Small Footprints - Eco Community

Hi all

I don't have a picture of this to share but the recipe is so easy you could do a batch of six in an hour and have part of your Christmas present list done - the other part is buying charity gift certificates from Oxfam!.

Ok, to make two 500g jars (or four 250g jars) you just need:

1kg pack of Epsom salts

Lavender essential oil

Vanilla bean pods (approx. 1 per 250g salts - snip them in half to release the essence)

Good quality glass jars with rubber lined hinged lid - two 500g ones or four 250g ones

(Optional) red and blue food colouring (to make purple)

To make, pour the Epsom salts in each jar and add 1-2 drops of lavender essential oil and 1 vanilla bean pod per 250g of salts. (Optional - add 1-2 drops of purple food colouring to give a faint lavender colour). Stir the salts so the lavender essential oil gets evenly distributed and the vanilla beans slightly bruised. Cap the lid tightly and try to leave at least 6 weeks before use, to allow the salts to infuse with lavender and vanilla bean essence. You could also add some lavender flower heads and leaves for decoration.

The same recipe can be used with green tea leaves and rose geranium essential oil; cinnamon bark rolls and rose essential oil (bit more expensive); or lemon myrtle essential oil with eucalypt leaves, whatever you can imagine and that would be pleasant and practical in the bath!.

 Great - where do you buy vanilla bean pods from? I always think about using them but never get around to it.

 Well, at the moment I can source them from three places - Coles/Woolies the local fruit and vege store or Fortitude Valley spice shop (in McWhirters, run by Geeta Enterprises, I think - you can get everything from good quality, fresh beans and lentils, through to coconut milk, walnuts through to big packets of dried/ground/chopped spices and herbs for next to $2).

But a true believer would try to grow their own. And that's exactly what I'm going to find out today - am going to net-research and email Jerry Coleby-Williams (can you tell he's my favourite ABC gardener besides Pete Cundall) today about growing the vanilla bean - will let you know how I go!.

 A quick search has revealed www.vanillaplantations.com.au

Did you know that the vanilla bean ( commonly Bourbon vanilla - or vanilla planifolia) is a tropical orchid, with beautiful, fragrant flowers?? Native to Mexico, it is also the most "labour intensive agricultural crop" (next to saffron which is a type of lily, I guess) in the world, according to the crew at Vanilla Plantations, which explains its high price. VP sell high quality organic vanilla bean pods in bulk by free courier around Australia (they're based in Cairns, FNQ - where all the good tropical plants come from - vanilla beans, coffee beans and cocoa pods) and even better, they sell vanilla cuttings!. Planting instructions are on the cultivation page. As they are a tropical plant requiring 10 months of good watering and a host tree for structural support and shade (banana trees are good, according to VP), they may not do as well in South East Qld as in the north...

Well... I have an update for you. We visited the home and garden expo and I found amongst the 40,000 plants some vanilla bean orchid - $10 for a 1/2 foot plant. They were looking SAD I asked about why they were all yellow with brown blotches and you guessed it, they don't like our weather.

It was suggested to me that really I would be wasting my time unless I had an orchid house to grow them in. It simply gets too cold here on the Sunshine Coast and especially in the hinterland. Apparently Hervey Bay is about as far South as you would want to go with them in order for them to have a good life, although no doubt someone will prove me wrong!

Apparently they also need hand pollination using a toothpick too!