh Fruit were served with Scuttle's Almond Cream. After the fresh fruit, three tiered trays laden with tea party treats were presented to each group of guests.

Angelica with the tiered tray.

The bottom tier featured sandwiches:

• Ursula's Zucchini Bread with Mascarpone Cheese Filling 
• Perfect for a Prince Peanut Butter and Jelly Squares 
• Pretty as a Princess Glittery Magic Wands 
• The Ruler of the Sea, King Triton's Crowns 
• The Royal Guard's Cucumber Rounds 
• Mother Gothel's Ham Salad Teapots

The middle tier held:

• Let Down Your Golden Tea Bread 
• Queen Arianna's Favorite Cream Scone with Sweet Cream.

The most popular tier featured

•  Rapunzel's Favorite Flower Cupcake 
•  The little Mermaid Beach Cupcakes
• Sebastian's Favorite Popcorn Balls

While the young girls were enjoying their tea and treats, the Princesses from My Fantasy Party visited each table and shared stories and laughter about their adventures. A craft was also shared by the princesses. Singing, 'Princess Says', and photos with the princesses rounded out the day.

Sandwich Assortment

We've joined Bernideen's Tea Time Blog Party this week. Check our her blog, and fellow bloggers!

Sharing happiness!

Entangle- Mint??

Is your mint patch an entanglement of mint varieties? Try sinking individual pots in the ground. Be sure to leave about 2 inches of pot above ground so that mint doesn't escape. The mint will try its hardest to grow outside of the pot but if you are firm it will stay contained. If your mints grow together you will loose the uniqueness of the individual varieties and simply end up with "mint". So it's best to keep your chocolate mint away from the orange mint and separate that from the pineapple mint and don't let the spearmint or peppermint rule the roost. Instead keep them all in separate pots sunk in the ground so that watering isn't a problem.

Humble Beginnings

The following is a Guest Post from Intern Molly Sams:

So as many of you know I have moved out of the homestead of The Essential Herbal Magazine and into a nice home in downtown Lancaster. As you can imagine I am in love with our new place and was thrilled to have a sunny  stoop to be able to start a container garden.

 In early spring I began collecting random pots for containers and when it seemed almost warm enough I went through the new plants Susanna had and began picking up budding plants here and there for my garden.

So far I have a little lavender, lemon balm, garlic, and rosemary. It may be small but these plants are already showing their true colors. The lemon balm is my wild child, garlic is taking its time, lavender is staying strong, and rosemary wafts to me every time I head out back. It is small but absolutely exciting. I plan to grow (as soon as I find more pots) some holy basil, chamomile, and calendula. Wish me luck!

If you want an update on how the garden grows, follow this link to the Essential Herbal blog where Molly shares the latest on her little herb garden.

The Herb Garden - Kutztown Folk Festival

The little herb garden at the Kutztown Folk Festival is tended by Susanna of The Rosemary House and Tina of the Essential Herbal. Designed, planted, watered daily, this little display garden features a four-square design. This simple layout, four rectangular beds with in intersecting path between them, provides the opportunity to grow a variety of herb plants and flowers and to have them within easy access for harvesting. The Festival continues through the weekend, concluding on Sunday the 10th. Stop by, visit the garden, and say 'hi' to Tina and Susanna.

Here's another one of the festive colorful signs that are featured around the show. This one shares Flower Lore of the Pennsylvania Dutch.

Bas-il or Ba-sil

Whether you pronounce it Ba-sil or Bas-il, either is correct. I wouldn't be without it. I love this freshly planted basil garden with one each of 12 different varieties of basil. Mammoth Leaf, Sweet Basil, Lettuce Leaf Basil, Spicy Globe Basil, Greek Columnar Basil, Mini Basil, Thai Basil, Cinnamon Basil, Lemon Basil and then there are the purple varieties. Ideal for any dish that uses tomatoes, and perfect for traditional pesto, basil is one of our favorites. Basil is the perfect companion plant for tomatoes as it helps to keep away the nematodes.
For a clever drying technique, follow this link to an earlier post.

The Summer Kitchen

The summer kitchen display at the Kutztown Folk Festival is always a popular exhibit to visit. Separate from the farm house, cooking in the summer kitchen helped to keep the farm house cool during those hot summer nights.

Good old fashioned home cooking! Any one for a piece of pie?

These brightly colored signs can be found all around the festival with information about the folklore and history of the Pennsylvania Dutch. The festival is ongoing July 2nd through July 10th, 2016. Admission is $12.00/person, but you can print a coupon for $2.00 off and bring it to the admission gate. Parking is free.

We hope to see you there!

Happy Fourth of July!

Kutztown Folk Festival

The Kutztown Folk Festival is taking place this week from July 2 - July 10 in Kutztown, PA. Billed as a 9-day celebration of Pennsylvania Dutch culture, it's a family oriented festival that shares the history and lore of our heritage. This folk life festival features food, crafts, demos, and fun! 

Susanna from The Rosemary House and Tina from The Essential Herbal will be vending at this festival again this year featuring homemade soaps, salves, herbal products and teas.

 There is a traditional four-square herb garden display that features culinary, fragrant, and medicinal herbs.

Lots of guten essen (good eatin'), too!

Fairy Garden Creativity

One of our favorite classes every year is the "Create your Own Fairy Garden Class".

 We supply the log planters, the herb plants, soil and little baubles and gems and hidden treasures. Our crafters supply the creativity.

We include a short explanation on what plants you might want to choose and why you might consider each one -- parsley is a great privacy screen, creeping thyme is a favorite place for fairies to nap, ladies mantle collects the dew drops and the fairies can bathe in it.

We read a couple of fairy poems to help set the scene, and then everyone is allowed to create and decorate.

Each little container has its own story to tell, from mermaids to tea parties, to other whimsical delights, it's a magical night  with smiles all around!

All ages come to work on these planters and the end result produces unique and individual fairy gardens sure to delight the fae!

 Surely the fairies will enjoy these gardens!!

Dolly and Me

In the dell of our garden, 
my dolls and I take tea, 

and days when I have raisins, 

the catbirds dine with me. 

                                 ~Unknown

We are having a Doll's Tea on Thursday evening, the 25th of August. In addition to a complete evening tea, for this special event, you are encouraged to bring your favorite childhood doll for show-and-tell after the tea. Treva Smith, president of Penn-Ferry Doll Club will feature some of her private doll collection and share their stories. This promises to be a delightful and entertaining evening, a time for reminiscing and sharing. By advance reservation, please. Contact Susanna at Rosemary House.
The dolly featured in the photo above is Nancy's Ginny doll. Our parents bought us each one of these 1950's era dolls. At one point in her childhood, much to the dismay of dear old mom, artist sister Marj, with nail polish in hand, painted chicken pox all over her dolly. All of the Ginny Dolls have since gone to the dolly hospital to have the chicken pox removed, hairdos redone, and fitted for new outfits as the original clothing is long gone. She holds a place of honor in the oak side-by-side cabinet in the tea room entryway.