I have several varieties of mint growing like crazy in the garden so I decided it would be fun to make up some mint simple syrup to can for winter! I love to add mint simple syrup to my tea as well as with some club soda and ice for a "soda like" beverage. I'm also excited to try some lemonade sweetened with mint syrup :) I think I am going to do this syrup idea with some basil and lavender as well!!
Start by removing and cleaning all your mint leaves. Then place them in water
(proportions per batch are found at the end of this post). Bring them to a boil then reduce heat to low and simmer for about 30 minutes...or longer if you get distracted! Stirring occasionally to help keep the leaves working and oils extracting!
(during this time make sure your jars are getting sterilized and placed in a warm oven as well as getting your water bath canner boiling and ready for the full jars of syrup)
Once the leaves have simmered you will want to strain out all the leaves to only have the delicious juice. I like to use a small hand strainer over a 1 gallon glass jar. Then pour the juice back into the pot. You can see how dark and rich the liquid is from the essential oils in the leaves! Press out as much liquid as you can from the leaves...the last few drops are the best!!
Add the desired lemon or lime juice and then bring the liquid to a boil and add the sugar, stirring constantly once the sugar is added. You only need to heat the syrup until the sugar is dissolved, which could be as little as a minute, but may take a few minutes.
With your hot sterilized jars ready to go as well as your lids and water bath canner, you are ready to fill your jars.
Fill your jars to within 1/4 inch from the top...be careful not to make a big mess...this is syrup remember and is very sticky!
Clean off the rims and place on your sterilized lids and rings and process in a boiling water bath canner for 10 minutes.
I did several batches and made 11 quarts of mint syrup (7 chocolate mint, 3 spearmint, and 1 that is a combo).
These are the quantities I used (per batch): This batch will make about 3 quarts of syrup
6 cups Herb leaves (loosely packed) You can use any herb you have: Any Mint, Lavender, Basil, etc.
10 cups Water
This made about 8 cups of liquids after simmering and so I added 8 cups of sugar
1/3 cup lemon juice
Its been pretty busy around here...fun and busy! The garden has been extremely productive and some of the spring plants are harvested and gone and we are onto fall planting! In the first row you can see our watermelon hills that we just planted a few days ago that took the place of all the squash and zucchini from spring planting. Then the next bed up you can see the celery looking full and the empty spot is where we had some lettuce and radishes, but that has been worked in with some compost and we planted more lettuce and some spinach and chives. The third row up is where the beans and potatoes used to be and we have harvested all those (getting over 100 lbs of vegetables from that bed alone) and are working the soil with several wheelbarrows full of compost to get ready for more bush beans, bush peas and some arugula. The 4th row is where the sweet potatoes, tobacco, peppers and basil are residing. The 5th row (which you cant see in this picture past the tobacco) has carrots, peppers, eggplant, basil, and some newly planted radishes (planted today). The 6th row has all our tomato plants (we call it the wall of tomatoes) and a row of celery in front of that. The back bed is where the asparagus was planted, but it doesn't get much sunlight because of the wall of tomatoes so I hope it makes it.
This is a close up of the sweet potatoes, they are vining out everywhere and looking really good! 
The basil pretty much hides the rest of this bed...but its ok, I LOVE basil!! 
Eggplant! I couldn't be happier with this heirloom variety of eggplant! This one plant alone has 4 beautiful eggplants hanging off of it waiting for harvest! 
Close up of the celery and onions.
The shade is creeping in on this bed, but this is where we planted the next round of radishes. 
Here is one angle of the "wall of tomatoes".
Another angle of the celery and carrots.
Sweet potatoes, with the peppers and tobacco in the back of this picture. 
Eggplant.
Prepping the beds with rich compost to get ready for fall planting. 
Addie was a big helper today with the compost. 
Strike a pose!! Addie loves "petting" the basil, she thinks the flowers are pretty...she used to pick them and I didn't care because we had SO many, but now she has lost interest in picking the flowers she just loves to look at them and smell them.
The bees love the basil too!!
We are trying a new method of composting (well new to us anyway). Compost corral! We were having a hard time with the goats and chickens getting in the compost and moving all 3 of our organized piles together, so we thought we would give this a try with one of the piles just to see how it turned out...we'll keep you updated!!
I love mint! Especially Spearmint (this is due to my friend Erin teaching me a love for Mojitos!!). I became a little overeager in my planting of the mint this year and seeing as mint is a perennial plant that spreads like crazy...I'm sure I will have an OVER abundance next year. What to do? Well, I started looking into as many things as I can do with mint now to preserve it for the winter and enjoy the spearmint all winter! Canning and more canning! I made a spearmint jelly (that turned out more like syrup) and some spearmint oil (mainly to rub on my aching back and shoulders!). I'm also going to try and can some spearmint simple syrup so I can have some mojitos during the winter :)
The Tomatoes are budding and we are starting to see the first little tomatoes starting to form! Very excitting and encouraging :)
The celery is starting to look good! For a while there it was really hard to tell the difference between the celery and the weeds coming up around them!
Beans, Beans and more Beans are on the way!! Im SOOO excitted. 
The Spearmint is taking over its little mound!
And last but Definately NOT least is the Arugula flowers! An beautiful and tasty treat for any salad :)
