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This gorgeously refreshing cocktail or mocktail will transport you to a sun-drenched beach with a gentle breeze and time spent with your favorite people. Our six testers were left asking for more after sampling this drink. It has wide-ranging appeal, whether with gin, vodka, or zero-proof non-alcoholic gin. Our testers loved them all!

This easy sipper is irresistible and full of fruit flavor from the blackberry coulis and the lime juice and zest. It’s bursting with fresh garden (or grocery store, I won’t tell!) basil, both with a rich simple syrup and with fresh leaves muddled into the aromatic base. It’s just fabulous!

This drink is a bit fiddly with the advance preparation of the basil simple syrup as well as the fresh blackberry coulis. But the prep is simple, and so, so worth it. Your friends and family will be bowled over by these irresistibly fresh flavors. This recipe makes a batch of four drinks. Since you need to make the easy basil simple syrup and the coulis anyway, you’ll want to have friends to share in the mouthwatering reward of this drink!

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💕 Why this cocktail / mocktail is special

🧪 Cocktail and mocktail taste test results

🌿 Ingredients for basil rich simple syrup

📓 Ingredients for fresh blackberry coulis

🧾 Ingredients for blackberry basil lime rickey cocktail or mocktail

📒 Step-by-step instructions and photos

💡 Tips for success

🍹 Blackberry Basil Lime Rickey Cocktail and Mocktail Recipe

💕 Why this cocktail / mocktail is special

Classic Rickey composition

The Rickey cocktail originated in the 19th century in Washington, D.C. as a drink with bourbon, fresh lime, and carbonated water over ice. As the drink evolved, gin surpassed the original bourbon in popularity to become the best-known base.

A Rickey became more of a cocktail family, rather than a specifically prescribed set of ingredients. The basic template includes a base spirit, lime, and carbonation, and published recipes include base spirits of whiskey, gin, vodka, and other types.

My version is a modern variation with basil-infused rich simple syrup, an incredibly fresh blackberry coulis (fruit purée), fresh basil leaves that are muddled into the liquid, both the zest and freshly pressed juice from limes, and sparkling water.

And since the alcohol base for a Rickey is flexible, I thought I’d test the well-loved botanical flavors of gin, vodka, and also a zero-proof, non-alcoholic version of gin. It’s so much fun to try different variations of drink recipes to see how well they’ll turn out. Please read more to find out the results of our taste tests!

Basil leaves and simple syrup from the garden

Feel free to use your favorite type(s) of culinary basil for the simple syrup and for muddling the fresh leaves in this drink. I’ve used a huge variety of basil from my garden in both of these parts of this recipe. And of course, grocery store basil will work just fine as well.

If you could use some inspiration for really unique and exciting varieties of basil to grow for culinary use, please check out my posts with some of the worldwide types I’ve grown. There are photos, scent and flavor notes, growing information, and other details so you can really explore your own favorite types to grow!

38 Types of Basil to Grow in Your Herb Garden, Part 1

45 Types of Basil to Grow in Your Herb Garden, Part 2

Incredibly fresh blackberry coulis

The blackberry coulis (fruit purée) in this recipe is made with fresh berries. After a short rest for the flavors to meld, the strained coulis is ready to add to your drinks. This beautiful and enchanting sauce makes these drinks incredibly fruity, delicious, and a vibrant shade of deep red.

Vibrant lime juice and zest

We use both freshly squeezed lime juice and zest in this recipe for a luscious kick of citrus. And you can use lime sparkling water in place of plain if you’d like even more lime flavor.

Incredible flavor with gin, vodka, or as a mocktail

You’ll see in the taste test results below that all four of our blind-tested cocktail and mocktail bases were highly approved by our tasters. So feel free to customize to your tastes to make this drink your own!

🧪 Cocktail and mocktail taste test results

For testing, our six tasters compared four different drink bases: Tanqueray London Dry Gin, Hendrick’s Gin, Kirkland Vodka, and Free Spirits Zero Proof (non-alcoholic) Gin.

We were surprised to discover how little the drink needed gin to taste botanical. The favorite of several of our testers in the blind tasting was the zero-proof gin, while the vodka performed especially well in the versions with alcohol. With so much botanical flavor coming from the basil, lime, and blackberry, the gin’s additional aromatic flavors weren’t essential to the character of the drink. But the gin versions were delicious nonetheless.

So feel free to customize the alcoholic or non-alcoholic base to fit your tastes. And know that any of the variations we’ve tested produce a drink that’s absolutely sublime. I think it’s fantastic that this the mocktail version is every bit as sophisticated and flavorful!

🌿 Ingredients for basil rich simple syrup

This recipe makes enough simple syrup to fit comfortably within a 1-liter airtight bottle or jar. This will give you plenty of syrup to use for this four-drink batch of cocktails or mocktails, plus extra for another round and/or for other uses. This syrup is delicious! It’ll keep for at least 2 weeks in the refrigerator.

Sugar: I use beet or organic cane granulated sugar here.

Water

Fresh basil leaves, flowers, and tender stems: Feel free to use your favorite varieties from the garden! Or, of course, fresh basil from the grocery store or farmer’s market works fine too.

📓 Ingredients for fresh blackberry coulis

Blackberries: Please use the freshest ones you can find for this luscious sauce.

Granulated sugar

Salt

🧾 Ingredients for blackberry basil lime rickey cocktail or mocktail

Basil simple syrup: Please note that you’ll need to make this in advance before proceeding with the drink. This recipe will make enough syrup to fit comfortably in an airtight 1-liter bottle. This will give you a good quantity for this recipe, with plenty left over for more drinks or additional rounds of this drink!

Fresh blackberry coulis: From the above separate coulis ingredient list. Please use the freshest, sweetest, and juiciest blackberries you can find for this recipe.

Fresh basil leaves, flowers, and tender stems: As with the simple syrup, use any type(s) you really like.

Freshly grated lime zest: Please grate this shallowly to avoid adding any of the bitter white pith beneath the skin. I use a Microplane grater to do this easily and quickly.

Gin, vodka, or zero-proof spirits: Shockingly, our 6 taste testers loved all of these options! You have so much flexibility to make this incredible drink the way you like it.

Freshly squeezed lime juice: Please take the time to squeeze the limes just before making the drinks, if possible. I love to use this quick and efficient flat manual juicer to make light work of this.

Ice

Sparkling water: We’ve tested both lime and plain sparkling water for this drink, and found both to be equally delicious.

Fresh basil sprigs, blackberries, and strips of lime zest for garnish (optional)

📒 Step-by-step instructions and photos

Basil simple syrup

1️⃣ Add the sugar and water to a large saucepan. Over low heat, stir occasionally until the sugar dissolves.

2️⃣ Turn off the heat, add the fresh basil, and steep for at least 30 minutes. (For a longer steep up to overnight, let the syrup cool, then cover and refrigerate before straining.) Strain into a 1-liter airtight bottle or jar and chill.

Blackberry Coulis

This recipe makes a bit more coulis than the drinks require. This will ensure that despite variations in blackberry juice content and seed size, there should be comfortably more than the ¾ cup (180 mL) needed for the drinks.

1️⃣ Add the blackberries, sugar, and salt to a medium bowl. Stir to combine.

2️⃣ Using a potato masher, muddler, or fork, crush the blackberries thoroughly. Make sure each berry is crushed. Stir well to mix. Allow the mixture to stand at room temperature for 30 minutes.

3️⃣ Using a fine-mesh sieve, strain the mixture into a bowl. Press firmly with a mixing spoon or flexible spatula to extract as much juice and soft fruit pulp as possible.

4️⃣ Measure the ¾ cup of coulis for the drinks and separate any extra quantity. Cover and refrigerate the coulis until ready to add to the drink. You can make it up to 3 days in advance.

Drink base and assembly

1️⃣ Add the basil leaves, lime zest, and basil rich syrup to a bowl. Gently muddle the basil, just until the leaves are bruised and fragrant.

2️⃣ To the bowl, add the chosen spirit, blackberry coulis, and lime juice. Stir thoroughly to combine. Strain the mixture with a fine-mesh sieve.

3️⃣ Add ice to halfway fill four Collins or highball glasses. Pour the drink base evenly among the four glasses.

4️⃣ Immediately before serving, pour the sparkling water evenly among the four glasses and stir each glass well. Optionally garnish each drink with a basil sprig, fresh blackberry, and lime slice or strip of zest. Serve immediately. Enjoy!

💡 Tips for success

Make your basil simple syrup in advance

This fabulously flavorful botanical syrup needs to be chilled before adding. You can make it and refrigerate it up to 2 weeks in advance before proceeding with this rest of the drink recipe.

Use a digital scale

Please use a digital scale if you have one. This makes measuring the blackberry and basil quantities so much faster and more accurate. I use this digital pocket scale for precision with small quantities like the lime zest in this recipe, and this larger digital kitchen food scale for accurately measuring larger quantities. For the liquid measurements, it’s easiest to use measuring cups.

Use freshly squeezed lime juice

This makes a huge difference in the fresh and vibrant quality of this drink. Please squeeze the limes and refrigerate the juice the same day you’ll be making these drinks, ideally within 4 hours of serving.

🍹 Blackberry Basil Lime Rickey Cocktail and Mocktail Recipe

✏️ Have you made this drink?

I’d love to hear your thoughts. Please let me know in the comments below!

🍸 More botanical drink posts you’ll love

Here are some more drinks from the garden that I hope you’ll try. I know you’ll enjoy them so much!

Vegan Tulsi Masala Chai Recipe with Garden Holy Basil

Homemade Crème de Menthe Liqueur

Homemade Vin d’Orange with Herbs

Sunrise à la Plage – Frozen Mango Pineapple Rum Cocktail

Homemade Lemon Verbena Liqueur (Liqueur de Verveine)

Lavender Liqueur Recipe - Liqueur de Lavande Recette

Lavande Vanille Royale Champagne Cocktail

Homemade Scented Geranium Liqueur

Basil Tea from Your Garden: Brewing Fresh Leaves and Flowers

🥕Please subscribe below for free to get my recipes, garden posts, and newsletters delivered straight to your inbox. Thanks so much for joining me on this exciting cooking and gardening adventure! And sharing this post is most welcome. I’m so glad you’re here!

🌱Shell

🌱 There’s nothing like a fresh cup of basil tea, straight from your garden. In an endless array of color and nuanced flavor, with delightful basil varieties from all over the globe. Whether it’s a refreshing ice-cold summer quencher or a warm and comforting cup on a cold winter night, your homegrown fresh or dried basil is sure to delight you. And store-bought basil works well too!

Table of Contents

• 🍵 Why Basil Tea?

• 🌸 Why Trim Your Basil Flowers?

• 💚💜 Global Basil Flavor and Color Variations

• 😜 Basil Tea Taste Test Results (Lemon, Thai, Spiced, and 3 More Combinations!)

• 🌿Fresh or Dried, Flowers or Leaves

• ♨️❄️ Delicious Hot or Iced

• 🌱 Perfect with Tea and Herbal Infusions

• ☕ Basil Flower and Leaf Tea Recipe

🍵 Why Basil Tea?

If you’ve been using basil in some of the more traditional culinary preparations, it may not have occurred to you to use it to make tea. But basil tea from your garden (or from the store) makes one hell of a refreshing and comforting drink.

You can make basil tea fresh or dried, and you can steep it on its own or with tea leaves or other herbs. And there are so many varieties of basil to grow and use to make captivating and flavorful tea! All of the photos of basil in this post are from my herb garden. It’s such a fun and easy herb to grow.

🌸 Why Trim Your Basil Flowers?

If you’re growing basil, one of the best ways to keep the plant lush and full of volume is to regularly prune off the flowers. I do this every week during the growing season. Regular pruning encourages lateral branching, fuller growth, and the continued production of plenty of leaves.

This will leave you with plenty of flowers after trimming. Why not brew them into tea while you’re at it? It’s a win-win situation for both you and your plants.

💚💜 Global Basil Flavor and Color Variations

I’ve been told by countless people that they didn’t realize there was more than one type of basil. I’m here to tell you that I’ve grown many varieties of basil for years from all over the world, and I’m not even close to done exploring them all. There are so many wonderful types for you to experience! I hope you’ll look into the wonder to be found in discovering and savoring new varieties.

Each variety has its own origin, cultural significance, color, growth habit, and irresistibly unique flavor profile. Here are the 83 varieties of basil from around the world that I’ve grown and posted about recently. Please check them out and find some that are personally special for you to grow and experience. These posts include photos, descriptions, and info on growing this unique and captivating herb:

38 Types of Basil to Grow in Your Herb Garden, Part 1

45 Types of Basil to Grow in Your Herb Garden, Part 2

This year, I’m growing many “returning champions,” which are some favorites from the links above, as well as several more that are new to me. I’m always excited to experience new varieties from across the globe each year!

😜 Basil Tea Taste Test Results (Lemon, Thai, Spiced, and 3 More Combinations!)

We’ve had several taste testers evaluate some basil tea variety combinations from the herb garden. And we’ve adored every sip we tried. This is just a small sampling of the varieties available for you to grow, and it should give you a wonderful idea of the delightful flavors you can experience with your basil tea.

Lemon Basil Tea

Blend tested: Everleaf Lemon, Mrs. Burns Lemon, Sweet Dani Lemon

Taste test notes from our testers: Gorgeously lemony in both fragrance and flavor, invigorating, delightful, zesty, lemongrass, lemon verbena, bright, light, rosemary tang.

Thai Basil Tea

Blend tested: Golden Mountain Sweet Thai, Siam Queen Thai, Thai Sweet

Taste test notes from our testers: Luscious anise, rainwater, cool breeze, young greens, licorice, lighter, classic basil aftertaste, sweet, very good.

Spiced Basil Tea

Blend tested: Blue Spice, Tulsi Temperate

Taste test notes from our testers: Cinnamon, sweet spices, fresh, clean streams, cardamom, candied basil, light, slightly sweet, floral.

Basil Tea with Green Leaves and Green Flowers

Blend tested: African Spice, British, Dolly, Italian Mountain Sweet, Siracusa, Zanzico

Taste test notes from our testers: Classic basil, sweet, herbaceous and fresh, light, so refreshing, licorice.

Basil Tea with Green Leaves and Purple Flowers

Blend tested: African Blue, Batik, Christmas, Corsican, Feleny, Mrihani

Taste test notes from our testers: Toasted bread, sun-baked hay, caraway, fresh grapes, nice basil spice, savory, herbal.

Basil Tea with Purple Leaves and Purple Flowers

Blend tested: Ararat, Opalescent, Persian, Purple Ball, Purple Delight, Purple Ruffles, Round Midnight

Taste test notes from our testers: Deep streams, damp fall leaves, raisins, petrichor, warm, dark, deep, sweet, herbaceous.

🌿 Fresh or Dried, Flowers or Leaves

Look, you don’t even need a recipe for this. The fun is all in the experimentation! And there are so many wonderful ways to customize your basil tea. You can make it fresh or dried, you can use your freshly trimmed flowers or leaves, and you can drink it hot or iced. There are so many endlessly flavorful ways to experience basil tea.

But just for a basic guideline that works for us, I’ve found that 40 g of fresh basil leaves and/or flowers per cup (236 mL) of water has worked well in trials, as has 4 g of dried basil. We’ve brought the water to a boil and steeped the basil for 10 minutes, whether fresh or dried.

But please feel free to customize it to your taste! This is the fun of it. I hope you’ll experiment with a wide range of colors, flavors, and combinations.

♨️❄️ Delicious Hot or Iced

Basil tea is delightfully refreshing iced on a hot summer day, and it’s also deeply comforting and warming on a cold and blustery winter night. If you’d like, you can trim your fresh flowers and leaves and use them in the summer, and then dry the rest of your basil at the end of the growing season to last you all year long.

🌱 Perfect with Tea and Herbal Infusions

With Tea

We’ve tested basil brewed both on its own and steeped with the following teas. All of these combinations have been divine:

• Mei Leaf White Peony white tea

• Mei Leaf Superior Iron Goddess oolong tea

• Mei Leaf Bailu Gold black tea

• Mei Leaf Jade Arrow green tea

With Other Herbal Infusions

And we’ve also tested blending basil tea in combination with several special standalone brews. All of these have been delightful as well:

• Rooibos

• Osmanthus

• Dried jasmine flowers

• Rose buds

• Dried lavender flowers

• Butterfly pea flowers

• Chrysanthemum flowers

So now you know there are endless ways for you to enjoy brewing your basil, both alone and in conjunction with so many other flavors. Please let me know in the comments below how you best enjoy sipping your basil! 🌿

☕ Basil Flower and Leaf Tea Recipe

✏️ Have You Made Basil Tea?

I’d love to hear about your experiences. Please let me know in the comments below!

🌻 More Posts You’ll Love

Best Guide to 54 Types of Mint to Grow with Scent Profiles

26 Scented Geranium Varieties to Grow: Culinary Scents and Cuttings

Fall Garden Vegetables: Greens, Roots, and Tubers

🥕Please subscribe below for free to get my recipes, garden posts, and newsletters delivered straight to your inbox. Thanks so much for joining me on this exciting cooking and gardening adventure! And sharing this post is most welcome. I’m so glad you’re here!

🌱Shell

👉 Get the full recipe at Shovel and Crunch

You can make this herbal liqueur by growing varieties with fragrances such as rose, lemon, orange, as well as various other fruits, spices, and more. This liqueur is simple to make, with only three ingredients, and the enchanting flavor is so much more than the sum of its parts. And it’s ready in only a few weeks. This drink is gorgeous to sip on its own or to add to cocktails for an incredibly special botanical twist.

You can grow scented geraniums all summer in large pots on your patio or in the ground in a flower bed, and then use the leaves to make this exquisite liqueur. To help you choose some varieties to grow for this drink, please check out my post 26 Scented Geranium Varieties to Grow: Culinary Scents and Cuttings.

🌻And below you can subscribe for free to get my recipe and garden posts and newsletters delivered straight to your mailbox. Thanks so much for joining me on this exciting cooking and gardening adventure! And sharing this post is most welcome. I’m so glad you’re here!

🌱Shell

👉 Get the full recipe at Shovel and Crunch

🌻And below you can subscribe for free to get my recipe and garden posts and newsletters delivered straight to your mailbox. Thanks so much for joining me on this exciting cooking and gardening adventure! And sharing this post is most welcome. I’m so glad you’re here!

🌱Shell

I’ve gathered the revised posts below so you can explore them by season, crop, or interest. Click to visit any of them, especially if you’re planning your own herbs, flowers, vegetables, berries, or edible garden experiments this year.

An Abundant Garden of Flowers, Herbs, and Vegetables

Best Fall Seeds to Plant for Cool-Season Crops

How to Get Kids to Eat Vegetables Through Gardening

Harvesting Amaranth Seeds and Leaves from the Garden

Fall Garden Plants: Fruit, Herbs, Flowers, and Vegetables

Fall Garden Vegetables: Greens, Roots, and Tubers

I hope these garden posts inspire you in your own growing adventures. And if something here moves you or reminds you of your own gardening journey, I’d love to hear from you.

As always, thanks so much for being here in the garden with me. Below you can subscribe for free to get my global heirloom gardening and plant-based recipe posts delivered straight to your mailbox. I’m looking forward to another rewarding year of harvests together.🥕

And sharing this post is most welcome. I’m so glad you’re here!

Shell

If you were reading along last season, these posts may look familiar. Either way, this is a good place to dig in and get ready for a new year of gardening adventures.

There are both triumphs and deeply humbling life lessons here, and I’m so happy to share them all with you. I hope you’ll find some genuine comfort and inspiration for your garden this year!

Here’s the most recent garden post:
👉 🌱Summer Garden Harvest: Vegetables, Herbs, and Flowers

And here are links to the other newly-published garden posts, from the earliest to the most recent:

• How I Planted 28 Heirloom Potato Varieties
• How I Grow Nearly 300 Culinary Herbs in My Garden
• Early Summer Crops in My Garden: An Herb and Vegetable Tour
• 12 Life Lessons from the Garden
• My Gardening Mistakes Plus Herbs Veggies and Flowers
• Herbs, Vegetables, and Flowers in the Summer Garden
• 21 Types of Heirloom Garlic and Rare Garden Crops

I still have a few more posts to add from last year’s gardening journey, and I’ll share those as I publish them. And of course, I’ll include my upcoming recipe and gardening posts as well.

And below you can subscribe for free to get my global heirloom gardening and plant-based recipe posts delivered straight to your mailbox. I’m really glad you’re here in the garden with me. I’m looking forward to another rewarding year of harvests together.🥕

And sharing this post is most welcome. I’m so glad you’re here!

Shell

Vin d'orange is a gorgeous and refreshing wine apéritif from Provence, and it's easy and fulfilling to make yourself. It's ready in just 4 weeks of steeping. You can serve this this drink as a cool refresher in summer, a comforting citrus spiced apéritif in winter, or any time in between.

This captivating rosé sipper made our testers swoon with enticing notes of orange and lemon zest, cinnamon sticks, and vanilla beans. And see which combinations of fortification (brandy vs vodka) and fresh garden herbs (from none, to common, to less-common, to rare) won the ultimate taste test with 30 testers! 🍊🌿

👉 Explore the full guide and winning recipe at Shovel and Crunch

🌻And below you can subscribe for free to get my global heirloom gardening and vegan recipe posts delivered straight to your mailbox. Thanks so much for joining me on this exciting cooking and gardening adventure. And sharing this post is most welcome. I’m so glad you’re here!

🌱Shell

👉 Get the full recipe at Shovel and Crunch

🌻And below you can subscribe for free to get my heirloom vegan gardening and recipe posts and newsletters delivered straight to your mailbox. Thanks so much for joining me on this exciting cooking and gardening adventure. And sharing this post is most welcome. I’m so glad you’re here!

🌱Shell

👉 Get the full recipe at Shovel and Crunch

🌻And below you can subscribe for free to get my recipe and garden posts and newsletters delivered straight to your mailbox. Thanks so much for joining me on this exciting cooking and gardening adventure. And sharing this post is most welcome. I’m so glad you’re here!

🌱Shell

👉Get the full recipe at Shovel and Crunch

🌻And below you can subscribe for free to get my recipe and garden posts and newsletters delivered straight to your mailbox. Thanks so much for joining me on this exciting cooking and gardening adventure! And sharing this post is most welcome. I’m so glad you’re here!

🌱Shell

Potatoes are one of my absolute favorite crops to grow. They’re easy to plant, they don’t require much maintenance during the growing season, and they’re truly like a treasure hunt to harvest. You never know what size of tubers you’ll have, and how many you’ll get. After a lifetime of gardening, it’s still magical and exciting for me to grow and dig them up. I hope you’ll grow some of these distinctive heirloom potatoes for yourself and your family!

👉Get the full post at Shovel and Crunch

🌻And below you can subscribe for free to get my recipe and garden posts and newsletters delivered straight to your mailbox. Thanks so much for joining me on this exciting cooking and gardening adventure! And sharing this post is most welcome. I’m so glad you’re here!

🌱Shell

It's so easy to grow and savor impossibly fresh mint in your kitchen from your own backyard. And I have 54 types for you to savor! I've grown them all and documented each one with photos, details and my own scent notes, so you'll know which ones are just right for you. I hope you enjoy these mints as much as I do!

👉Get the full post at Shovel and Crunch

🌻And below you can subscribe for free to get my recipe and garden posts and newsletters delivered straight to your mailbox. Thanks so much for joining me on this exciting cooking and gardening adventure! And sharing this post is most welcome. I’m so glad you’re here!

🌱Shell

👉Get the full recipe at Shovel and Crunch

🌻And below you can subscribe for free to get my recipe and garden posts and newsletters delivered straight to your mailbox. Thanks so much for joining me on this exciting cooking and gardening adventure! And sharing this post is most welcome. I’m so glad you’re here!

🌱Shell

📒 A Multi-Faceted Wealth of Information

Whether you’re new to veganism, curious about Veganuary, or already a seasoned plant-based publisher, I’ve created this free guide to include as many vegan Substack resources as possible. Please feel free to restack this post to help it reach more readers and spread the word.

I’ve added some photos of veggies from my garden to this post just for fun.

The guide currently has over 200 Substack publications, with categories such as:

• Cooking

• Nutrition / Wellness

• Lifestyle

• Ethics

• Animal Rights / Advocacy

• Animal Sanctuaries

• Travel

• Fitness

• And More

The resource list includes the name of each account, a description of each publication in the author’s own words, the author’s name, and up to 3 categories for each entry. I’ve prioritized adding them in the order of prevalence for each one.

🫂 A Wonderful Community

I’m so excited to share this guide with you. The vegan publishing community on Substack is still a small but growing collaborative group of writers in the plant-based movement. And I hope we’ll add more as new readers become interested in plant-based eating, growing, and living!

If there are accounts I’ve missed, or that could use editing, please let me know. I love our plant-based community, and I’m also looking forward to the day when our momentum grows enough to make this spreadsheet too large to manage. That’ll be a great problem to have!

❤️ A Labor of Love

I’ve been working diligently on this guide for weeks, and this project has been a meaningful way to help me get through my recent surgical recovery.

I’m so grateful to the vegan community, which I’ve been part of since 2012. My own Substack account, Shell at Shovel and Crunch, includes my newsletters about global heirloom veganic gardening and cooking, and my companion blog with my free recipes and garden posts is Shovel and Crunch. I’ve met so many wonderful plant-based publishers whose work I’m happy to share among all of us.

💡Helpful tips about the guide:

• I’ll keep this up to date as well as I can. Please send me updates, new entries, and feedback any time! I love the idea of keeping this a living guide for all of us to use as our community grows.

• Don’t worry if you don’t have Google Sheets. You should be able to access the spreadsheet from your phone, desktop, or laptop without it.

• Please read the foreign language accounts too! Most modern browsers should allow you to instantly translate these pages into English or another language of choice.

Without further ado, here’s a link to the free vegan resources guide. Please feel free to add comments directly to this post, and restack if you find this of value so more of us can discover these wonderful plant-based publications.

👉 Take me to the Vegan Resources Guide on Substack!

You’re also welcome to contact me through my Substack page below with updates, additions, or feedback. Thanks so much for being there.

👉 Get the full recipe at Shovel and Crunch

🌻And below you can subscribe for free to get my recipe and garden posts and newsletters delivered straight to your mailbox. Thanks so much for joining me on this exciting cooking and gardening adventure! And sharing this post is most welcome. I’m so glad you’re here!

🌱Shell

I’m really excited to share this harvest with you. I picked everything on Thanksgiving day (November 27th), just before driving from Michigan to New York to have my pelvis surgically rebuilt for the 3rd time. It was my 9th surgery related to carrying my 5 kids. It’s a good thing they’re cute!!!

So I had to scramble, since my recovery restrictions wouldn’t have allowed me to do this harvest after I returned. And I wasn’t sure if everything would be ready to be picked.

Not only was everything ready, but after I washed and stored it all in tubs and then left for 9 days for my procedure, everything is still looking good afterward and viable to use! I’m so grateful. It’s really rewarding that even in a cold climate like mine here in zone 6A in southeastern Michigan, I can do succession planting and get at least 2 full harvests in the same bed from the spring through the fall.

Here’s what I’ve picked. And at the end, after the main crops, I’ll show you the shockingly delicious tubers I picked from my African potato mint!!!

Celery

I planted 2 types of celery this year: Chinese pink and Amsterdam cutting celery. The cutting celery is meant to be picked when young and tender. And while my Chinese pink didn’t have time to really bulk up its stems, it was succulent and so flavorful. I’ve definitely found homegrown celery to be worth it. The flavor is more pronounced, savory, and just all-around so much more enjoyable than the grocery store varieties.

Endive

Oh how I love these sturdy greens! These will hold up so well to fall salads, and I’m excited to try them with a traditional French mustard vinaigrette and also my own recipe for black garlic vinaigrette.

Turnips

I still need to find more ways to prepare these turnips. I’ve only tried them roasted so far. Do you guys have any favorite plant-based recipes you’d like to share? I need to cook with turnips more often. I love these gorgeous and easy-to-grow veggies!

Carrots

The deer took most of my carrots this year, as I’d thought my fence in this bed was tall enough (given how shallow the jumping depth was). But it wasn’t. Sigh. At least I’ve managed to pick a few! These beautifully-colored heirloom varieties have the most wonderful flavor. And the aromatic fragrance of the freshly-dug roots is right up there with my favorite garden veggie scents - pea shoots and tomato leaves.

Dandelion

This isn’t the type that pops up in your yard as a weed. This is an Italian heirloom with a nice peppery edge. You can eat it raw, or cook it for a more mellow flavor.

Mizuna

I didn’t even plant mizuna this fall. It must have reseeded. And I’m so glad it did, as it’s such a wonderful green with a mild to medium bite. Mizuna is an important heirloom crop in Japan, where it’s often used in hot pots, blanched, stir-fried, and used in soups.

Mache

This is one of my hands-down favorite salad greens, also known as mâche, corn salad, lamb’s lettuce, or field salad. It has a nutty and mild flavor, and such a delightfully smooth texture.

When we lived in Germany, the little grocery store on our street had Feldsalat, and we were so happy to eat it. We ate it dressed simply in nut oil (walnut, pecan, or hazelnut) and coarse salt. Pure heaven.

Daikon Radish

This monster below shocked me. I had no idea it had gotten so large! And it sadly snapped off below the part shown in the photo. It was just too hard to dig down far enough to get the whole thing.

The daikons in the basket below are the same Japanese minowase variety as the giant one in the photo above. I’m not sure how one of them was able to outgrow the rest of them by so much!

This variety is milder than many others, with a clean, juicy, and lightly peppery flavor. And daikons really help to aerate the soil with their long roots, often referred to as tillage radishes. These are a really special crop.

Celery root (celeriac)

These gorgeous gnarled roots can be hard to find in grocery stores nearby. I’m so glad to have this harvest of them, since my recipe for a French céleri rémoulade (celery root salad) is almost ready. I’ll share it in a blog post when it’s done. I can’t wait to do another trial with these homegrown ones!

Choy sum

I haven’t tried these yet, and I’m looking for the best dish to make them with. Maybe just simply braised, so I can really discern the flavor. I’m excited to try them, including the leaves, stems, and the even milder and sweeter flowers as well.

Rutabaga

Remember Phil the Rutabaga? Here’s Phillis! I think she’s gorgeous, lumps and all.

Chinese cabbage

This was the first crop out of this batch that I’ve already cooked with since returning home from my surgery. (And it wasn’t easy with my restrictions, as I had to ask for help to lift everything in the process.)

I made a really comforting congee (Chinese rice porridge) with this head of golden beauty cabbage below, short grain rice, shiitake mushrooms, crispy air-fried tofu, garlic, ginger, soy sauce, and sesame oil. We finished it off with fried shallots and chili crisp, and were all moaning in delight. It was SO good.

Kale

Kale is such an amazing salad green. Even if you dress your salad in advance, the leaves stay crunchy for days in the fridge! I don’t even bother massaging them. I love keeping them as crisp as possible. This is such a special green to grow and eat. And look at all of the gorgeous variations you can find! I just treasure this crop.

Mustard

I need to find a really special way to try these mustard greens to really show off their flavor. I’d love to try them blanched and simply dressed, pickled, or stir-fried as they’re commonly prepared in Japan. There are so many wonderful options.

Cardoon

This was my first time growing this stunning Mediterranean thistle. It’s the same species as the globe artichoke, Cynara cardunculus, with the varieties (like my gobbo di Nizzia below) selected for hearty stems rather than flower buds.

I didn’t take the time to blanch these stems as they were growing this year, by tying them together and hilling up with straw. Doing this intentional light reduction both suppresses bitterness and tenderizes the stems before the harvest.

I definitely want to grow them again, and next time I’ll try blanching them as they grow. But I’m so excited to try these stems from this fall’s harvest either way!

Radicchio

Radicchio is a flavorful green with a delightful bitter counterpoint to add to your salad. It’s also wonderful grilled, braised, roasted, or sautéed. It can be a little finicky to germinate directly outside if it’s too warm. I’ve planted them in the past and thought they’d totally failed, only to discover them growing months later when it’s become suitably cold enough for them to sprout.

And I was shocked to discover on both my palla rosa radicchio (and even more surprising with my italiko rosso dandelion above), that when I didn’t pick them in time earlier in the summer, they had sprouted blue chicory flowers! Just like the ones I’ve adored seeing on the roadside since I was a kid.

I’ve looked many times at ordering chicory plants to try roasting the roots to add to coffee. I just haven’t done it yet. I’m reading now that while I could technically do this with the roots of my radicchio and dandelion varieties, they aren’t bred for this, and the roots would likely be small and have a low yield.

But now I’m really excited anew to try this root idea. It would be more favorable to find a type of chicory that’s been optimized for chicory coffee. This would be a really exciting project.

Bok choy

My daughter Mio and I especially love bok choy. It’s so good in a bowl of noodles and broth. We often had this at our beloved neighborhood noodle place in Shanghai that we miss so much. The crisp, mild stems and the smooth, nutty greens really make the difference in so many dishes. I’m really happy about this harvest.

Swiss chard

I have an upcoming recipe post that I’m really excited to share with you from Corsica using Swiss chard. This green is so earthy and savory, and the stems are so vibrantly-colored. I just love it.

Lettuce

Sigh, homegrown lettuce is just the best. There’s nothing like it at the store. It’s so, so worth growing for yourself to experience this. And you can fit in multiple rounds of it, at least in the spring and fall if you have warm summers. And it’s so easy to grow.

Tatsoi

I remember seeing this at our little neighborhood grocery stores in Shanghai, and I never knew what to do with it. Now I’m so happy to grow it for myself so I can experiment with it to my heart’s content. You can see that the varmints ate some of the edges of the leaves, so I’m just glad that they’ve left enough for me to use.

Chijimisai

Look how gorgeous this green is! I can’t wait to cook with it. I’d like to try blanching it, adding it to soups, and adding it to stir-fries. This photo just makes my heart sing, especially since the ground is now covered with a thick layer of snow. I’m so relieved that I picked all of these crops in time before winter really hit!

African potato mint - with delicious tubers!!!

I’ve been growing mint for decades, and this one was totally new to me. And so different! I’ll be including it in a post soon about all 54 types of mint I grew this year. And of all of them, this one is the most unique. It has edible tubers!

I was shocked to discover this. But before we get there below, here are my scent and flavor notes of the leaves while they were growing this summer:

Scent notes:

Smells like a regular crushed green leaf, not like mint whatsoever; green pepper, grass, cucumber, green bean; fresh, herbaceous and pleasant, but not minty at all.

Flavor notes:

Really thick and crunchy; like with the scent, not minty at all; not pleasant at all either; tough, fibrous, bitter and otherwise nondescript.

Ok, so this isn’t a mint that’s meant to be enjoyed from the leaves. Let’s look into this. African potato mint is Plectranthus esculentus, in the mint family Lamiaceae. It’s not a true mint in the genus Mentha. And unlike most mints, it’s only a perennial in USDA hardiness zones 9-11. So most of us need to grow it as an annual.

This distinctive variety isn’t grown for its leaves, as my scent and flavor notes can attest. This mint is even more unique. It’s grown for its absolutely delicious tubers. It’s indigenous to southern and eastern Africa, and is traditionally grown by smallholder farmers as part of mixed cropping systems.

Today this crop is rare and declining. So please consider growing it, since the tubers are fricking phenomenal. We had a small harvest, as you can see below. I grew my African potato mint in a pot that was about 16 x 16 inches (41 cm) square, and this yielded a crop of just 7 small tubers. But what wonderful tubers they were! Here they are raw after harvesting and scrubbing them:

And here they are roasted with just a light spray of olive oil and coarse salt. We all tried them, and found them to taste really similar to potatoes, but lighter, crunchier, and slightly nutty. They were absolutely sublime.

I’d like to try growing them again, in the ground rather than in a pot. I think my short growing season may also have been an issue with the ripening size, especially since this mint is an annual in my cold climate. So maybe I could start some cuttings earlier (which is how this mint is typically propagated), or protect them from the cold longer. It would be great to have a larger crop of these wonderful tubers next time!

As always, I’m so very grateful to have you here in the garden with me. Thanks so much for reading this! Please also check out my heirloom gardening and vegan cooking blog Shovel and Crunch, and follow my social media pages. And sharing with others is always most welcome. Thanks!❤️

🌱Shell

🌿Please find the full recipe on my global vegan cooking and heirloom gardening blog, Shovel and Crunch: Lavande Vanille Royale Champagne Cocktail.

And you can check out my other recipes and gardening posts at Shovel and Crunch, and follow my social media pages.

🌻And below you can subscribe for free to get my recipe and garden posts and newsletters delivered straight to your mailbox. Thanks so much for joining me on this exciting cooking and gardening adventure! And sharing this post is most welcome. I’m so glad you’re here!

🌱Shell

🌿Please find the full recipe on my global vegan cooking and heirloom gardening blog, Shovel and Crunch: Rosemary Spiced Pecans.

These pecans are also featured in my comfy and flavor-packed harvest salad, Spinach Arugula Salad with Black Garlic Vinaigrette.

And you can check out my other recipes and gardening posts at Shovel and Crunch, and follow my social media pages.

🌻And below you can subscribe for free to get my recipe and garden posts and newsletters delivered straight to your mailbox. Thanks so much for joining me on this exciting cooking and gardening adventure! And sharing this post is most welcome. I’m so glad you’re here!

🌱Shell

🌿Please find the full recipe on my global vegan cooking and heirloom gardening blog, Shovel and Crunch: Authentic Pain Aux Noix (French Walnut Bread) Recipe.

And you can check out my other recipes and gardening posts at Shovel and Crunch, and follow my social media pages.

🌻And below you can subscribe for free to get my recipe and garden posts and newsletters delivered straight to your mailbox. Thanks so much for joining me on this exciting cooking and gardening adventure. And sharing this post is most welcome. I’m so glad you’re here!

🌱Shell

🌿Please find the full recipe on my global vegan cooking and heirloom gardening blog, Shovel and Crunch: Sweet Danish Vegan Parsnip Salad with Apple and Carrot

And you can check out my other recipes and gardening posts at Shovel and Crunch, and follow my social media pages.

🌻And below you can subscribe for free to get my recipe and garden posts and newsletters delivered straight to your mailbox. Thanks so much for joining me on this exciting cooking and gardening adventure! And sharing this post is most welcome. I’m so glad you’re here!

🌱Shell